Unity Through Autonomy: Biden His Time Until 2008?

The NY Times has its version of confederation and partition, thanks to Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie Gelb, retired poobah of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Their spin is unity through autonomy, echoing in their fashion, an article from Sunday's Washington Post on Iraqi partition.

Biden and Gelb offer a five point plan:

To break up Iraq into three regions for the Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs

Give the Sunnis a chunk of oil revenues (about twenty percent) as the area around Baghdad is not flush in oil fields.

Insist on the rights of women, ethnic and religious minorities be safeguarded and respected.

Have President Bush direct the military to withdraw troops to a small residual strength by 2008 (convenient for the presidential election cycle in which Biden hopes to run).

Have a regional meeting under the auspices of the United Nations, supposedly to keep the neighborhood in check.

What is interesting is that now that Iraq has its unity government started with Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki in place, outsiders are ready to tinker some more, waving carrots and butting in even more - and asking for more funding for reconstruction, etc..  No doubt, Senator John Kerry, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Senator John Edwards, etc., will feel compelled to some forth with their unique and self-serving take on all of this to keep ahead in the Democrat primary sweepstakes and to burnish their foreign policy credentials.  It would perhaps be more credible if this plan came from an Iraqi politician with requests from them for help from us rather than vice-versa.  In addition, the degree that this loose confederation could hang together with forces inside and outside Iraq tearing at it will be a huge consideration for them.  This may be a case of be careful what you ask for...

Comments

[Larry]

I don't think it's our place to divide Iraq or determine who gets what part of their oil revenues, but I will give them credit for at least coming up with a plan of some kind instead of just criticizing.