Thank you for this post.  Joe Biden has been out talking about stopping this war for years.  I cant say I have seen another one of the candidates who was more in front of this than Joe.  Hopefully people will start taking a more serious look at him.

nice post

He was great on MTP Sunday, except, alas, at the very end (which I'll get to in a moment). He argued forcefully that, even if the surge was a tactical success, the strategic plan was fatally flawed. He scored a big point when he said that the troop surge should have been accompanied by a US led diplomatic surge (at which point my wife and I turned to each other and said in unison, "Where's Condi?!"). And the story about how the nine mile drive from the Green Zone to the Baghdad airport involves evasive maneuvers four years after "Mission Accomplished" is game, set, match.

The only negative? He still won't cutoff funding. Afraid to have the blood of a single soldier on his hands. Joe -- no funding, no war. The old adage about, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging? Well, we continue to dig. Just imagine where we might be now if the Senate had cutoff funding back in March. We'd be 6 months closer to getting out.

But, overall, I still think you're a big plus and I'd take you over the media darlings any day.

The situation in Bosnia is quite different. For one thing, the European Union is there holding a carrot, and the warring parties knew that if they behaved they might get significant aid from the EU or might even be invited to join the EU one day (by the late 1990s it was clear that other former Communist countries like Poland and Hungary might one day get to join the EU).

Second, there were no major regional powers funding and arming the warring parties in Bosnia. OK, Russia was offering a little diplomatic support for the Serbs, but that is nothing compared to what Iran does for the Shia and Saudi Arabia does for the Sunni side in Iraq.

Why would those countries go along with Biden's partition?

Third, Turkey (our NATO ally) would have real problems accepting a semi-autonomous Kurdish state right next door.

I understand where Biden is coming from, but I think his federalism plan would never work for Iraq.

the Iraq Debacle.

I think Biden's partition plan for Iraq is quite misguided.  A solid majority of Iraqis want to keep a single, central government.  Over 90% of Sunnis feel that way, and they're the group most responsible for the insurgency, the group being ethnically cleansed.  But they don't see this as an acceptable solution.

Most of our problems in the region seem to stem from Western countries imposing political solutions that the locals don't want.  Could we maybe let the Iraqis make their own decisions, just this once?

Oh, and I almost puked hearing Tim Russert recite Biden's position on defunding (he doesn't want "blood on his hands").  Does that mean the Democrats who do favor withdrawal DO want blood on their hands, Sen. Biden?  Choose your words a little more carefully when it's members of your own party you're indicting.  And it doesn't help that he's 100% wrong on the merits, too; no one is going to run out of bullets in the middle of firing their gun, that's a ridiculous scenario, but it won't look ridiculous if people like Biden keep reinforcing it!

Why is Biden ignored?  Because he polls at ~1%?

(I know, I know, one can hardly turn on a Sunday show without hearing his bloviating, but let's play along).

Biden has lone been one of the leading Democratic Hawks and voted to authorize the war and fund it along the way.

My view is that he is only opposed to the war because it was poorly managed, not because it was a bad idea or morally wrong.  He probably figures he could better run wars.  I want less war, not better-run wars.

Also, who is he to suggest the remedy is partition?  That's how the Middle East tinderbox was created in the first place post WWI, with a bunch of white folks in the West deciding how to carve up peoples far away.  Polls suggest a strong majority of Iraqis oppose the partition and Sir Pomposity's big plan is to impose it on them.  That's not going to work, at least not without many, many, many more troops and deaths.

If Gravel was not in the race, Biden would be my least favorite of all the candidates.  Can't wait until his pompous ass is out of Congress. Hope Jr. loses to another Democrat  so we can be done with the Bidens.

Biden's plan to decentralize the government in Iraq is the right course of action. It reminds me of another country with which I am familiar, Belgium. Belgium is a country separated by a language/cultural border. To the north and West is Vllanderen (Flanders to the Brits) occupied by Dutch speaking people and to the East and South is Wallonie (Wallonia to the Brits) occupied by French speaking people. In the upper Northeast portion of the country is a tiny German speaking region but this is  incorporated into Vllanderen. In the center of the country stands Brussels, the capital of Belgium, home of NATO and the western capital of the European Union.

Many years ago Belgium was ruled by the French speaking people that looked down upon the Dutch speaking people and treated them like second class citizens. The Dutch rightfully objected and rebelled. To settle their differences the country was partitioned with a language border with Brussels being the decentralized capital with limited powers but just enough power to allow the country to function as a viable whole.

Belgium is by no means a perfect country. Many Dutch speaking people still harbor hard feelings about the French speaking people and visa versa. But they disagree civilly because Brussels allows them to function largely independent from one another. And if you were to travel to Belgium you would find the difference between Vllanderen and Wallonie remarkable. It is like they are two different countries. But in fact they are both parts of the same country. A country remarkable for it's diversity and it's comity. And a country that is host to our most important militarily strategic organization and the center of the Western European Union. If you don't believe me travel to Brussels sometime and see for yourself how different and how open the city is.

I consider the Brussels experiment to be a framework for how the Biden plan could work in Iraq. And I fully support Joe Biden's plan to create this decentralized government in Baghdad. Just take a look at Brussels and see for yourself how this plan can work. Better yet, visit Brussels. It is a beautiful city in a beautiful country.

I complained when the Clinton folks did it, I'm going to complain here as well.  If you don't get the post up on your specified day (you have 24 hours to do so) then you lose your chance.  6am on Friday is CLEARLY not Thursday anymore.

I think Jerome needs to think about this a little deeper.

Looking at the second tier candidates for the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination
Biden,Dodd,Richardson.

Biden has the potential of making in the top tier slot with Hillary and Obama. Edwards candidacy will collapse. Edwards-2008 candidacy is similar to Dean/Gephardt- 2004.  

"Many in the blogosphere community look to the past as much as the future, so I would like to point out that had our government listened to Biden in 2003, the Iraq War never would have happened." - Transplanted Texan

The past is prologue to the future, and listening to Biden was part of the problem during the run-up to the invasion. In 2002, many Democrats in the Senate followed Biden and voted for Bush's AUMF in Iraq. With his supposed foreign policy experience and access to intelligence, he should have shown leadership by voting against the AUMF. But he didn't. And today, this bloviating sack of do-nothing pretends to know what is good for Iraqis?

Biden has done enough damage. He needs to halt his paternalistic talk about the US redrawing Iraq the way a parent directs a child to clean up his or her bedroom. The Iraqis have the smarts, desire and self-esteem to settle their own disputes and rebuild their own future without help from the self-anointed great white father from the Mid-Atlantic.

Biden's path to redemption begins by supporting legislation to end the occupation, and not some meaningless troop draw-down head fake that helps Bush kick-the-casket down the road until January 2009. But he won't do it.

It would be extremely useful for those proposing partition to educate themselves a bit.

A place to start:

http://hnn.us/articles/42598.html

Further, Mr. Visser's website, http://www.historiae.org, is invaluable.

So how is it that Biden becomes an expert on Iraq via his eight trips to "Iraq" ('5 more than Clinton, 7 more than Obama")? He has no Arabic, no area knowlege, and indeed, one might argue that he has never been to Iraq, but rather some American construct of an imagined Iraq.

We need a bit more intellectual rigor on these issues.

I have seen some critiques of Biden's plan but I have yet to see anyone else propose a viable political settlement. Granted, Biden's plan is not perfect. And yes, it would have to be imposed upon the Iraqis in all likelihood. So if his solution is not to your liking and a political solution is the ONLY solution that will work, what is YOUR political solution for Iraq? It is not enough to criticize Biden's plan, provide one of your own. To the best of my knowledge he is the only politician in the country that has actually proposed a political settlement. Care to make that statement untrue?

We need to withdraw, but we need to leave behind a political solution when we do to prevent another Darfur and a second US invasion.

Any political 'solution' the US leaves behind will never be embraced. We leave, chaos will ensue, perhaps even Iran takes the opportuntity to leverage some influence. Blood shed is imminent, whether in small quantities over a long period, or in great quantities in shorter periods. The 'political' landcape is fraught with tribes, weapons and decades-old differences that Westerners cannot resolve (see British occupation, early 20th c.)

But while a single armed US soldier remains there outside of an embassy, we will continue to be perceived as invaders and occupiers, and we will continue to pay dearly for it. I respect Senator Biden for his efforts, but the invasion and subsequent occupation have run the Iraqi ship into the iceberg, and it is going to sink - no 'political' solution from these shores can avert that. The country just may indeed descend into a Darfur-like tragedy, but if so it is because it is imminent - other than nuking the place into a parking lot and scaring the hell out of everyone left standing, I suspect there is little anyone can do to avert it.

All I know is, its costing us dollars we don't have, and lives we can't spare, and leaves the US badly undefended. Its time to leave NOW.

"prevent another Darfur" ??

Since 1991 we have caused the deaths of two million Iraqis, completely destroyed the civilian infrastructure and the health care system, dismantled civil society, destroyed the economy and instituted a previously unknown sectarian political system.

There are four million plus refugees, twenty percent of the children under the age of five (who make it that far) are 'so malnourished that their growth is stunted.' Half the children in Baghdad are so traumatized that they stutter and or wet their beds.

And so on, and on, and on...

"prevent another Darfur" ????

Please.

I have seen all other candidates also creating channels on searchles similar to the one Biden has done. Great tool.