So, we are agreed we wouldn't start from here?

Your comments on Kurdistan might work, if we added a covert understanding that Turkey had a free hand in dealing with Kurdish seperatists within her borders. Which would be nasty.

I fail to see what the Sunnis can do, to be honest. If the issue had to be put to a short undeclared civil war before they accept they are now low monkey, well, they had their good years under saddam, now they can have some bad.

The Shia issue is the most important strategically, because of the oil. (Oops. "Its not about Oil its about Freedom", sorry, I was forgetting). I just don't see a way of preventing a greater Iran once Iraq is partitioned. And, notwithstanding my partisanship of Iran (which is waning slightly in view of the elections and the nuclear programme), the price of continued occupation is worth paying to prevent that.

It is highly unlikely that American public is prepared to stay in Iraq for the long haul.
Yes, and its easy for me to say this when its not the British taking (many) casualties, but they need to grow up then, don't they? They don't have a "with one mighty bound, they were free" option here. They can't walk about the world getting hot whenever they think of all their aircraft carriers, and expect to be able to invade a country, destroy what few civic institutions it had, and naff off home after six months for tea and medals leaving a grateful population behind. Even Germany was much harder work than that and they had only been under a dictatorship for 13 years or so, and had previously has very highly developed institutions.

I dare say you've read "American empire" by Niall Ferguson, but he is very good on all this.