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Monday, May 01, 20061146498300
Joe Biden Wants to Dismember Iraq (Good)
Joe Biden, a man running for President in 2008, has delighted this blogger by endorsing the tdaxp plan for victory in Iraq.
Iraq should be divided into three largely autonomous regions -- Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab -- with a weaker central government in Baghdad, Sen. Joseph Biden said on Monday.
In an op-ed article in The New York Times, Biden, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, said the Bush administration's effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad had been a failure, doomed by ethnic rivalry that had spawned widespread sectarian violence.
"It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor," said Biden and co-author Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Iraq's Sunnis, the driving force behind the insurgency, would welcome the partition plan rather than be dominated by a Shiite-controlled central government, Biden said.
He said the division of Iraq would follow the example of Bosnia a decade ago when that war-torn country was partitioned into ethnic federations under the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords.
Biden billed his plan as ,b>a "third option" beyond the "false choice" of continuing the Bush administration policy of nurturing a unity government in Iraq or withdrawing U.S. troops immediately.
As part of the plan, the United States should withdraw most of its troops from Iraq by 2008, except for a small force to combat terrorism, Biden said.
Under Biden's proposal, the Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues.
Further reading on tdaxp
10:45 Posted by Dan tdaxp (Webmaster) in Democrats, Iraq | Permalink | Comments (8) | Email this | Tags: joe biden, trifurcation
Comments
Dan, what happened to your dictum, "Support the Republicans!"
;)
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks | Monday, May 01, 2006
Why not go the next step and break it up completely? Do you really think such a weak central government would be viable in the long term? I'll be posting on this soon too btw.
Posted by: Chirol | Monday, May 01, 2006
I support a three-state solution initially. It was the best solution.
I wonder now though if switching gears would be seen as a weakness signal by the US/UK, and would just strengthen the opposition forces' will to last us out.
If not, it should be considered. Perhaps, strong federalism (tilted toward the Iraqi regions/provinces) would be a first step.
Maybe the US should consider a Kurdistan Republic created out of Northern Iraq? Turkey and and Iran would need to be "compensated" for the transaction cost they incur as Kurds from those countries move to the new Kurdistan Republic (KR). I hope the US and EU would create immediate free trades agreements with the KR. I think fast track to NATO membership (sponsered by Turkey) would be a good thing. Of course, the KR would need to publically abandon any georpgraphic claims for the Kurdish nation in Turkey or Iran. A KR would weaken Arab-infused Islamofascism, give some relief and face-saving to Turkey, and would puzzle/confuse Iran.
Posted by: purpleslog | Monday, May 01, 2006
FYI: I am not endorsing Biden. He is kind of a joke, an intellectual lightweight, and a plagurist. I could never vote for him as leader of the free world.
Posted by: purpleslog | Monday, May 01, 2006
"Of course, the KR would need to publically abandon any georpgraphic claims for the Kurdish nation in Turkey or Iran."
This is never going to happen.
A better solution would be ripping land from Iran (as one step in whatever is about to occur between the U.S. and Iran) and hope that Kurdistan can actually renounce claims on the land in Turkey in exchange for the Iraq-Iran land area (and possibly... Iraq-Iran-Syria area.) If Turkey could sign off on this as well, all would be very well indeed.
And I agree about the free trade agreement and the NATO inclusion, although I suspect the name of NATO will need to be changed fairly soon....
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks | Monday, May 01, 2006
Curtis...I am ok with your idea. My suggestion was just to confine stuff to Iraq. SOmething is going to happen in (or has started in) US/IRAN. Lots of possible scenarios.
Posted by: purpleslog | Monday, May 01, 2006
The Arab world, as well as much of the Islamic world is deeply dysfunctional. At least some of this blame can be given to the Europeans. They contrived borders to create instability. They expected to be able to come to the aid of their former subjects as needed -- in other words, they expected their SysAdmin to merely become a different kind.
They succeeded in screwing it up, but failed in their attempt to retain SysAdmin forces. So instead of the unworkable borders tying Arabiyya and Islamiyya closer to Europe, they force those lands away from all civilized worlds.
Thus, we must not be afraid of changing borders. Weakening the centralizing forces in Iraq is a good first step, and I salute Biden for it. But a longer term solution would ideally include an new Kurdish Republic (probably based in Kirkuk) from Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian, and Turkish Lands, as well as a new Arab Shia Republic (probably based in Basra) from Arabistan, Iran [1] and Eastern Arabia, KSA [2].
This thread is very healthy, so let me add some thoughts, in order of the comments
CGW, give me a GOP that legalizes drugs, prostitution, and the annexation of Mexico, and I'm there.
Purpleslog, what Biden did was nothing compared to the gross, academic plagiarism, on a doctoral thesis, of MLK.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khuzestan
[2] http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/02/15/iran_-_iraq_-_east_arabia.html
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | Monday, May 01, 2006
Sorry, but I don't know a thing about Biden. I do know that the idea of three separate Iraqi states, while it sounds nice, would never work.
Giving the Shi'a in the south their own domain would effectively make that area a legal extension of Iran.
Giving the Sunni their 'triangle' would do little to quell the violence in the Euphrates River valley that is as much about organized crime as it is about fighting for land. Besides, most of the fighting is apparently being done by Sunnis in the "global jihad," which is intended to eliminate Western influence, not just remove the U.S. from Iraq.
I thought at first that giving the Kurds their own territory would be a solution, but that wouldn't work, either, because compared to Iran and Turkey, the Kurds would have no means of protecting their borders. The Sunnis, Shi'a wouldn't come to their help, nor would the U.S. risk War in Iran, upsetting Turkey, or upsetting Sunni oil money from Saudi Arabia by supporting the poor Kurds.
I'm just glad I'm not in Baghdad anymore. I hope they do find a way out of it.
Posted by: jb | Wednesday, March 14, 2007