I thought the cobbling together of these three groups into a single polity was for the purpose of allowing the interests of any two of them to blunt the undesirable aspirations of the third. Imagine the Shiites becoming an Iranian satelite. Imagine the Sunni becoming an outright terror state. And the Kurds are screwed again, sandwiched between four enemies.
This does NOT promote our interest in developing friendly democracies. It creates two unpredictable new entities.
>?Imagine the Shiites becoming an Iranian satelite
They are.
>Imagine the Sunni becoming an outright terror state
It is.
>the Kurds are screwed again
Only if we allow it. We shouldn't. No need to.
>our interest in developing friendly democracies
We should want friendly states, not democracies necessarily.
Democracies aren't always friendly, look at Europe.