How Long Will The Violence Last? (The Walls Of Belfast And Doors Of Dublin)

If you have been keeping abreast of developments in Iraq, it means that you should be aware of the fact that peace has been brought to many neighborhoods by the construction of walls which serve to keep the factions apart. Walls are in fashion. I have devised a Wall Lapel Pin to wear to show my support of Wall politics:

This depicts the part of the Berlin Wall where someone has inscribed "Who Stop The War?", painted a Mogen David, and printed "Die Flagge Bassiert auf dem humanistischen Grundgedanken von Frieden und Einheit aller Volker..." und so wieder. Nifty or what? Speaking of Mogen David, we have the Wall of Israel...

and the Wall of Texas...

and the only Wall that is endangered is the Berlin Wall...

See Berlin O Philia for The Berlin Wall is Dying .  
(and I wonder whether another Communist fault was their inability to build walls like Capitalism can...)

Which all brings us to the point where we ask whether, when Robert Frost said there there is something which does not like a wall, he pondered on that corner of the soul that is all gung-ho for a wall or two.

There is an article on the walls of Belfast, Ireland which had been erected 30 years ago to keep the fighting factions apart. These walls are doing well. In fact, they are thriving. No signs of any abnormally early desuetude. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080503/ap_on_re_eu/the_walls_of_belfast  
Despite peace, Belfast walls are growing in size and number
 

The site for the Walls of Belfast ( or was it the Doors of Dublin?) is http://www.belfastinterfaceproject.org/interfacemap.asp So perhaps it takes the minimum of 1 generation, or 30 or so years. The wall in Israel comes about after the end of 2 generations, or 60 or so years. Therefore, Mr. McCain might be a bit high in his guesstimate of 100 years, but he is a damned sight closer than my paltry 10 years: the USA will be involved in the fighting in Iraq until at least 2063, plus or minus a quartacentennial part thereof. (The Pentagon, in order to be able to properly speak of the new phenomenon of Unending War has set up a committee of a number of brainy types, me included, to devise a lexicography. Thus, a quartacentennial is a 25 year period or a quarter of a century. Why not say "quarter of a century"? Would you actually expect that from someone who spends $500 on a toilet seat?)