See the linked article from 2007, comparing Iraq '07 and India '47, including the idea of "partition."
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2007/08/remembering_partition.html
Many scholars, including Margaret Anderson at Berkeley, would call the Edict of Nantes (France) a "soft partition," allowing Huguenots to fortify a "state within a state."   Another article calling events in the Middle East, The New Thirty Years War,
http://www.cfr.org/middle-east-and-north-africa/new-thirty-years-war/p33267   We welcome comments.