General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJoe Biden deserves lots of credit for being right about Iraq.
In an op-ed essay in Monday's edition of The New York Times, Sen. Joseph Biden. D-Del., wrote that the idea "is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group ... room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests."
The new Iraqi constitution allows for establishment of self-governing regions. But that was one of the reasons the Sunnis opposed the constitution and why they demanded and won an agreement to review it this year.
Biden and co-writer Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, acknowledged the opposition, and said the Sunnis "have to be given money to make their oil-poor region viable. The Constitution must be amended to guarantee Sunni areas 20% (approximately their proportion of the population) of all revenues."
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-01-biden-iraq_x.htm
hughee99
(16,113 posts)sufrommich
(22,871 posts)state thrown together with no regard to actual groups living within those borders, and that any solution to the american presence in Iraq would have to acknowledge those groups and give them power equal to their populations.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)Besides, if they had done what he suggested, I don't think that would have prevented the fighting either (though it may have made it more manageable to find political solutions).
Mika
(17,751 posts)Yeah. Let's heap the stupidity on top of the piles of dead bodies.
sufrommich
(22,871 posts)Mika
(17,751 posts)karynnj
(59,507 posts)This was a serious attempt to leave an Iraq where the various factions were able to all have some power and would thus have a vested interest in the country.
It goes without saying that it would have been better to have never invaded Iraq. However, in 2007 as Chair of Senate Foreign Relations, Biden did not have the luxury of people on a message board to just say it was Bush's fault.
In addition, it is an example of why Senators and Congressmen are said to sponsor ideas. This was a plan by two foreign policy experts, Gelb and Galbraeth. Their original proposal was to partition Iraq -- by the time the bill passed, the proposal was to support a conference where the Iraqis could define their future state.
The vote 75 - 23. The Democrats had only 51 Senators at that point.
Even though this passed, it was ignored by President Bush. Resolutions on foreign policy do not have to guide a President's actions. By the time Obama was President and Biden was the person he assigned to deal with Iraq, Biden did not push for that - possibly as both he and Obama wanted to get out as soon as possible.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)karynnj
(59,507 posts)that the Senate recommended first in a resolution that had been a provision of Kerry/Feingold that Senator Warner agreed to include in the defense bill in 2006 or the Biden amendment to the defense bill in 2007 that passed after Biden amended it from a conference to divide Iraq to a conference where the Iraqis could decide to federalize Iraq where they drew the lines - that Iraq could have avoided the problems we have.
However, it can be noted that this hasn't worked in Syria. I do wish that it would been tried.
(The earliest Gelb proposal had the coalition essentially drawing the lines. In addition to this being something imposed on Iraq, it was line drawing by the British in the first place that has led to many states with multiple, warring factions. The bill that passed gave the design of any lines to the Iraqis:
A few key facts about the Biden amendment:
The legislation does not tell Iraqis what to do. It speaks only to what U.S. policy should be.
Federalism is not a U.S. or foreign imposition on Iraq. Iraqs own constitution calls a decentralized, federal system and sets out the powers of the regions (extensive) and those of the central government (limited). The Constitution also says that in case of conflict between regional and national law, regional law prevails.
Federalism is not partition. In fact, its probably the only way to prevent partition or, even worse, the total fragmentation of Iraq.
Federalism will not accelerate sectarian cleansing; its the only way to stop it. Iraqis are already voting with their feet, as yesterdays article in the New York Times demonstrates. Before the surge, Iraqis were fleeing their homes at a rate of about 40,000 month; now, its about 100,000 a month. Unless Iraqis come to some kind of agreement on sharing power peacefully, the cleansing will continue.
http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/Iraq/no_author/U.S.-Senator-Joe-Biden-Plan-for-Iraq-Emerges-as-Consensus-Bipartisan-Path-Toward-Ending-War-passes-Senate-Vote-75-23-in-Favor
(I am unfamiliar with the source, but thought the brief summary better than linking to the debate on this on CSPAN which was the only primary source I had)
On the floor of the Senate, Warner, the Chair of Armed Services, backed it but argued it was functionally the same as the provision of the year before that Bush was ignoring.)
JI7
(89,281 posts)from the McCains who think we should always have troops everywhere to those who think it has to do with the IWR.
these were problems in Iraq even before the war.
not sure why people think it's always about US.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)voted no. Sens. Akaka , Bingaman ,Boxer , Byrd , Conrad , Corzine , Dayton Durbin ,Feingold ,Graham , Inouye ,Kennedy , Leahy, Levin , Mikulski , Murray , Reed , Sarbanes , Stabenow , Wellstone , and Wyden .
1 Republican senators voted against the resolution: Sen. Chafee.
One Independent, Mr Jeffords also voted no.
They get credit from me, not the war happy dupes of Bushco. Even a Republican was more correct than Biden. That should shame him, not bring him credit. He voted to invade. While a Republican knew better. Shame.