A very old man is dying and his official papers lie beside him on the table. His grandchild looks at the old man's identity card and he sees there are different countries printed in the address column. "Oh, Grandpa, you must have had a very interesting life, living in different countries!" the grandchild says. "I?" the old man asks, "I've never set a foot aside Ungvár!"

Let me explain. Ungvár is a town, originally a Hungarian settlement, which now belongs to Ukraine. In the last one hundred years it was annexed to at least three countries.

I write from the middle of Eastern Europe, Hungary. The capital of Hungary is at the navel of the old continent. It has frequently cut traditionally bigger countries into smaller parts. Look at a map older than sixteen years: Where is Yugoslavia? Where is Czechoslovakia? Whatever happened to the Soviet Union? Right now, a new small nation that left its mother country is born, Montenegro.

Is this good or bad? It is really hard to say. After World War I Hungary lost a bigger part of its territory than the one that remained. The Hungarian administration jumped into World War II with the hope that the original size could be reoccupied. They were wrong. I am absolutely positive that any demands of a restoration would be absurd today. Peace and the status quo is more important than the historic wounds.

Did the ethnic anger disappear after the slicing of Yugoslavia, for instance? Yes and no, to a certain extent. When you cut the territory into smaller pieces, you do the same with the problems. Two medium size ethnic cleansings may equal one big one.

So, what is the answer to the question? It is not to ask the question of Iraq. If the situation is going to be ripe for different Iraqi nations, history will boil down to them. Unfortunately, neither the united Iraq nor the sliced one can guarantee peace and safety. The innocent people suffer; they only wish for their and their beloveds survival. But praying for them is just as good as giving them clever ideas about their nation from afar on an American home page they'll probably never read.