Northwest Progressive Institute Blog Endorses Biden Plan For Iraq
Posted 9/13 by Alan at NPI, Redmond, WA:
“Will Bush Push The Official Collapse Of Iraq Past Election Day?”
“Joe Biden, me, (the author) senior Iraqi leaders, Les Gelb, and unnamed experts have one thought in common: partition of Iraq is inevitable, and better to do it soon, in an organized way, than wait for the bloodbath to run its course.
Meanwhile, George W. Bush is reading from Al Qaeda travel brochures while standing in front of a map of Iraq, telling the same lie over and over (and admittedly getting a few more adherents after each speech.)
Democracy in Iraq is no longer leading the speech, because democracy has failed, and whatever happens after the Congressional elections, the next Bush mistake won’t be the democracy promised eight short months ago.
In August, Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, repeated in compelling terms a plan for order and stability that involves partition, a plan developed with Les Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations. (”A Plan to Hold Iraq Together,” Washington Post, August 24, 2006.)
The whole Biden piece is worth reading. Finally a way out. A hard way, no doubt, but better hard reality than simplistic fantasy.
“Iraq as a political project is finished,” a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding, “the parties have moved to plan B.” He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them, and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population.
It’s time to get the security and reconstruction on the road, by admitting the inevitable and enabling the natural domestic leadership to take responsibility and giving the indigenous population, over 60% of whom are unemployed, a job rebuilding their country.
Or wait until the day after the election to see what Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney have in mind.”
Read more of this NPI article, including a map of Iraq with possible political geo-breakouts, by clicking here.
Read Sen. Biden’s Five-Part Plan For Iraq by clicking here.
