The leading London-based Jihad al-Khazen of the widely circulated daily al-Hayat wrote: "Iraq, as we knew it, is finished!" His words are true. Since monarchy, all Iraqi regimes brutally suppressed sectarian affiliations and religious groups. Saddam forced Iraqis to think and act like Iraqis -- not like Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis, or Kurds. If they refused, he arrested, banished, or killed them.

Suppressing loyalties, however, does not mean that they cease to exist. The Iraqis have always been sectarian, different and divided. As early as 1933, Iraq's founder King Faysal I wrote to a friend complaining about the country he had ruled since 1921. The King said: "In my belief, there is no Iraqi nation as yet, but there are groups of people without any idea of nationhood and patriotism or sense of belonging and allegiance to the homeland. These groups have embraced tribal traditions and religious superstitions, and they have nothing to cement them together. They listen to the worse of rumors and like anarchy. This being the case, we want to form a nation from these groups to train them and educate them. This is the nation that I decided to take responsibility to build."

These words, spoken over 70-years ago, still apply to Iraq today.

By suppressing differences since 1979, Saddam Hussein only made them stronger and more deeply entrenched underground. Now, todays outside parties, including the Americans and Iranians, exacerbate differences and promote sectarianism in Iraq.

The Sunnis are greatly opposed to partition because it would leave them in central Iraq with no oil. It also conflicts with their pan-Arab sentiment and their attachment to Arab unity. These ideas have been handed down from one generation to the next in the Sunni community since the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Sunnis see themselves as the founders of modern Iraq, which has always been united and in which oil revenue always goes to the Sunni leaders -- from the days of King Faysal to the Saddam Era.

Why should they ruin the Iraq that they know, and divide it into autonomous regions where the Kurds and Shiites get the lion's share of revenue and punish the Sunnis for having produced and supported Saddam Hussein?

The Shiites, on the other hand, are divided on whether to accept federalism. Federalism to the Iraqi Shiites means identity, money, and revenge for centuries of Sunni domination. Earlier this year, the Iran-backed Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) called for an autonomous Shiite region in southern Iraq, similar to the Kurdish North.

Hakim, who has been on the Iranian payroll since his party was created and funded by the mullahs of Tehran in the 1980s, is clearly no Iraqi nationalist. He is a creation of the Iranians who used his Bader Brigade to fight with the Iranian Army against Saddam's Iraqi Army, proving early on in his career that he was more committed to the Shiites of Iran, because of religion, than to his fellow Iraqis. This divided the Shiite community. Some leaders supported a Shiite State while mainstream Shiites were opposed to it.

Particularly opposed to federalism are secular Shiites like Iyad Allawi and religious ones like the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his former ally, Ayatollah Mahmud al-Hasani. The last two, Sadr and Hasani, are not supportive of Iranian influence in Iraqi politics, although they have said that they aim at creating an Iran-style theocracy in Iraq -- one that is, however, independent of Tehran.

For obvious reasons, related to their own status in northern Iraq, the Iraqi Kurds support federalism. If federalism ever becomes a reality, however, it would prove disastrous for the entire Arab World -- and for Turkey. Today there are over 25 million Kurds dreaming of carving up the country of Kurdistan and making a territory the size of France. This would happen at the expense of Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.

Nationalists in Damascus, Tehran, Baghdad, and Ankara are fully opposed to such a dream and have gone to great measures, and received very bad press, for clamping down on Kurdish separatists. They make a firm point that federalism will not be tolerated. It is a red line.

Seeing federalism cement itself in Iraq would no doubt trigger the imaginations of similar Kurds in Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Likewise, the Shiites of the Arab World, mainly in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, would demand similar rights to those obtained by their co-religionaries in Iraq. A wide chorus of Arab leaders, including King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, has warned that the Shiites of these countries are more loyal to Iran than they are to their own homeland. If federalism gets past the drawing board, Iran would get an upper hand over these countries. It would demand more Shiite autonomy. The Kurds would get the upper hand in Syria, Turkey, and Iran, because they too would make loud strong, yet unacceptable demands for federalism.