In an op-ed article in The New York Times, Biden, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, said the Bush administration's effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad had been a failure, doomed by ethnic rivalry that had spawned widespread sectarian violence.
"It is increasingly clear that
President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor," said Biden and co-author Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Iraq's Sunnis, the driving force behind the insurgency, would welcome the partition plan rather than be dominated by a Shiite-controlled central government, Biden said.
He said the division of Iraq would follow the example of Bosnia a decade ago when that war-torn country was partitioned into ethnic federations under the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords.
Biden billed his plan as a "third option" beyond the "false choice" of continuing the Bush administration policy of nurturing a unity government in Iraq or withdrawing U.S. troops immediately.
Well, call me crazy, but isn't the current government structure in Iraq one that was designed by representatives elected by the Iraqis themselves? What sort of message would we be sending to Iraqis if we were to change their government now?
The citizens of Iraq put their lives on the line by risking violence to go to the polls and vote for the people who designed this government and serve in it. They did this three times. Don't you think it would be a slap in the face of all those in Iraq who have embraced democracy for some blow-hard American politician to come along behind them, tell them they got it all wrong and then set up something entirely different?
I think so.
For better or worse, Iraq is in the hands of Iraqis. We've sold them on the idea of rule through democracy and the will of the people. Let's not go disabusing them of that notion just because some Democrat back here at home wants to score a few political points.