Decision ‘08

The Biden Plan On Iraq

Joe Biden thinks he knows a way to salvage Iraq:

Four months ago, in an opinion piece with Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, I laid out a detailed plan to keep Iraq together, protect America’s interests and bring our troops home. Many experts here and in Iraq embraced our ideas. Since then, circumstances in Iraq have made the plan even more on target — and urgent — than when we first proposed it.

The new, central reality in Iraq is that violence between Shiites and Sunnis has surpassed the insurgency and foreign terrorists as the main security threat. Our leading civilian and military experts on Iraq — Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gens. George Casey, Peter Pace and John Abizaid — have all acknowledged that fact.

The plan calls for not for a partition, but a federation:

First, the plan calls for maintaining a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis their own regions. The central government would be left in charge of common interests, such as border security and the distribution of oil revenue.

Second, it would bind the Sunnis to the deal by guaranteeing them a proportionate share of oil revenue. Each group would have an incentive to maximize oil production, making oil the glue that binds the country together.

Third, the plan would create a massive jobs program while increasing reconstruction aid — especially from the oil-rich Gulf states — but tying it to the protection of minority rights.

Fourth, it would convene an international conference that would produce a regional nonaggression pact and create a Contact Group to enforce regional commitments.

Fifth, it would begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces this year and withdraw most of them by the end of 2007, while maintaining a small follow-on force to keep the neighbors honest and to strike any concentration of terrorists.

Point five is probably a deal-killer for Bush, and point two for the Shiites - and without it, the whole concept would probably crumble - but Biden takes preemptive aim at critics:

At best, the course we’re on has no end in sight. At worst, it leads to a terrible civil war and possibly a regional war. This plan offers a way to bring our troops home, protect our security interests and preserve Iraq as a unified country. Those who reject this plan out of hand must answer one simple question: What is your alternative?

4 Responses to “The Biden Plan On Iraq”

1 fatman Says:
August 24th, 2006 at 7:24 am
I wonder who he plagerised this from? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Seriously, I’ve thought for a while that some kind of confederation similar to what the U.S. government should be might be better than trying to force everybody into a European style parlimentary democracy or what the U.S. government actually is. Biden does a good job of laying it out.
2 mtl Says:
August 24th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
This is a panglossian idea.

Just caught Joe on Harball.

He believes that if it is partitioned, then the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shia will go their own way and terrorism will die out.

Wasn’t Holbrooke concerned about Turkey coming into conflict with the Kurds? Lot easier to do if the region is perceived as seperate.

Wouldn’t this seperate the Sunni’s from from having some say in the spending of the oil? I think the Sunni section would quickly become the next Lebanon, where the militas will hold all the power, and the army they have will be a token one. Syria be in a position to annex western Iraq. It would be a breeding ground for terrorism and a battle that Al-Queda could win. Like Afghanistan with better real estate.

His belief is that Iraq is a civil war.

Let’s take a look at some civil wars-

start with wikipedia definition-
“A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight for political power or control of an area.”

The factions are not within the same culture, society, or nationality(this last one would be arguable)-this is not a civil war, but Biden’s would like the semantics to lead to the inherent conotations associated with the word ‘civil war’.

Usual combatants in a civil war have a specific ideology from which they would govern, but I don’t see any Iraqi public support for the insurgency as they present no alternative form of governance.

Biden’s closing argument on Hardball?
‘no one has another plan.’

I thought that was the strength of the neo-con argument for addressing the ME thru invading Iraq. Democrats offerred no other plan.
3 mtl Says:
August 24th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
What if the Shia in their independence, join Iran?

It would be an advancement for those who wish to see Iraq disintergrate, rather than take on the appearance of a mulitcultural society.
4 mtl Says:
August 24th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
for comparison-

US population in 1880 was about 50 million.
620,000 soldiers killed.

1.24% of the US population.

Iraq current population 25 million.

When they are well on their way to 310,000 dead, then we can call it a civil war. At it’s current rate, it will come to that point in 300 years.