What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Honestly this approach would at least alleviate the current turmoil there. Consider Syria, Iraq and Yemen for this.

> What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible.

Except for the Kurds, that doesn't seem to be want the groups in Iraq want. I wasn't aware that libertarians were generally in favor of imposed religious- and/or ethnicity-based balkanization against the will of the people.

I suspect that would actually work against libertarianism, also, because greater ideological uniformity in the constituency would support more authoritarian government (light touch is a way of accommodating divergent interests which would be eliminated).

AFAIK, Libertarians are not Utopians. If there is a choice, they prefer decentralization and secession. Underlying reason is not important (Ethnic and religious, or ideological). Besides, from what I know, in large sovereign states and large democracies minority or ruled ethnic and religious groups always suffer. Because they will be imposed the ruling groups culture, language and curriculum. If they want, they should have at least a degree of self control and identity.

Eh all other groups want the whole country and the other groups pressed to geno-cidere?

Thats not a ideology thing, that is more a "Real-Politics" that worked with pakistan and india - kind of approach.

I don't know enough about libertarianism, to be honest. (I'm not sure many people do.) But, is libertarianism something that only works when all tenets are followed? Or, does it work in piecemeal and incrementally? Like, for example, is there a priority list of things that should be implemented first and the set of measurable, expected results?

This is probably not the best place to ask these types of questions, but 'libertarianism' seems to come up on here so often, I had to ask.

Perhaps it is better to read some introductory literature on this. Rothbard - Hoppe, Rand or Nozick (All are different schools in libertarian thought AFAIK)

Libertarians are anti-interventionist. They wouldn't have invaded Iraq and wouldn't have manipulated their government.

Yes, that is why I used the word "want" not "do".

> let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory

This is literally what ethnic cleansing means, and is of course the opposite of any kind of liberty - it creates a place where you can't walk down the street without being of the right ethnicity/religion.

Oh that is such a stretch. Ethnic cleansing occurred in large, well established states already. "as small as possible" can go much smaller than what you have in mind.

Are implying that, for example, if Catalonia, Bask or Scotland become a country situation will be ripe for killing Spanish or English man living there?

"ethnic and religious groups" are the key words there.

This is essentially what had to be dismantled in Northern Ireland - it was under the control of one "group" usually defined as Protestant. Transferring it to a situation under human rights law where all religions could live with equal protection under the law (including protection from the state and police by means of human rights law) was critical to ending the conflict.

None of the Catalan, Basque (this is the usual English spelling, are you perhaps thinking of the Russian Басков?) or Scottish independence movements have ethnic cleansing ambitions, although these are usually attributed to them by their enemies.

Construction and definition of a nation state is a complex issue not reducible to glib remarks about "liberty".

Worth noting that the Scottish National Party (SNP) is broadly pro-immigration:

"The SNP believe that immigration is essential to the strength of our economy and adds greatly to our cultural fabric."

https://www.snp.org/pb_what_is_the_snp_s_policy_on_immigrati...

The SNP is sometimes described as being about civic nationalism rather than ethnic nationalism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_nationalism

Edit: Arguably the closest we've got to ethnic cleansing was the Highland Clearances - which were inflicted on Gaels by landowners.

If you ask me, situation with norther Ireland is not really solved. Same for Quebec or heck Belgium or Italy.

If one group have ethnic cleansing ambitions they will do it anyway. This whole "equal protection and human rights" rhetoric is laughable where on group seriously oppresses other. It is better off that all groups live in more autonomy and if one is not happy, moving to another place is better than living under threat. Of course, this is not the "liberty" people are longing for, but it is the preferable choice.