Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick Joseph Biden advocates Three Autonomous Ethnic Regions in Iraq

Daya Gamage – US Bureau Asian Tribune

Washington, D.C. 28 August (Asiantribune.com): Senator Joseph Biden, a veteran foreign policy expert for 35 years in the United States Congress who currently chairs the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been an influence on Senator Barack Obama on foreign policy for some time.Barack Obama’s selection of Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential candidate last week drew mixed reviews in Iraq because of his advocacy to divide the country into autonomous regions along sectarian and ethnic lines.

It was his lack of foreign policy and national security credentials that Barack Obama, the Democratic Party candidate for this November U.S. presidential election, selected Senator Biden to be his vice presidential running mate.

In mid-2006 Biden, then the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed three ethnically divided autonomous regions for Iraq.

Mr. Biden’s so-called soft-partition plan — a variation of the blueprint dividing up Bosnia in 1995 — calls for dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions, held together by a central government. There would be a loose Kurdistan, a loose Shiastan and a loose Sunnistan, all under a big, if weak, Iraq umbrella.

“The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group — Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests,” Senator Biden wrote in The New York Times Op-Ed column on May 1, 2006. “We could drive this in place with irresistible sweeteners for the Sunnis to join in, a plan designed by the military for withdrawing and redeploying American forces, and a regional nonaggression pact,” he wrote.

The Biden Plan, as it was called, proved remarkably popular in the U.S. Senate — in September 2007 it faced a Senate vote and passed with the support of 75 senators, including 26 Republicans. The non-binding measure did not compel the President to act, only expressed the will of the Senate. Hillary Clinton voted with Biden; Obama and McCain did not vote at all.

But Senator Biden never gave up. The following statement by Barack Obama shows that Joe Biden has had some influence over Mr. Obama on an important foreign policy issue of dividing countries that face internal ethnic issues into autonomous regions or awarding ‘homelands’ which could be a vital foreign policy plank of a future Obama-Biden administration.

In a July 2007 town hall campaign event, Obama said, "[Partition] may end up being the best solution, but here's the thing. We can't impose it on the Iraqis. The Iraqis have to make the decision themselves…. If the Iraqi government believes that it can form a unified government they should do that. If they want a soft partition, they should do that. If they want us simply to leave, we can do that too. But they have to make a series of decisions."

Senator Obama has left the issue wide open for discussion without totally rejecting it or avoiding it as he, and McCain, did when the Senate vote came up.

Barack Obama’s selection of Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential candidate last week drew mixed reviews in Iraq because of his advocacy to divide the country into autonomous regions along sectarian and ethnic lines.

Two years ago when Mr. Biden advocated the solution it drew sharp criticism, especially from Sunni Arabs who opposed autonomy provisions that were written into the Iraqi constitution of 2005.

“Basically, this is an internal American affair, but it is giving us cause for concern because Biden was clear in his call to divide Iraq according to sectarian and ethnic lines,” said Sunni lawmaker Adnan al-Dulaimi.

USA Today editorial on August 25 said: “Biden’s command of foreign policy and his acquaintance with foreign leaders are impressive assests, but they don’t guarantee good judgment. He’s been wrong on Iraq, voting against the 1991 war to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait but for the resolution that President Bush used to justify his reckless 2003 invasion.”

The question is how much influence Joe Biden will exercise on Barack Obama on areas of foreign policy and national security in an Obama-Biden administration?

Senator Joseph R. Biden and Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb first laid out a detailed five-point plan for Iraq on May 1, 2006 in a joint op-ed in the New York Times. Since that time, the Biden-Gelb plan has sparked much intellectual debate - from left, right and center. The plan is a chance to achieve the objective most Americans share: to leave Iraq without leaving chaos behind. After a month of hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examining different options for Iraq and with the release of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in January 2007, the Biden-Gelb plan emerged as a clear path forward.

The Five-Point Plan advocated by Senator Joe Biden is:

1) Maintain a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis breathing room in their own regions. The Iraqi constitution already provides for federalism. The central government would be responsible for common interests, like border security and the distribution of oil revenues.

2) Secure support from the Sunnis - who have no oil -- by guaranteeing them a proportionate share (about 20 percent) of oil revenues, allowing former Baathists to go back to work and re-integrating those with no blood on their hands.

3) Increase economic aid, asking oil-rich Arab Gulf states to fund it, tie assistance to the protection of minority rights and create a jobs program to deny the militia new recruits.

4) Convene a regional conference to enlist the support of Iraq's neighbors and create a Contact Group of the major powers to enforce their commitments.

5) Ask our military for a plan to responsibly withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq by 2008 - enough time for the political settlement to take hold - while refocusing the mission of a small residual force on counter-terrorism and training Iraqis.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq - a consensus report of all U.S. intelligence agencies, released 2/2/07 - makes clear the need for a political settlement based on federalism, as called for in the Biden-Gelb plan.

The NIE identifies developments that could "reverse the negative trends driving Iraq's current trajectory," including: "broader Sunni acceptance of the current political structure and federalism" and "significant concessions by Shia and Kurds to create space for Sunni acceptance of federalism." These elements are central to the Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq.

The NIE also warns of the danger of Iraq's civil war becoming a regional war, which underscores the urgent need for a regional diplomatic strategy that involves Iraq's neighbors in supporting a political settlement or containing the violence should reconciliation fail, as called for in the Biden-Gelb plan.

Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke in the Clinton administration and a veteran foreign policy expert who is strongly tipped to be the Secretary of State in a Obama-Biden administration told the Washington Post which the paper carried on 24 October 2006: "I urge [President Bush] to lay out realistic goals, redeploy our troops and focus on the search for a political solution. We owe that to the Iraqis who welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and put their trust in us, only to find their lives in danger as a result. By a political solution, I mean something far more ambitious than current U.S. efforts aimed at improving the position of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by changing ministers or setting timelines for progress. Sen. Joe Biden and Les Gelb have advocated what they call, in a reference to the negotiations that ended the war in Bosnia in 1995, a "Dayton-like" solution to the political situation -- by which they mean a looser federal structure with plenty of autonomy for each of the three main groups, and an agreement on sharing oil revenue."

The consensus in Washington is that Joe Biden will fill in the gaps in the areas of foreign policy and national security in Senator Barack Obama’s credentials. And if Mr. Biden becomes an important foreign policy and national security advocate in a Obama-Biden administration the Biden-Plan which was advocated for Iraq can be possibly used as a guideline for other areas in this world where separatist sentiments smolder, whether for independence, autonomy, ethnic homeland, or realignment with another country. Dozen such places can be identified at present:

Kurdistan: The region dominated by ethnic Kurds that stretches across Iraq, Turkey and Iran has never been independent, although it came close in 1920 before Turkey vetoed the partition. Turkey invaded Iraq this year to chase Kurdish separatist guerrillas. In July 2008, the Turkish government blamed Kurds for a pair of bombings that killed 17 in Istanbul.

Crimea : a Peninsula in the Black Sea that former Soviet leader Khrushchev made part of one of the Soviet provinces Ukraine in 1954, Crimea remained Ukranian when the Soviet Union bloke up in 1989. But now, with Russian anger building over Ukrainian aspirations to enter NATO, there is increasing tensions over the area, which has a Russian majority.

Kosovo : Once a part of Serbia, but with a largely Albanian population, Kosovo recently was recognized as independent by Western Europe and the United States. Russia had threatened to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia which are located within the borders of the Republic of Georgia if the West recognized Kosovo. Russian military invaded the two territories in early August 2008 pushing Georgian forces aside.

Chechnya : The Russian province declared independence in 1991. Russian troops invaded in 1994, withdrew after a 1997 peace treaty, and returned in 1999. A low-grade conflict continues, but the intensity of fighting has declined since 2004 as a pro-Russian president has consolidated power.

Kashmir: Kashmir has been the object of dispute between India and Pakistan since the British partitioned the subcontinent in 1947. The two countries, along with China, which asserted control over part of the territory in 1962, observe an uneasy standoff over the region.

Mindanao : a Muslim region in the south of the Philippines. Islamic rebels fighting for decades to win an independent nation.

Sri Lanka:: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) popularly known as Tamil Tigers are fighting the Sri Lankan state to win an independent state for minority Tamils in the Northern and Eastern regions of the country since late seventies. The Tamil Tigers accuse the government which they say is controlled by the majority ethnic group Sinhalese has for decades discriminated against the minority Tamils. Currently Tiger separatists have been militarily defeated in the eastern region, and the government forces have penetrated into LTTE held areas in the northern region with remarkable success. An US State Department official last year advocated a ‘Homeland’ for the minority Tamils in the northern and eastern region which the government totally rejected. Nevertheless, US advocate regional autonomy for minority Tamils.

Asian Tribune