> These are two historic rivals. Maybe with the right governments they can work out deals like we work out with Canada and Mexico with regard to shared resource

> These are two historic rivals. Maybe with the right governments they can work out deals like we work out with Canada and Mexico with regard to shared resources —but I’m not holding my breath on this given the Kurds are kind of the out group within the Iraqi family and probably won’t get full support from the central govt. I've been thinking a lot about this problem generically, and I'm wondering if there's more formally published elsewhere. How well do multicultural polities work compared to more homogeneous polities (polities that crudely map to an ethnic group)? I'm not strongly for or against any particular position, but it seems like there are efficiencies to more homogeneous entities and I believe one of the criticisms of the colonization of the Middle East (and the purported explanation for why there is so much conflict in the Middle East) was that the European powers drew borders (deliberately, IIRC) that were multicultural rather than ethnic. If this is true, it seems like it would contradict the multicultural thesis, but it seems to be espoused most frequently by multiculturalists. Does anyone know of anyone who has written about this more comprehensively? EDIT: This comment downthread seems related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28234364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28234364