« Virginia GOP To Nominate Senate Candidate Through Convention, Not Primary | Home | 
Barnes: Rudy Switching Position On Public Funding Of Abortion »
Barnes: Rudy Switching Position On Public Funding Of Abortion »
Biden And Brownback Team Up In Iowa To Promote Iraq Plan
Joe Biden and Sam Brownback teamed up across party lines yesterday to speak in Iowa, promoting their plan to divide Iraq into a loose federal state.
The two underscored how important it is to bring about solutions across both Shia-Sunni lines in Iraq, and Democratic/Republican lines in America.
"The solution to our situation in Iraq is, quite frankly, more important than who will be the next president," said Biden. "It is like the boulder sitting in the road."
"The divisions are so deep, the stakes so high and the time so short," Brownback said, "that we owe it to ourselves to bring all sides to the table and resolve the major issues facing Iraq."
Advertisement
Biden & Brownback . . . Third Tier candidate powers unite!
Please tell me there is a sex video involved.
October 13, 2007 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
«offtopic»
Linking to a Politico piece, Steve Benen blames South Carolina (it's the environment stupid) for the reemergence of mass smearmail connecting Obama to madrasses, terrorism, terrorists etc.
Except Steve somehow misses/overlooks/ignores the key graf where Schlussel et al. identify Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for pushing the story about Obama’s Muslim heritage..
Politico:
Lovely.
«/offtopic»
October 13, 2007 11:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is promising, embrace it. We have two candidates, who don't have a chance at winning their respective nominations, embracing an idea that can force both of their parties to ponder an alternative. And a reasonable alternative at that. Let's give this legs for a while, see where it goes and let it become something that Hilary/Obama and the Repulican will debate about. It might be the most solid solution, albeit one founded on quicksand.
October 13, 2007 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with Biden's proposal--it overlooks the fact that Iraq is a SOVEREIGN NATION. If the Iraqi people elect to have a weak central government or break the country up into three new entities, that's for them to decide. Seems to me the country has only gotten worse as we try invain to implement democracy as we know it in America in Iraq.
October 14, 2007 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
According the Chi. Trib Hakim's son
who supposedly is being groomed to
take over SIIC someday says partition is the way to go as it will strengthen Iraq. The only other Iraqi politicians that aren't vehemently opposed to it are not surprisingly the Kurds.
That said Maliki's central government provides no services and is looting the treasury.
It's not only not our prerogative to decide what form their government will take we don't have the power to force what we want on them anyway. But what they heck, let's send Biden and Brownback to Iraq as co-ambassadors so they can discover that for themselves.
Occupying Iraq isn't the solution to the problem, it IS the problem.
October 14, 2007 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Imperial America! What happened to the concept called "self determination"? Are we falling into the trap of "America knows best"? Do we just ignore the polls of Iraqis with the majority wanting to keep the country together?
These guys are channeling Woodrow Wilson and the 1919 "let's divide the world up" that keeps coming back to bite us.
October 14, 2007 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
stlounick... self-determination doesn't apply to any brown, black or yellow people (and damn few white people too).
An outmoded idea. Best to get with the program of rampant fasco-capitalism.
October 14, 2007 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Bring all sides to the table" ... and then chop that table in three??
Block that metaphor! Or maybe "partition" it.
October 14, 2007 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that it isn't America's right to force this now-oh-so "sovereign" country to take a form of our choosing. Not that we won't try!
However...
1) Their proposal is an idea that should be debated here and in Iraq.
2) Can't it be argued that de facto partitioning of Iraq based on ethnic and religious lines is already happening?
3) Aren't all the regional players forcing the partition of Iraq anyhow? And since they are, how can you stop it? The US military sure isn't doing the trick.
4) Even recent history shows that troubled states without a strong central government/military are bound to dissolve along religious and ethnic lines (ala Yugoslavia, USSR).
I say we start the conversation regarding this now, see if it has legs and get the hell out of there if it does. This actually might be the fastest way we can withdraw our troups and that Iraqis can have some semblance of security and truly be sovereign. However, Turkey would probably invade Northern Iraq the minute we withdrew...so what the hell do I know?
October 15, 2007 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink