When it comes to Iraq - Biden is the best candidate we have

The Real Surge Story
Washington Post
By Joe Biden
Thursday, April 12, 2007


Sen. John McCain (" The War You're Not Reading About," op-ed, April 8) is right to warn about the consequences of failure in Iraq. But he is fundamentally wrong when he argues that those potential consequences require us to stick with a failing strategy. It is precisely because the stakes are so great that we must change course in Iraq, now.

McCain wrote that the president's strategy is beginning to show results but that most Americans don't know it because the media cover the bad news, not the good news. Of course, reporting any news in Iraq is an extraordinary act of bravery, given the dangers journalists must navigate every day. But the fact is, virtually every "welcome development" McCain cited has been reported, including the purported anti-al-Qaeda alliance with Sunni sheikhs in Anbar, the establishment of joint U.S.-Iraqi security stations in Baghdad and the decision by Moqtada al-Sadr to go to ground -- for now.

The problem is that for every welcome development, there is an equally or even more unwelcome development that gives lie to the claim that we are making progress. For example:

While violence against Iraqis is down in some Baghdad neighborhoods where we have "surged" forces, it is up dramatically in the belt ringing Baghdad. The civilian death toll increased 15 percent from February to March. Essentially, when we squeeze the water balloon in one place, it bulges somewhere else.
It is true that Sadr has not been seen, but he has been heard, rallying his followers with anti-American messages and encouraging his thugs to take on American troops in the south. Intelligence experts believe his militia is simply waiting out the surge.
Closing markets to vehicles has precluded some car bombs, but it also has prompted terrorists to change tactics and walk in with suicide vests. The road from the airport to Baghdad may be safer, but the skies above it are more lethal -- witness the ironic imposition of "no-fly zones" for our own helicopters.
The most damning evidence that the "results" McCain cites are illusory is the city of Tall Afar. Architects of the president's plan called it a model because in 2005, a surge of about 10,000 Americans and Iraqis pacified the city. Then we left Tall Afar, just as our troops soon will leave the Baghdad neighborhoods that they have calmed.

This month, Tall Afar was the scene of some of the most horrific sectarian violence to date: a massive truck bomb aimed at the Shiite community led to a retaliatory rampage by Shiite death squads, aided by the Iraqi police. Hundreds were killed. The population of Tall Afar, 200,000 a few years ago, is down to 80,000.

There is an even more basic problem with McCain's progress report, and it goes to the heart of the choice we face in Iraq. Whatever tactical progress we may be making will amount to nothing if it is not serving a larger strategy for success. Alas, the administration's strategy has virtually no prospects for success.

The administration hopes that the surge will buy time for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to broker the sustainable political settlement our military views as essential to lasting stability in Iraq.

But there is no trust within the government, no trust of the government by the people it purports to serve and no capacity on the part of the government to deliver security or services. There is little prospect that the government will build that trust and capacity anytime soon.

In short, the most basic premise of the president's approach -- that Iraqis will rally behind a strong central government that looks out for their interests equitably -- is fundamentally and fatally flawed.

If the president's plan won't work, what will? History suggests only four other ways to keep together a country riven by sectarian strife:

We allow or help one side to win, which would require years of horrific bloodletting.
We perpetuate the occupation, which is impossible politically and practically.
We promote the return of a dictator, who is not on the horizon but whose emergence would be the cruelest of ironies.
Or we help Iraq make the transition to a decentralized, federal system, as called for in its constitution, where each major group has local control over the fabric of its daily life, including security, education, religion and marriage.
Making federalism work for all Iraqis is a strategy that can still succeed and allow our troops to leave responsibly. It's a strategy I have been promoting for a year.

I cannot guarantee that my plan for Iraq (detailed at PlanforIraq.com) will work. But I can guarantee that the course we're on -- the course that a man I admire, John McCain, urges us to continue -- is a road to nowhere.




Visit JoeBiden.com

occupiers out.
Yesterday.

Kucinich's plan, HR1234 deals with this reality in a much more realistic and feasible way, for all parties concerned.

Until we give up our long term goals of permanant American bases in Iraq, of permantent access to Iraqi natural resources, we will continue to be targets.

But he wants us to leave by leaving some sort of order in that country.

He wants to turn over the power in that country back to its citizens.

I like his plan because I feel like we went into Iraq and screwed everything up. I think his plan at least gives the Iraqi's a plan for their own success, and we can get the hell out of there.

I agree that as long as we are there, we are targets. Why doesn't this administration see that?

I'm not sure Biden has called for no American presence in Iraq.


This is from Biden's plan
http://planforiraq.com/download



Biden's plan is certainly better than the non-plan we have now, but if you read the Kucinich plan you might like what you see. I think it's a better plan than Biden's.

I'll have time to read it later.

The rest are varying degrees of worse than those two IMO (not necessarily bad, but not as good).

Is none of these 3 (yes I'm including Biden)
are in the top tier.

I don't get it.

That's the last thing it should be about.

It's like a game. Candidates have to cater to the groups that will finance them.

double post - computer went offline for a minute!

moving to early primary dates. A lot of it is centered around money and coverage. Debates are where if any of these three are going to get into the race need to make their impact and gather momentum.

and looks like a complete idiot by suggesting we put troops in Darfur. So, to sum up: Troops in middle of civil war in Baghdad = bad, troops in middle of civil war in Darfur = very workable! Has he not seen "Blackhawk Down"? Does he not see the hypocrisy of his position?

I don't know if military would be the best thing there.
I really don't know what would be.:shrug:

on edit - I just went back and read his comments

"Let's stop the bleeding," Biden said. "I think it's a moral imperative."

Under U.N.-backed agreements approved last fall, a hybrid force of 22,000 African Union and U.N. peacekeepers are to be deployed in Darfur to protect and provide relief for 2.5 million Darfurians who have been forced from their homes and are now confined to camps.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4706101.html

2.5 mill people forced from their homes! Something has to be done.

there. If so, that's utterly unrealistic, especially given how stretched our military is now and how unsuited they are to getting in the middle of a civil war. If the UN is sending some peacekeeping troops in, that would be great--we just aren't the right ones to really get involved this time around, as far as military goes. Humanitarian relief, certainly.

of the Iraq mess of all the candidates at the moveon.org forum the other night. I like the redeployment strategy that Kerry and Feingold proposed last June best - now almost a year has gone by so I am not so sure whether or not Biden's plan would be better now. Biden's plan seems to count on a lot more cooperation than my intuition believes is possible. I really dont know so I will not say it can't work.

Edwards 2008