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Remembering PartitionThe parallels between India '47 and Iraq '07.

By Fred KaplanPosted Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007, at 6:39 PM ET

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In July, Fred Kaplan wrote about Peter Galbraith's evolving plans for Iraq. The Rev. Chloe Breyer asked if prejudice in India is about religion or social standing. Eliza Griswold filed dispatches from Dharavi, Asia's largest slum, where Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu paramilitary movement, is active.

Still, India '47 and Iraq '07 share enough combustible ingredients to make one pause before making tremulous movements.

It is foolish at this stage to speak of "victory," which in any case bears little resemblance to the war aims—the definition of victory—that the Bush administration articulated when it made the case for invasion. However, the act of invasion does carry with it some responsibility—not the same responsibility that a century's worth of colonial rule should have carried, but still some responsibility—to keep the place at least from plunging into a massive slaughtering field.

There are lately reports of progress, to varying degrees, in Gen. Petraeus' military campaign in Iraq. Not being there, I can't say whether they're true. (Having heard similar reports several times before, I can't help but be skeptical.) Either way, two points need to be made. First, political conflicts in Iraq seem deadlocked; and, as Petraeus has said many times, if political reconciliation can't be budged, any military progress is for naught. Second, if there have been military successes, it's time to use whatever leverage they might give us to push for a regional settlement to this crisis.

India was a large enough country—and, in 1947, its neighbors were sufficiently war-weary—that its civil wars and wars with Pakistan didn't entice or engulf the surrounding area. That is not true of Iraq. Untempered sectarian warfare between and among Shiites, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds would tempt the parties' allies to join in, for either their aggrandizement or their self-protection—the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians helping the Sunnis; the Iranians helping the Shiites; the Turks taking the opportunity to put down, once and for all, the Kurds.

In his press conference today, President Bush made light of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's smiling handshake with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he shook off as incredible reports that his friend Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai was saying nice things about Iran, too.

Believe it, and deal with it. No matter who was in charge of Iran right now, he would want to be cutting deals with Iraq and Afghanistan—and the Iraqis and Afghans could easily be enticed to reciprocate. The Iranians, after all, fought a gruesome eight-year war with Iraq; and they cooperated with our own CIA in putting down the Taliban. If Bush wants Iran to play a more "productive" role in both places, he should define what productive means and give the Iranians a reason to mull it over. The day has long passed when an American president can sternly say, "Back off," and make some leader halfway around the world tremble in his shoes. We no longer have the power to make such threats stick, and Ahmadinejad, Karzai, and Maliki know this.

Von Tunzelmann remarks in her book on the Indian summer that the British leaders in 1947 "preferred the illusion of imperial might to the admission of imperial failure"—but, in the end, simply could not afford to perpetuate empire's daydreams. The United States is facing a similar moment. Will it give up illusory domination for still-feasible leadership, or will it push ahead and eventually, inevitably, fold?