Well, attempting to define "drastic" in the conflicting groups context, I guess there is some hindsight available from the experience with the Indian wars in the United States as well as in the formation of the present entities of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc.

India history and experience might be a take off point for you, then, Angus. I would be more comfortable discussing the realignments in Europe after both WWI and WWII, although my interest and perspectives may be somewhat amateurish. Not necessar-iooly invalid, just amateurish. '-) The perspectives of the actual resident players there would be most important.

What could have been different, and how does anyone know if different "solutions" might have worked better?

It seems to me at first blush that the "solutions" that may have been imposed on some unwilling parties just had to be done, anyway.

Addressing the Middle East "solution", and favoring John McCain, I believe that certain military based/implemented prices will just have to be paid. And, that certain less-than optimal-to-all-parties solutions have to be sought.

Consider Korea, North and South, and you might agree that the present partition of N. & S. while far from really satisfactory as a post Japanese Empire solution, is still better than a proxy fight to the bitter end between the USofA and the Soviet Union. Neither side blinked, and backed down, and so we have two Koreas. The Korean commies are free to be commies, and the South's capitalists can also go their own respective worker-exploiting (and far better enriching) ways. '-)

Although there are undoubtedly smouldering embers of the 1860s U.S. War Between the States, I think history shows that somehow we can manage eventually to go on living. Did that Civil War really have a "talk" solution?