The Biden Plan
Senator Joe Biden the ranking Democrat on Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a plan to give regional control to the three major groups in Iraq, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Biden believes the people of Iraq would support the idea of a confederacy which offers a lot of autonomy to these three separate groups.
Under the existing constitution of Iraq any three of their 18 states can get together and form a region. The people in a region have control over the local laws, just like we do in our states. Each region would have a police force, like our state police and the central government would be in Baghdad, a federal city like Washington D.C. The central government would allocate resources and have responsibility for securing Iraq’s borders, with a national army. The Sunnis region would receive a share the oil revenues, which are in the Shiite and Kurdish regions. This is the basis for Iraq being able to stay together as a loosely federated republic.
Bush said: “We‘re not leaving so long as I‘m president.” Bush appears to be committed to Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki. Biden doesn’t consider Maliki a unifying figure, and believes that he has done nothing to get the Sunnis to buy into a democratic government. Unless, the Sunnis buy into the new government there’s no chance of avoiding increasing sectarian violence.
Maliki won’t deal with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi militia, because Sadr has 32 seats in the parliament and he’s beholding to him. Maliki like most of Shiites, believe that their interest lies with Iran and they are not ready to make the concessions needed to have a unified country.
The Iraqi vote on the constitution demonstrated that 92 percent of all the people voted for a sectarian candidate. That is not unity, but Bush continues to pretend that it’s not the problem. Bush doesn’t have a plan to keep Iraq together or to get our troops home.
Unless we have a radical change in policy, and a political solution, we’ll have created a larger Iran. Before we invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein had Iran hemmed in on the west and the Taliban hemmed in Iran on the east. We did Iran a great favor by invading Iraq, because we’ve end up with a Shiite dominated government, which isn’t prepared to make any political concession to have a united Iraq.
Under the existing constitution of Iraq any three of their 18 states can get together and form a region. The people in a region have control over the local laws, just like we do in our states. Each region would have a police force, like our state police and the central government would be in Baghdad, a federal city like Washington D.C. The central government would allocate resources and have responsibility for securing Iraq’s borders, with a national army. The Sunnis region would receive a share the oil revenues, which are in the Shiite and Kurdish regions. This is the basis for Iraq being able to stay together as a loosely federated republic.
Bush said: “We‘re not leaving so long as I‘m president.” Bush appears to be committed to Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki. Biden doesn’t consider Maliki a unifying figure, and believes that he has done nothing to get the Sunnis to buy into a democratic government. Unless, the Sunnis buy into the new government there’s no chance of avoiding increasing sectarian violence.
Maliki won’t deal with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi militia, because Sadr has 32 seats in the parliament and he’s beholding to him. Maliki like most of Shiites, believe that their interest lies with Iran and they are not ready to make the concessions needed to have a unified country.
The Iraqi vote on the constitution demonstrated that 92 percent of all the people voted for a sectarian candidate. That is not unity, but Bush continues to pretend that it’s not the problem. Bush doesn’t have a plan to keep Iraq together or to get our troops home.
Unless we have a radical change in policy, and a political solution, we’ll have created a larger Iran. Before we invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein had Iran hemmed in on the west and the Taliban hemmed in Iran on the east. We did Iran a great favor by invading Iraq, because we’ve end up with a Shiite dominated government, which isn’t prepared to make any political concession to have a united Iraq.
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