Apgar is the author of ‘Risk Intelligence’, a detailed study of how to divide Iraq into two states based on numbers. His theory is to separate the Sunnis in the north along with the Kurds and the Shias living in the Baghdad area into one state. That northern state would profit from the Kurdistan oil wells.

The second state would be entirely Shia and based in the southern part of the country and would include the southern oil wells. The border would run from the northeast to the southwest, dividing the two countries just south of Baghdad. The bad news is that it would create yet more straight lines in the sand.

A quick glance at a map of the Middle East reveals previous straight lines cut in the sand by two European gentlemen working on a secret agreement in 1915 for their respective governments; Andrew Sykes, a Briton, and his French counterpart Francois Georges-Picot. The agreement between France and Britain was to share the spoils of the Ottoman Empire at the close of World War I.

The agreement was seen by many as a turning point in Western-Arab relations. It negated promises made to Arabs by TE Lawrence (Laurence of Arabia) for a national homeland in the Syrian territory in exchange for their siding with British forces against the Ottoman Empire.

The ramification of the Sykes-Picot Accord is to this day still being felt in the Middle East. "We need radical thinking," Apgar told UPI’s Laura Heaton. "The military situation (in Iraq) cries out for political experimentation."

The ghosts of Skyes and Picot are never too far away when it comes to political experimentation in the Middle East.

Apgar advocates dividing Iraq into two separate states without basing the partition along ethnic lines. Instead, he proposes the two states share Iraq’s Shia population between them.

The northern state would be composed of nearly equal proportions of Sunnis and Kurds, with a minority Shia population living in and around Baghdad. The southern Shia state would include the major Shia holy sites as well as the southern oil fields.

Apgar’s application bases itself on the theory of Ian Bremmer, a political scientist and president of Eurasia Group, and his recent book called "The J Curve." Bremmer’s model is based on a composite of political openness, political stability, and availability of economic capital, all of which are missing in today’s Iraq.

Applying Bremmer’s theory —  that closed states stabilise by growing more closed and open states stabilise by becoming more open —  to Iraq, Apgar explained that a northern state comprising the Sunnis, Iraq’s administrative class, the Kurds, a cosmopolitan diaspora, and the urban Shias would favour more open governance. While a southern Shia state would likely favour traditional governance, perhaps under Islamic law, Apgar said.

"We seem to stick with one political conception in Iraq for years, or certainly months, at a time. We need the same kind of trial and error in our political approach that we use in our military approach," Apgar told Heaton.

With that in mind President George W. Bush will visit Jordan this week for what is considered to be a crucial meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki, as sectarian violence in Iraq reaches new heights. Despite White House claims to the contrary, the Iraqi conflict appears to take the form of a civil war. Bush’s trip comes just days after Vice President Dick Cheney’s two-hour political pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this past weekend, where Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah most certainly passed on his concerns of expanding Shia influence in the region.

This burst of diplomatic activity at the highest level tells us that in its final two-year stretch in office, the Bush administration is starting to pay particular attention to two key issues brought about by the US invasion of Iraq: the deteriorating security situation in that country and the rise of Iranian influence.

Iran’s rising influence under the guidance of the Islamic republic’s mullahs, and its alliance with Syria, has got the Saudis and other Sunni states in the area wondering just how to put the Shia genie that was let out by the US invasion of Iraq back in the bottle.