The UN partitioned Palestine in 1947 and now 60 years later they may try it again in Iraq.

About a year ago, precisely last October, Baker was against the idea of dividing Iraq into three autonomous regions and said partition would cause a civil war but now he wants it because he realizes the quagmire this administration is in can’t be fixed. Meanwhile Bush is positioning himself as against partition. Is this a purposeful complication to shift public attention since it’s become an election issue? There is already a natural partition in Iraq; between the Kurds where the Iraqi flag doesn’t fly, a Shiite area ruled by militias who’ve infiltrated into the Iraqi police and army, and a Sunni areas controlled by guerillas.

Since the US declared Iraq a sovereign state it seems it would be unconstitutional to impose a partition but the plan all along has probably been to rule and divide, to let the Iraqis kill each other off.

Robert Lightfoot

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“…perhaps most importantly, it [Biden partition plan] allows the U.S. strategic class to keep its imperial ideology above scrutiny.”

Wow. Sounds perilously close to what some would call a “conspiracy theory”. Next Alternet will question the “official” 9/11 conspiracy theory (just kidding folks).

Bloggers on the web have been saying the Mid East would be a Sun Tzu divide and conquest double-cross from before Iraq War began.

Now Americans are shocked! simply shocked! at the outcome. Iraq is now little more than a military puppet under deliberate rape, demolition and genocide at public cost. A giant sham.

Iraq’s “leadership” is staffed by either self-serve tools of western Fascists (certainly not "capitalists") or quasi insurgents who want to remake an Iraq of their own. An Iraqi native reality that in no way conforms to what western oligarchs want for the region. That would be a Mid East/Eurasian “geen zone” under the thumb of Fascist elites. A bloody farce where a Big Oil grab through the west’s old petrodollar fiat concession remains the usual extortion and plunder racket.

As the genocide continues, U.S. corporate media lies and even al Jazeera (run and financed by U.S. lapdog Qatar) propaganda fails to put a sunny face on “war on terror”. One that virtually all with a clue see as a naked and for-profit killing trap devised by cozy Fascist criminals.

At least this column has no mention of CIA-Saudi funded and created “al Qaeda”. Something of an improvement…

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This is what should have been done in 1919; this is what should have been done in 1932; this is what should have been done in 2003, too--back when a multinational force was still with them.

The only ones who would've had any problem would be the faux nationalists and ex-Baathists. Saddam was holding the country together with his bare hands. If national self-determination was good enough for Europe, it is certainly good enough for the Ottoman "Yugoslavia."

Josh, I've always thought you were way smarter than this.

Biden's plan is the best and most honorable way out.

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I'm not sure it goes far enough.

They shouldn't be semi-autonomous provinces, they should be fully sovereign national units.

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Ask the Iraqis what they would prefer. Just a thought.

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Has anybody thought to ask what the various sects in Iraq what they want?
It is their country... once "the Coalition of the Willing" is out of the picture.
Where do we get the idea we can go around the planet and make decisions for THEM... or any other country.

This disqualifies Biden from being president.

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The Iraqis do not overwhelmingly support a strong central government as claimed. Nearly half of all Sunnis oppose it and for good reason, they will be the big losers. No Shia leader enjoys even as much as a 15% approval of Sunnis. More than 85% of Sunnis disapprove of ousting Saddam--a grave portent. The authors seem not to have digested the WPO report the article itself links to.
Holland and Jarrar claim the 3 sectarian groups in Iraq have "long existed as a nation" and have "a powerful shared identity..." But that is patently false since for nearly half a century the "nation" of Iraq has been held together by an iron fist.
They are right to say the US has no moral authority to force the Biden plan down Iraqi throats. But they are very wrong to condemn the plan as immoral and to suggest the US has no right to propose and even to promote what we view to be a workable solution.
Holland and Jarrar seem to believe that peace has broken out, that the Sunnis and Shiites are learning to live together, that the bloodshed is lessening, that what exists now is not a state of effective civil war, and that there is some hope the Shia government will soon magnanimously share power and wealth--with the Sunnis.
To the contrary, the situation is bad and getting worse, and there is no prospect for a political "solution," save one enforced against the Sunnis at gunpoint.
The situation cries out for a political solution that gives each ethno-sectarian group a piece of the pie and a safe haven. Numerous times in recent decades, in Korea, Vietnam, Ireland and elsewhere, such intractable conflicts have been substantially resolved by a form of partition. This plan is far less draconian than partition--since it provides for continued national identity and a federal government that will be forced to reconcile competing sectarian interests or else lose its power. Federalism worked for America. It's time to promote this plan--in an unbiased objective manner--among Iraqis and see if they themselves don't agree.

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Who the f*** does Biden, or the USA for that matter, think they are to contemplate the breakup of a sovereign state??

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While it's not an exact analogue, it might be instructive to consider the results of a twentieth-century case of partition by sect: the creation of Northern Ireland. In cities with largely mixed populations-- which would seem to be similar to the situation in most of Iraq-- the conflict continued for decades.

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Although Amerikan Empire is being run by Israelis and Corporate interest groups, the goal is still the same.

As the noted by Israeli human rights activist and scholar Prof. Israel Shahak:

"...the accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states. I will comment on the military aspect of this plan in a concluding note. Here I want to draw the attention of the readers to several important points:

1. The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha'aretz (and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the "best" that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: "The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part" (Ha'aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.

2. The strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the USA is very prominent, especially in the author's notes. But, while lip service is paid to the idea of the "defense of the West" from Soviet power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial Israel into a world power. In other words, the aim of Sharon is to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest.

3. It is obvious that much of the relevant data, both in the notes and in the text, is garbled or omitted, such as the financial help of the U.S. to Israel. Much of it is pure fantasy. But, the plan is not to be regarded as not influential, or as not capable of realization for a short time. The plan follows faithfully the geopolitical ideas current in Germany of 1890-1933, which were swallowed whole by Hitler and the Nazi movement, and determined their aims for East Europe. Those aims, especially the division of the existing states, were carried out in 1939-1941, and only an alliance on the global scale prevented their consolidation for a period of time.

The notes by the author follow the text. To avoid confusion, I did not add any notes of my own, but have put the substance of them into this foreward and the conclusion at the end. I have, however, emphasized some portions of the text.

Israel Shahak
June 13, 1982

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If Iraq is partitioned, the Turks will invade and annex Kurdistan and the Iranians will annex the Shia area of Iraq. The Sunni area will become dependent on Saudi-Arabia. So much for new constructive thinking in the middle east and the promotion of democracy.

The U.S. will be reaping the rotten fruits of their disasterous invasion of Iraq for many years to come, and there is no clear way out of the situation.

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It's becoming increasing clear that the relatively new nation known as the USA is a failed state. This so called "nation" is in civil war. It's time for the world's superpowers (Britain, Germany) to step in and break up this "nation" into two parts: the Confederate States and (what's left of) the original state.

It is obvious that Americans cannot save their own nation....neither can their "leader," Abraham Lincoln. Only outside superpowers know what's best for other nations.

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It is truly amazing that American politician's feel that they are capable of solving other countries problems while this country has so many outstanding problems.
Congress critter's are seemingly unaware that they swore an oath to do the job that they promised us that they were capable of doing.
Instead they pass non-binding resolutions, hold hearings and demand investigations and pass a resolution condemning another country for somerthing that happened nigh on to 100 years ago...that isn't any of our business to boot.
All the while, we have an alleged President and Vice President that deserve to be put on trial before the world, along with a host of problems created by these two persons; and Congress plays politics as usual.
Does anybody know the procedure for calling a Constitutional Convention? Seeing as how the elected officials (most anyhow) are only interested in collecting more bribes, it will be up to the citizens to demand a reform of campaign contributions, a/k/a bribes, and get this country back on track.

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...hasn't the vast majority of the "partitioning" already occurred? If there are sound demographic reasons to believe that partition will make things worse, let's hear them. Otherwise it just seems like the flipside to the Bush administration's idle squawkings that withdrawing US troops will create a "bloodbath."

This article's other conclusions, somewhat to my surprise, seem to bode well for a federal Iraq. But if it's true that most Iraqis & political parties are against formal partition, that may be because the bulk of the partitioning is already an accomplished fact.

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Bush only wants the land the oil pipelines will run through....

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I never claimed to be the brightest lightbulb in the drawer, or the sharpest knife in the chandelier, but I'm not following this at all.

I was under the impression that 70% of Iraq is already segregated. There are upwards of four million refugees as well. None of this displacement is voluntary in any positive sense, but in fact is it has occurred, and is occurring. Given the choice, people would rather evacuate than be killed.

One can take issue with the manner in which this happened, of course, but that all comes down to the fact this entire debacle was illegal, immoral, and most egregiously one hundred percent predictable (even Cheney was prescient on this in that tape from the mid 90s.) Of that I'm sure we're all in agreement.

The question is, how can we minimize the disaster we will inevitably leave in our wake now that this unspeakable damage has been done? Apart from physically separating those who would do harm to each other, is there an alternative to prevent the sectarian violence based on animosity present for centuries?

One choice is that the power vacuum left when we disposed the dictator can be replaced by a power equally brutal. That's the plan of indefinite occupation, where Blackwater personnel instill fear through indiscriminate and unaccountable slaughter. I would prefer a plan that allows us to bring home our military, sends Blackwater thugs to prison, and that minimizes further bloodshed if at all possible.

You state: When asked by the BBC: "Do you think the separation of people on sectarian lines is a good thing or a bad thing for Iraq?" a conclusive 98 percent said it was a "bad thing." Why, then, are they killing each other? That this sectarian slaughter is rampant is in no doubt, unless one subscribes to the White House propaganda that it's al Qaeda.

Could it be that Iraqis view separation as a bad thing because they each envision themselves at the top of a unified Iraq, with all others subservient to them? How might we predict that such a power struggle would be resolved? Purple fingers? Never in another millennium.

It's very easy to find all the flaws with any plan when in a situation where there are no good alternatives. I don't see how separating those who would otherwise kill themselves is in any way less desirable than simply allowing them to do so in situ, or worse, standing between them, into perpetuity, thereby making Iraq our fifty first state and maintaining our status as targets in the crossfire.

We need creative answers. I'm willing to go with the best of the current crop of alternatives, and reserve the right to get smarter as new alternatives present themselves.

And while I'm certainly no fan of "Bankruptcy Bill" Biden (or, if you prefer, the "Sixty Seven Vote Smokescreen" Senator from Delaware who I actually despise with every fiber of my being) a federation of sectarian states seems the least undesirable among all the undesirable alternatives we know of today.

Can you clear this up for me?? We know what you're against, but what exactly are you advocating?

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Israel and USA are partners, may be more than that, some say Israel runs the US government. I don't know who runs who, but I do know that they are very good partners (or they pretend they are) and taking advantage of this sitation.

Which is, US wants oil, Israel wants more power in the area.

So Israel "lets" US have the oil and in return gets the Arab nations partitioned. It's a win-win sitation for both nations.

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Joshua hasn't got a plan, but an opinion.
Biden asks, " U gotta plan?"...

Bloodbath is another way writers manipulates your emotions in a debate. It's a mute point anymore.
Blood was let and it's All on Bush's & Cheney's hands.

The point that must be focused on is how to bring equanimity to the land and people. The sad point for any parent is having to separate fighting children.

Segregate, separate it's the same thing. Ethnic cleansing.... well isn't it a bunch of different ethnic groups that can't get along in peace and harmony? The term may being used too harshly. In all of the planet different families within species separate themselves. They choose to live with their own and not with others.

Human beings, as a whole, tend to insist that they always know what's best for others and yet in the very fabric of their being hold onto innate primitive prejudices below their skin. Maybe it's how we process our sensory perceptions that influences our attitudes? What ever the reason humans of one sectarian group don't or can't live with the other. Peace between them only comes by respecting their differences and "let it be".

It is apparent the insanity has been unleashed by the Bush regime. They have no solution because they don't want one, only and "endless war" for power, money influence, domination and resources. ( How come they just don't say it out right?)

But Senator Biden has put a plan together and no one else has. Senator Biden isn't on the Bush side of the table. Senator Biden has said repeatedly, "If someone else has a better idea or any idea that can work", he's not closed to anyone that can present it. Sad fact no one does. Except Senator Kucinich. That is "immediate withdrawal". But that certainly won't work without Joshua's proclaimed Bloodbath.

The fact is these feuding people, ethnic groups if you will, have been killing each other for centuries. (Just like whites, blacks, latinos, christians, jews,.... here in America.) WIth or without Bush's intervention. Now it's just more pronounce because of the presents of American troops securing the oil fields for the Corporations and to keep the Amerikan fiat economy from free fall. All under the guise of saving US from terrorists. ( Now that's some real BS.)

As it appears separating the sects is a beginning. And it's too damn bad we are the ones that must try to fix Bush's cluster f*ck.

So if you have a solution to stop them from killing each other... put up or shut-up.

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The partition of Iraq was always on the agenda of those who zealously led, from behind the scenes, the charge into an illegal and genocidal war. Partition was the hidden plan that was never actually mentioned... until now.

Sure, aquiring the control of Iraq's oilfields was undoubtedly a contributing factor when the US/UK went to war, just as Saddam changing from the US Dollar to the Euro, when selling his oil, was another. But the main and overriding factor was the influence and continuing deceit of the State of Israel and its lobby in the USA.

Partitioning Iraq, and all neighbouring Arab nations, has always been the long term aim of Zionism. "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East" linked text
This essay was written by Oded Yinon (and translated by Israel Shahak) in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon. Yinon was in the IDF and the Israeli government at the time. It was, and is, a strategy for the future... a Zionist future. Part 23 deals with the partition of Iraq.

It is plain to see, if eyes are prised open, that the US is doing Israel's dirty work in the Middle East... at the cost of countless American and Iraqi lives. If the US does not make a Clean Break from the Zionists in Israel and the homegrown treacherous variety then world war III will surely beckon.

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The last time we did ANYTHING right involving foreign countries it was the Marshall Plan in Europe and Gen. MacArthur's creation of a democratic government in Japan. That was more than sixty years ago. Since then, it's been one boneheaded boondoggle after another. We need to quit while we're behind and get the hell out of Iraq. It couldn't get any worse there than we've made it, but even if it did, we wouldn't be there to take the blame of get caught in the crossfire.

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Of course this plan (and all others) doesnt work unless the majority of Iraqi's want it to work. It's always been a problem of establishing consensus. I like Joe Biden and continue to think he'd be a better overall candidate than Hillary or Obama. But I'm not convinced this plan will work and I agree that it's failure could lead to further catastrophy. (Does anyone still think invasion was a GOOD idea?...) Maybe its' time to stop all the chatter and put the Iraqi's front and center on an international stage and ask them for a clear statement of what they want from the USA with the explicit understanding that we will only continue to "assist" them if they deliver a suitable statement of their desire. IF THERE"S A CANDIDATE MAKING A SIMILAR SUGGESTION, PLEASE COME FORWARD!!!

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Originally, the plan was the Bremer one - go in, privatize everything, and set up a "Council of Ministers" to arrange all the private deals.

However, the U.S. was forced to sanction an election due to their claim that they wanted 'democracy' in Iraq. This resulted in the creation of a Parliament in a flawed election - but the Parliament has repeatedly refused to sanction the giveaway of Iraqi oil (i.e. the Hydrocrabon Law written by BearingPoint, U.S. and British oil interests, and the Council of Ministers).

This led to outrage in the U.S. Congress and the Bush Administration, who want U.S. corporations to get their hands on all that juicy, cheap sweet Iraqi crude. Thus, we had the calls for 'political progress benchmarks in Iraq, especially passing the hydrocarbon law' as well as the calls to allow Saddamic Baathists back into power - the notion being that a brutal dictator might be able to get the country 'under control' - this was also known as "The Salvador Option".

The current U.S. government opinion seems to be that the greatest enemy of US and British oil interests in Iraq is the people of Iraq themselves - and they are now the targets. Thus we have all the U.S. sponsored ethnic cleansing efforts, which are aimed at dividing the country in three. If the Parliament won't pass the hydrocarbon law, perhaps 'regional governors' will. This has already happened in the Kurdish region, where Bush buddy Ray Hunt of Hunt Oil has gotten some concessions New York Times, Sep 28 2007. (Okay, every once in a while the NYT gets it right)

Similary, Chevron and France's Total (also know for their close collaborations in Burma/Myanmar with the generals on a pipeline/gas field project) have signed an oilfield services agreement for Southern Iraq's Majnoon field (Antonia Juahaz, Aug 8 2007) - the only sticking point is getting the Iraqi 'government' to give them the contract. Bush and Sarkozy - Chevron and Total - you get the picture?

As far as what the Iraqi people want, I think it becomes clear that their Iraqi nationalism outwieghs any religious differences. Iraqi refugees in other countries are ignoring the artificially created Sunni-Shia split that the U.S. has worked so hard to engineer - see the AP report:

Iraqi Refugees Shed Sectarian Bitterness, Saturday October 13, 2007, OMAR SINAN, AP

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - A dozen Iraqi men - Sunnis and Shiites alike - sat around a table in a Damascus restaurant, singing, drinking and sharing a camaraderie all but impossible in the sectarian killing fields back home.

"We can certainly choose our religious beliefs. But we have to realize the inevitable - that eventually we have to share everything in order to live in peace,'' said Salam Mohammed, a 34-year-old Sunni from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

neurolingo.gnn.tv

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I despise those who use their own invidious morality to judge others.

Turkey is poised to invade Iraq to prevent the Kurds form pronouncing their independance and declaring the formation of a "new" Kurdistan.

The Kurds, the only people to benefit form our invasion, are equally prepared to do just that.

Sunni Iraq is doomed if there is no partition. Those expressed misgivings about "Ethnic cleansing" are already too late: it is done.
Shi'a Iraq is poised to take over the country no matter what we do, our troops totally helpless to stop that move when it is put into action.
Sunni nor Shi'a will lift one finger to help the Kurds, using that moment to finalize their Civil War over "Lebensraum" and bragging rights.

In Chess, the United States can be said to be ensnared in a clever move which put us in a "Zugswang" (an in-between, temporizing move by the opponent which results in a situation where whatever piece we (US) move, there is no good move.
No move we make from this point on will/can improve our position vis-a-vis the swiftly approaching Checkmate.

There is not now and never will be a "Democracy" in the so-called "Middle East".

As for oil, the reason, for many, we supposedly went into Iraq? The folly of that is we will buy oil at whatever price from whomever has oil and will sell to us.
The further folly is this: we have a window of about 40 years to wean ourselves off oil to renewable resouces.

In 40 years, the "Middle East" will be populated and "ruled over" by destitute Sunni and Shi'a Muslims with little oil between them.

"Isreal"? In exile again, this time in Africa, west of Sudan, north of The Congo Republic, the balance having fled into the welcoming arms of an America being ruled, politically at least, by Browns and Blacks.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you, again, and again, and again, Ra'ed and Joshua, for consistently challenging and effectively refuting the falsehoods and misconceptions that are accepted as the "received truth" even by well-meaning but uninformed anti-war liberals and progressives.

Iraq's social, economic, demographic, and political history simply do not support the picture of Iraq as an ethnically and religiously divided country, and even today it is clearly NOT WHAT IRAQIS WANT. Even Kurds are not as universally and implacably wedded as it may seem to the separatist agenda of those in power in Kurdistan.

Keep up the good work. Ra'ed, believe me you are not alone among Iraqis in saying the things you are saying. Please keep being a voice for those who do not have an audience to hear them.

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We had no business going into Iraq in the first place. Now having messed it up, destroyed their infrastructure, their antiquities and culture, killed, maimed and tramatized the population, brought the country to economic ruin-etc. Now WE want to decide what to do with the land?

We have no business making ANY decisions regarding Iraq. Let's give them some dignity, some rights, to decide what to do about their ravaged country.

The only decision we have to make is to GET OUT.

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Ultra-rightist "revisionists" like Stephen J. Sniegoski who wrote revisionist essays regarding the US military role in the Pacific theatre during WWII have also written essays like The Israeli Origins of the Iraq War. Sniegoski has engaged in such twisted thinking as blaming US aggression against Japan for the ultimate outbreak of war in the Pacific. Japan had no choice argues Sniegoski but defend itself against deliberate US obstruction of Japanese interests in the Pacific Rim. Those interests included invading Manchuria and occupying all of Southeast Asia.

The US is held to be the aggressor against Japan because of its aid to China, trade embargo of Japan due to its military aggression, the shifting of the US Pacific fleet from its permanent base in San Diego to a forward position at Pearl in Hawaii in 1940 and the freezing of Japanese assets in the US in July 1941 in direct response to Japan's brutal invasion and occupation of French Indochina. All this occured, of course, after the Japanese had the entire Pacific Rim occupied. Sniegoski sees Japan's economic isolation and lack of raw materials as justification for these conquests.

Sniegoski sees "the growing threat of Chinese Communism" as a legitimate reason for Japan to invade and occupy China. He also cites Stalinist influence in Outer Mongolia.
Obviously it was the Japanese occupation that actually brought about the popularity and military success of the Red Army under Mao. Guys like Sniegoski are similar to the same right-wing scum bags that justify the Nazi invasion of Poland and the murder of nearly seven million of its citizens by claiming that Poland wouldn't negotiate a corridor to east Prussia or that Danzig belonged to Germany and Poland should have given it up even though the city was a ward of the League of Nations!! These pro-fascist revisionists are the same ones that supply many of our readers with anti-Zionist propaganda linking the Iraq War to Israel. People like Pat Buchanan, racist nativist, blames Israel for the Iraq War and also opposes US intervention in Europe and the Pacific in WWII on the grounds that it only strengthened communism. These views are shared in the Arab/Muslim World, especially in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, which was unanimously pro-Axis during WWII.

I have found no credible scholarly sources that actually argues that the US invasion of Iraq had a purely Israeli source. I recommend that we simply consider the source!!

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The plan to divide Iraq up is obviously just a desperate clutching at straws in an attempt to forge an "exit strategy." No doubt, it will add to the bloodshed as it is carried out. But, here is the problem and a better solution. Bush II repeatedly refuses to sit-down and talk/negotiate with countries in the region, particularly Iran. Bushes fear is that the Iranians will gain more power and respect in the process. But, Mr. Bush, it is time to concede the USA HAS ALREADY LOST in Iraq. By sitting down with Iran especially, a peace treaty could be forged. Integrated into this should also be Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Now, it is possible that pieces of Iraq will disappear in the process of a comprehensive USA peace treaty, and that the USA will need to drop its desire tor USA bases in the region. However, this solution will undoubtedly better guarantee the rights of religious minorities in these regions than the USA plan, which is really no plan at all. Also, arrangements could be made to help people leave and be re-settled outside the divided up Iraq, if this were necessary and in a way to minimize the human trauma. The USA Congress Plan is just an attempt to try to keep USA influence in the region at a maximum even when they have lost the war. They want their cake and to be able to eat it too. Time to wake up and deal with the total situation for a change.

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I'll support whoever or is it whomever? the nominee is etc. So I doubt Joe will make it past the primary. Is his plan the best of all possible plans? No. Plans from who? We can leave but we broke the china (pun intended) and even if we didn't vote for the bums who got us into this mess we are still responsible as long as we didn't throw the bums out. R. Murdoch's BBC ets quoted when many others especially the 4 million who have already voted to get out of Dodge, better yet lets call it Tombstone, with their feet were not asked? That's not ethnic cleansing? It's not already a full blown civil war? What have they been doing besides dodging Blackwater Mercs all of this time: Tiddlywinks? If our mash units were not as good as they are at keeping thousands of our horribly wounded alive what would our causualty count really look like? If they want a strong centralized government then let them decide that for themselves. It took us a number of years after defeating the Brits to establish our Constitutional form of government. You prepared to send your children to die so they can do what only they can to do for themselves? I'm not prepared to send my grandchildren. When the French lost at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 Vietnam was given six months for people to repatriate from south to north or vise versa with elections to reunify the government held after. It never happened. We blocked it because U.S. preferred the pipe dream of Joe McCarthy's koolaid drinkers to an imperfect badly flawed real choice of allowing dreaded commies to be represented in the new government. Look how well that turned out. It would not be the worst foreign policy blunder in American History if the options were really any better and good ole' Joe's been saying that well before the war started. So his plan sucks; they all suck and there's the rub. We need to be talking about what can be done as imperfect and screwed up as it will likely be. So what's your plan?

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I confess I doubt anything much will change in Iraq. I see no reasons or causes suggesting change. The only alternative to something like a plan for regionalism is for the US to get out. I don't see that as likely, short of a TET-like offensive humiliation of US troops.

All the talk of improvements at the time Petraeus testified seemed aimed in the direction of a policy of supporting whoever could keep the peace in their area. So Biden's followup comes as no surprise.

I'd sure rather be fighting over where to draw the lines than fighting just to kill US troops. How long does the current policy have to go on before we try something else?

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Give him a break! That screwed up nation was already split up along the lines that Biden suggests. At least he came up with a plan which is more than I've seen out of the others who are criticizing him.
Anyone who doesn't know that Iraq has had three distinct regions prior to any of this illegal war business, is simply not knowledgeable about the Middle East. All Biden is suggesting is that they formalize the splits.

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One more dangerous American man who was elected by the sleeping having the arrogance to think it's his right to mess with the world. Full o pork, like the rest of em. What goes around comes around, dig deep America.

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I commend Biden on calling out the grand strategy in Iraq for what the WH will not admit it has up it's sleeve. It is advantageous for Iraq to splinter; it is easier for big oil to deal with local sheiks for rights to obtaining oil rather than a national government which would almost certainly nationalize the resource. The name of the game is controlling the oil in order to maintain energy security and dollar hegemony. The admin strategy which is so ridiculed is actually working rather well towards this end...and this is the goal of our presence in Iraq. Why else would we build 5 super-bases out in the oil-rich deserts rather than near urban centers? Iraq also is strategically located with respect to oil transit pipelines which could circumvent Russian energy aspirations in the region. While Saddam was not a military threat, he became an economic threat when he decided to sell his oil on the market in currencies other than the dollar. Iran is now preparing to do the same...with a now-predictable reaction from the US. Forget the notions of a moral imperative for US actions...it's about preserving our economic position in the world marketplace.

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How about merely getting the fuck OUT of the Mideast, FOREVER, dissolving ALL support for Israel while we're at it, and letting everyone there sort it out without any interference whatsoever from the US?

Here's how it could have been done. All the money spent on this Godforsaken money minting war (and siphoned off to war contractors and their cronies and "investors") could have easily developed hydrogen as a workable practical cheap fuel source. Without a single doubt. That technological innovation alone would have given the US an economical edge that would have placed it at the top of the world economy for decades to come. (Instead, now China will probably do it first.)

With no US need for Mideast oil except as possible a base for plastics, there would be no need to have a military and political "ally" there (Israel) and certainly no need for Empire.

But no, that's the way America would have done it if all the bullshit fed us about this great country in school was true.

Unfortunately, it's not true and it has never been true. Technological advances are now witheld and even destroyed to keep antiquated industries (like the oil industry) going, at all possible cost to the country, the world, and the entire planet and its ecostructure. And wars fought and babies bombed to keep those industries alive and making obscene profits.

There is a Twilight Zone episode where this guy dies and goes to a Vegas-like paradise, where he's able to have all the women and gambling and vice he wants, and he assumes it's Heaven, because it certainly was his idea of it. For a few years anyway. Until he gets bored with the gluttony of it all. Then he finally realizes he'd like to go someplace else, anywhere else, because he's bored out of his mind. He asks to go to "the other place" (meaning Hell) just for a bit, just to see what it's like. The proprietor of the place (Sebastian Cabot) laughs and laughs, and says "This IS the "other place".

That's the punchline. Welcome to the greatest country on earth, in reality, THE OTHER PLACE.

Because we know what is right to do, we talk about it all the time. And then turn around and do the EXACT OPPOSITE.

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their fuck-ups!

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I'm surprised nobody has yet brought up that other masterpiece of partition, Pakistan and India. In the course of it, many, many died (don't know exact # but think it was over 1 million). And they are still fighting over Kashmir.

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...with regard to what the Kurds are doing or might want in their own "section" of Iraq. At present, they seem to have a "de facto" kind of independence - from what I've read, they fly the Kurdish national flag above the Iraqi one over their governmental buildings, which doesn't lead me to think they really believe in a strong national government from Baghdad...

I say this not to be provocative, but because I think it's essential to get at some sort of truth here. Umrayya's comments obviously carry great weight given that he has personal experience with the situation in Iraq, but Iraq is a large country in a complicated situation, and I'm doubtful any one individual's viewpoint can encompass the complexity of what's going on their between the various groups. My wife's viewpoint about her own country's ethnic conflict has often turned out to be quite different from the one expressed by folks from the "other side", when I've explored that particular issue in conversation.

I also really wonder about the BBC survey results. When I looked at them, it certainly seemed clear that Iraqi opinion HAS shifted, since 2004, toward a more decentralized, "regionalized" form of government, and that confidence in the current central government seems to be eroding rapidly. The fact that folks are not yet opining for complete partition into independent states may simply reflect that we're "on the way", so to speak, but haven't yet arrived at that particular destination.

I also can't help wondering who exactly was surveyed. How many Kurds living in the essentially "autonomous Kurdistan" that's now been created were included in this particular survey? And if we confine ourselves merely to this group, what were the percentages for each of those questions asked? - i.e., how many Kurds really want to remain part of a federal Iraq, and is this percentage significantly different from the survey participants as a whole?

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The plan carries out the occupation sans occupation. US troops slowly withdraw, the country is split into three parts allowing the US to divide and rule, the US wages a diplomatic offensive to legitimate its objectives in Iraq both at home and abroad and the Gulf Oil producers and others are encouraged to fund "development" from which large US corporations will be the biggest beneficiaries. It is no wonder why the plan was rejected by the bulk of the Iraqi People and draws only opprobrium from others.

The only reason that Al-Qaeda is there is because of the US military presence. If the US troops leave there will be peace and normalcy. Al Qaeda is only popular because the attack the US in Iraq. Al Qaeda will disappear when we stop making them popular with out policies. We need to leave now and allow the Iraqis to determine their own future. A facile solution for nothing more than massive absentee US influence in shaping the future Iraq will not work. The ethnic cleansing that is going on now is a direct consequence of US constitutional and political meddling in that country. There is no real modern history of sectarian conflict between the three major groups in the region aside from the persecution of the Kurds by Saddam and other major regional heads of state.

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A couple months ago, I was *briefly* interested in the possibilities of partitioning.

It did not take much reading to set me straight. The fighting among various groups in Iraq is not predominantly sectarian. Sunni-on-Sunni and Shiite-on-Shiite violence far outweighs Sunni-on-Shiite violence. What's really going on here?

What's going on is anarchy, where dozens of groups are vying for power through force at the expense of the other groups. Some of these groups are secular, some fundamentalist. Some are nationalists, some are separatists, some are tribalists. Some are cults of personality. They are scattered all over the political spectrum. Some are divided by the issue of the occupation itself and are slugging it out with each other over that. Some are fighting for greed, some are fighting for ideology. Any and every combination can be found.

What we are seeing is what happens when you completely shatter a state by destroying the institutions which make it function, and occupy it with armed and dangerous foreign troops. The population becomes radicalized. People reach for their guns.

Partitioning Iraq won't even slow down the violence. It might if the violence was primarily inspired by the Sunni-Shiite religious rift. But it's not.

Partitioning Iraq will create haves and have-nots and thus foment lasting resentment. Oil is not distributed evenly throughout Iraq.

As for Israeli interests, if they really think it will be safer for Israel if the Arab states dissolve into chaos and war, they're crazy. Keep in mind that regional destabilization is exactly what bin Laden is after. He thinks the resulting war will give birth to a New Caliphate, which will then effortlessly sweep Israel into the Mediterranean.

The continued radicalization of Arab populations, which is the main result of destabilization, is a massively threatening trend to Israel. If Biden has Israel's interests in mind, he'd better come up with a better solution than the one he's put on the table.

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Since the neocons started conning people into letting that Bush Bustars and his VP attack Iraq, I have been pointing out that the only chance for peace there is to partition Iraq into 3 protectorates undeer the three countries most directly concerned with the 3 ethnic/religious groups involved. Although the partition of Palestine was the greatest fiasco of the UN's history and the source of most of our problems in the world, partition under protectos who share a desire to protect the various peoples will work.
The 1947 fiasco that allowed for the taking over of Palestine and the intrusion of the state of Isreal which will allow no peace in the area aas long as it is allowed to intrude into the Palestinians lands is not a necessary evil, it is just an evil--but one the UN can avoid in Iraq

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whether this is an immutable postition of his or one offered as a solution to the problems and conditions as seen by him.

I believe totally that in principle and practice that the only long term solution for Iraq's problems is self-determination, but was or is he proposing this in defiance or dismissal of that, or as a vehicle for it?

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