Of all the candidates, Republican and Democrat, I am compelled to support Biden’s position on Iraq (he has a "five point plan" that I urge you to review at www.joebiden.com). Further, I believe he is the only candidate who has the skill, experience, and judgment necessary to sucessfully implement this plan.
What I find particularly appealing is that this plan recognizes the cultural reality of the Iraqi people and does not believe in just walking away from the situation. Instead, Biden advocates a change in direction that promotes stability and modifies our troops mission there, thus enabling a safe and successful phased withdrawal.
I have to admit, as the wife of a Black Hawk pilot who faces another deployment in 2008, I have strong feelings about getting our troops out of Iraq (I can’t even REALLY think about it b/c it makes me so sick to my stomach with dread, worry, frustration, anger, sadness, fear), but I want it to be done correctly. I don't want my husband going back in 3 or 5 or 10 years. I don't want my sons inheriting a war 100 worse than the one we have today.
Using military force to quell sectarian violence and compel an artifice of cultural and political homogeny among three very distinct groups, all of whom have a history of intolerance, violence, and distrust toward one another, is painfully misguided and guaranteed to fail.
We have created a governmental system in Iraq that fails to recognize the fundamental incompatibility of the Sunni, the Shia, and the Kurds by requiring an unrealistic level and degree of commitment and cooperation among them. Our current policy, which refuses to acknowledge the incompatibility of the newly created Iraqi government with the reality of Iraqi lives, is the height of American, as well as Western, ignorance. We are imposing Western ideals on Iraq with no regard for whether those ideals are feasible, or even desirable, to its citizens.
I believe the presence of combat troops with the current mission of suppressing violence in isolated areas while remaining committed to a flawed governmental structure is unwise, to say the least. If we are going to commit military resources (machine and human) and American dollars to reforming Iraq, then it should be done so promoting a feasible governmental structure that has a chance at stabilizing the country.
I agree with Biden that we need to scale back the American presence significantly although not necessarily suddenly. Our military presence should be less OFFENSIVE and more DFENSIVE, serving in a security (site protection) and training capacity while a new Iraqi government is created.
According to Sen. Biden, we should assisting in the creation of a federal government with three autonomous states participating in a limited central governing body. I found Senator Biden’s logic regarding this idea quite compelling.
In advocating a federal government with a central body of limited powers, Biden wrote:
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History suggests only four other ways to keep together a country driven by sectarian strife. And it’s not to put American troops into a city of 6.2 million people to try to quell a civil war. Throughout history four things have worked. You occupy the country for a generation or more. That’s not in our DNA — we’re not the Persian Empire or the British Empire. You install a dictator. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony for the United States — to go back after taking one down and install another one? You let them fight it out until one side massacres the other — that’s not an option in that tinderbox part of the world."
He continues, "Or lastly, you make federalism work for the Iraqis. You give them control over the fabric of their daily lives. You separate the parties. You give them breathing room. Let them control their local police, their education, their religion and marriage. That’s the only possibility: change the focus to a limited central government and the federal system that their constitution calls for.
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The creation of a limited central governing body in Iraq would increase our chances of stabilizing the country. Each group would have control over its own state while cooperating minimally at the federal level to address issues such as the control and distribution of oil revenues.
I agree that we cannot walk out on Iraq as it is today. I think we need to phase out our "combat" troops while simultaneously creating a new security and training mission for those that remain while the Iraqi government is reformed. Only than will Iraq have a chance at the peace and stability that is so important for that region
I also take issue with candidates that think we need to "send a message" and bring all our troops home, leaving Iraq with a government form that SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK. The idea that our leaving will fix THAT shocks me. Republicans keep saying if we stop the violence, then the government will work; but maybe the violence can’t be stopped, in part, because the government CANNOT work (even under peaceful conditions). Perhaps the violence is not the problem, but a SYMPTOM of the problem.
I also believe it is the height of American irresponsibility and folly if we leave Iraq before changing the direction it is headed in. Iraq currently lacks will lack the stability necessary for SUSTAINABLE peace.
The war will not end for America just because we removed our troops from Iraq. American fighting may temporarily cease, but the war WE started will not be over. The chicken will come home to roost, so to speak. One such chicken that continues to haunt this farm master-minded the largest and bloodiest attack on our country that we have ever suffered at the hands of a foreign power.
If NOTHING else, Afghanistan should have taught us that when we enter and leave nations in crisis on a whim, it does not pay to be short-sighted in our understanding of terms like war and peace.
Biden, of ALL candidates, appears to be looking at the BIG PICTURE here. Peace for America and peace for the Iraq is not as easy as pulling troops out and hoping for the best. Not only is this irresponsible, it is also unwise.