They do have mixed populations, Brian, but if you remember, they were firmly kept under control by Mr Hussain's Ba'athists. Now that the lid is off that particular pot, all hell has broken loose. I'm not proposing it's an ideal situation, but until the country calms down, it might be a solution, since trying to impose Western ideals upon it RIGHT NOW isn't actually a triumph of neo-imperialism, is it?
Sometimes one has to take a few steps back in order to go forward later. If the people of Iraq would prefer to be religiously segregated - and it seems that they do - then why not work towards THAT goal, rather than trying to force them to get along together when they patently won't?
It may appear distasteful to us, with our emphasis on trying to be all things to all people (again, patently not working in reality), but I can't see the problem with separate representations and, if it is the will of the people to live thus, separate Sunni and Shi'ah cities.
Having stirred up a giant hornets' nest with no forward thinking or consultation as to how to proceed once the hornets were flying free and stinging, the West should stop trying to think in its own terms, and assist Iraq towards if not democracy as we know it, then a version of it within which its people can live without daily blowing each other up, or kidnapping and torturing each other.
