Joe Biden on Iraq

While Joe Biden may be a bit too self confident for my tastes, he is a smart guy who is capable of getting beyond the usual politician's mindless soundbites, and give a clearly thought out, specific policy presecription. From time to time I even agree with him, as is the case with the attached article by him in the National Interest entitled, "Breathing Room" -- The National Interest . I strongly encourage those interested in Iraq to read Senator Biden's excellent article.

By acknowledging that ethnic separation has shown its merits in Bosnia as being the lesser of several evils, he puts forward elements of Les Gelb's plan (which Les presciently first wrote about in 2003) for ethnic separation and federalization of Iraq as a solution to be worked towards in order to stabilize the country and get us out. He calls for an international effort to help make this happen (I prefer challenging the Arab League to come in and help make this happen, not the feckless UN), and for some form of proportional sharing of oil revenues. In the latter regard, I point out a piece in Forbes by Steve Forbes ("Slick Solution", November 13th) where he puts forward an "Alaska Plan" of sharing oil revenues among Iraqis -- if 25% of every oil dollar generated in Iraq were to be given directly and proportionately to every adult in Iraq (today every Alaskan gets over $1,000 per year this way), Iraqis could perhaps be expected to move with a lot more determination to stop the mindless violence that has been disrupting oil production. This "democratization of oil revenues" plan would also cause tremors in the Arab world (perhaps yet another reason for the Arab League to get involved in Iraq -- to quash such a crazy idea before it spreads).

In any event, whatever it takes to get us out of Iraq without totally destabilizing the region worse than it is now....