Posted on 05/01/2006 6:25:58 AM PDT by edpc
A decade ago, Bosnia was torn apart by ethnic cleansing and facing its demise as a single country. After much hesitation, the United States stepped in decisively with the Dayton Accords,which kept the country whole by, paradoxically, dividing it into ethnic federations, even allowing Muslims, Croats and Serbs to retain separate armies. With the help of American and other forces, Bosnians have lived a decade in relative peace and are now slowly strengthening their common central government, including disbanding those separate armies last year.
Now the Bush administration, despite its profound strategic misjudgments in Iraq, has a similar opportunity. To seize it, however, America must get beyond the present false choice between "staying the course" and "bringing the troops home now" and choose a third way that would wind down our military presence responsibly while preventing chaos and preserving our key security goals.
The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group — Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests. We could drive this in place with irresistible sweeteners for the Sunnis to join in, a plan designed by the military for withdrawing and redeploying American forces, and a regional nonaggression pact.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yeah, really. Suddenly, Plugs thinks he's some sort of international diplomat/problem solver.....
So Biden is supporting States Rights?
Joe Biden is not exactly known for a track record of formulating successful foreign policy.
It's a no-brainer to suspect that if dividing Iraq was in the best interests of anyone (Iraq, US, Turkey, Iran, etc etc etc...) then it would have been the nation-building model we helped the Iraq govt to work out.
Did I say no-brainer? How apt. The scarecrow from "Wizard of Oz" always comes to mind at the name "Joe Biden"
Biden is the same idiot that said we should look to France for advice on how to handle affairs
The last I looked .. there were riots in the streets of France
I'll take a pass on that advice
It seems to have evolved into the "Cut Up and Run" strategy.
Can you imagine the Sunni and Shia states competing to see which can win Iran as an ally to destroy the other? The state that doesn't get Iran's support will turn to the crazies for support.
While this is going on Turkey and Iran will be happily dismembering the Kurdish State.
Just a thought about Unity.
The Democrats, the 6 Generals and Powell said we didn't have enough troops in Iraq when we went in March 2003.
Was it planned like that by Rumsfeld, Frank and Myers or did they follow same plan the Clinton Administration set up five years ago?
Don't they have a contingency plan for Iraq in Pentagon since 1998?
I'm sure Military planners formulated war plans a long time ago because Saddam didn't want to cooperate after the ceasefire in 1992.
It becomes more apparent for contingency planning because President Clinton signed "The Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998" into law.
Here's part of it.....
H.R.4655
Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
Passed House (Amended) by Yea-Nay Vote: 360 - 38 (Roll No. 482).
(Important parts about our Armed Forces involvement.)
SEC. 4. ASSISTANCE TO SUPPORT A TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ.
(a) AUTHORITY TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE- The President may provide to the Iraqi democratic opposition organizations designated in accordance with section 5 the following assistance:
(2) MILITARY ASSISTANCE- (A) The President is authorized to direct the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training for such organizations.
Except at the end of "The Wizard of Oz" we find out the scarecrow had a brain the whole time.
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