Steyn on federalism

In a typically strong column, Mark Steyn advocates a federal solution to Iraq (which historically wasn't a nation anyway, as it was cobbled together after WWI from the three Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra):

The best bulwark against tyranny is a population that knows the benefits of freedom, as the Iraqi Kurds do. Don't make the mistake of turning Iraq into a dysfunctional American public school, where the smart guys get held down to the low standards of the misfits and in the end they all get the same social promotion anyway. Let's get on with giving the Kurdish and Shia areas elected governors and practical sovereignty, province by province.

Blogger/mystery writer Roger L. Simon has long been an advocate of a partition, with the three regions allowed to join together when and to the extent they desire. I would also note that there were a couple of articles in the Wall Street Journal last week suggesting that the Turks might not be as opposed to an autonomous Kurdish region as the conventional wisdom has led us to believe.

UPDATE (5/25): Mickey Kaus cites Steyn's column as support for his view that elections should be held in the more stable parts of Iraq relatively quickly without waiting for nationwide stability, and notes that his view is shared by pundits over a wide range of ideologies: "Steyn, Bayh, Gingrich, Will, Abramowitz, Sullivan, Wright, Instapundit, Brooks, Kagan, Kristol, Lieberman, McCain... Do we have to get Ann Coulter and Al Franken to issue a joint communique?"