WASHINGTON (Reuters) - 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 (news, bio, voting record) 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 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.
I will say that Biden's plan is an interesting thought here. There are certainly some serious problems with the plan--one being that all three regions would want to control territory that contain rich oil reserves. If this confederation does break down and the three ethnic factions do get into a civil war, the factions that control the oil revenues, will be able to purchase arms and control the war. I could also see problems with foreign affairs--the Shiites would love to forge closer ties to Iran, over any objectives by the Sunnis and Kurds. That is not to say that such a confederation is impossible, but rather it would be a difficult challenge for the U.S. to achieve alone in its occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. The U.S. would have to bring in the leaders and representatives of all three ethnic groups--especially the representatives of the insurgents factions--for negotiations. The U.S. would also have to abandon the plans for permanent military bases in Iraq--something the PNAC crowd in the Bush administration would refuse to allow. And in addition to a U.S. troop withdrawal, the Bush administration would have to allow a greater UN presence and control in Iraq (Perhaps allowing UN peacekeepers to control the border regions of Iraq. I don't know if the UN is willing to take over the occupation of Iraq.
But what I can say is that it is an alternative to the current meatgrinder that the Bush administration is currently touting as a success. What a disaster.
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