Federalism, Not Partition

From the Washington Post

By Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Leslie H. Gelb

<The Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki greeted last week's Senate vote on Iraq policy -- based on a plan we proposed in 2006 -- with misrepresentations and untruths. Seventy-five senators, including 26 Republicans, voted to promote a political settlement based on decentralized power-sharing. It was a life raft for an Iraq policy that is adrift.

Instead, Maliki and the administration -- through our embassy in Baghdad -- distorted the Biden-Brownback amendment beyond recognition, charging that we seek to "partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means.">

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<First, our plan is not partition, though even some supporters and the media mistakenly call it that. It would hold Iraq together by bringing to life the federal system enshrined in its constitution.>

snip

<The White House can hardly complain that we would force unwanted solutions on Iraqis. President Bush did not hesitate to push Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari out of office to make way for Maliki, and he may yet do the same to Maliki.>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100201824.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

:puke: