Senate Endorses Plan to Divide Iraq. (That was the plan all along, I was there).

I have mentioned my visit to Purvin & Gertz ( http://www.purvingertz.com/ ), a Houston-based petroleum consulting group, here before.

While standing in their main conference room, talking to Blake Eskew ( http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/web/%252522blake%252Beskew%252522/1/-/1/-/-/-/1/-/-/-/1/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/417/top/-/-/-/1 )in early '03, I noticed a whiteboard in an open cabinet at the end of the room. On that board was a hand-drawn map of Iraq with the country divided into three parts. Written under the map were the words "Population Redistribution".

I said, "Damn, Blake, that map sure looks familiar".

Poor bastard almost had a heart attack.

I have oft wondered who was in that room before I got there. The water pitchers and glasses were still on the table.

This is where this thing has been headed the whole time.
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Senate Endorses Plan to Divide Iraq
Action Shows Rare Bipartisan Consensus

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 26, 2007; 3:38 PM

Showing rare bipartisan consensus over war policy, the Senate overwhelmingly endorsed a political settlement for Iraq that would divide the country into three semi-autonomous regions.

The plan, conceived by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), was approved 75-23 as a non-binding resolution, with 26 Republican votes. It would not force President Bush to take any action, but it represents a significant milestone in the Iraq debate, carving out common ground in a debate that has grown increasingly polarized and focused on military strategy.

The Biden plan envisions a federal government system for Iraq, consisting of separate regions for Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish populations. The structure is spelled out in Iraq's constitution, but Biden would initiate local and regional diplomatic efforts to hasten its evolution.

"This has genuine bipartisan support,and I think that's a very hopeful sign," Biden said.

One key Republican supporter was Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who under strong White House pressure last week abruptly withdrew his support for a proposal to extend home leaves for U.S. troops. Numerous Republicans considered supporting the extension, but they backed off when Warner reversed his stance. The veteran GOP lawmaker called the vote on the Biden plan "the high-water mark" for bipartisan efforts on Iraq this year.

read on:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092601506_pf.html

Or is he just lucky?

These are the guys who tell Cheney what to do.

Check out the links I provided.

All according to plan...

and now you decide to divide the country up... What about what the Iraqi's want? The audacity of these people never ceases to astound me.... Wonder how the citizens of the US would like to have a military force do what the US has done to Iraq?

The Senate is expressing support for a measure in the Iraq Constitution.

The Senate didn't pass a law, and even with that the Bush admin seems to be against even supporting what the Iraqis want.

Check out those links in my post.

These guys are the guys who tell Cheney what to do. I have known them for a long time. They are motherfuckers.

once the reconciliation process begins, the Democrats have even more leverage to call for a firm deadline for withdrawal. Reconciliation means there is no need for American troops to be on the ground in Iraq. Maybe that's why Bush cronies are over there meddling and impeding the process. The Bush admin is intent on slowing reconciliation in Iraq.

Iraq was one of those Middle East countries that was put together by Westerners, the Brits and the US, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

We're so fucking arrogant as a nation it isn't even funny.
We think we can put countries together, and then take them apart and rearrange the parts later.

I think this "split 'em into 3 parts" plan was an early option, if not a goal, of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

And read a little about this guy, Peters:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1924114&mesg_id=1924484

We cannot control Iraq, but since we cannot our goal has become to prevent the winning Shia side from taking full control of their state. Why would we engage in such a protracted and potentially genocidal form of warfare? It boils down to containment of Iran. As you can see from recent legislation on Iraq War appropriations, the bipartisan view of Official Washington is that our problem in Iraq is called IRAN. We've lost Iraq, so now the goal becomes keeping Iran, and their friends, from enjoying its victory, and to prevent them from building on that victory.

At the outset let's note that partitioning a sovereign state is a violation of the United Nations Charter and a warcrime. We'll say no more about that though since the United States clearly doesn't recognize any international laws or treaties as binding upon itself. Naturally we will never say that we are encouraging the partitioning of Iraq, (we are just proponents of Federalism!) but the fact is that we are now arming two sides of an internal conflict-a potentially genocidal conflict whose least horrific, practical outcome would be partition of the traditional territory of the state called Iraq, with our armies parked in the western splinter state as "peacekeepers", shielding it as a protectorate--and using it as a base to project power eastwards.

1) We failed to set up a unified client state in post-Saddam Iraq. That goal is finished, the book on that is closed. The US cannot withdraw support from the central government as yet, however, since to do so would be fatally embarrassing--after all, it was our creation. To acknowledge that we now view the government of Iraq as an enemy state, a client of Iran, gives the lie to official proclamations that the Iraq War has been the greatest achievement for the Free World since victory in World War II. It also makes the War Party look so incompetent that the only politically viable option, if the full horror of their bungling were acknowledged, would be full & immediate withdrawal from Iraq, with an Amendment added to the Constitution barring the President from ever attempting anything like this again. But awareness of the magnitude of US errors is kept at arm's length from the public by BOTH parties. Public debate about Iraq is a backwater of outdated information and stagnant platitudes--meanwhile the planning for the next phase goes on in private. Our leadership have tacitly come to accept that the Shias are more influenced by Iran than they will ever be influenced by us, and also that they can't be stopped "democratically". They outnumber the Sunnis 3 to 1 and since the Sunni Arabs do not have any effective coalition with the Kurds, who don't consider themselves Iraqis at all, the Shia are left as the masters of Iraq with no counterbalance. That is, if Iraq maintains its current recognized shape and retains full sovereignty. As the Shia see things, they do not need to compromise with their Sunni minority. No matter what incentives we dangle before them we don't seem to be able to change the fundamental alignment of Shia factions with Iran, nor their determination to run Iraq unassisted by the Sunni minority. The Sunnis can't accept losing top dog status and will fight to deny control of Iraq as a unified nation state to the Shias--and even if that is a futile goal they will fight to the death to deny the Shia control over Anbar Province. THERE in Anbar therefore is our permanent beachhead in a splintering--and eventually partitioned--Iraq. We have Saudi backing and the Sunnis there need us. Even if the Shia factions demand we leave Iraq, Anbar is our means of staying--basically forever. Fine, we'll say, but Anbar is not part of Iraq, and we have been invited by the autonomous local authorities to stay there and defend the Sunnis against a Shia led genocide. The Shias themselves have helped initiate partition by ethnically cleansing major cities of Baghdad and Basra as well as provinces. The fears, requirements and habits of bipartisan American foreign policy will now push it the rest of the way.

2) The Saudi Royal family are adamantly demanding that we support the Sunnis in the western province, the same folk who did the most to kill us after our invasion. The Saudis don't need a genocidal civil war spilling over on their eastern frontiers. They have their own Shia minority to worry about. We are complying with Saudi wishes, as predicted by Sy Hersh's reporting on the "Sunni Realignment" of our M.E. strategies. They (the Saudis) demand a buffer state between them and the soon-to-be-aligned-openly-with-Iran Shia state of Iraq. The Sunnis of Anbar regard Iraq as lost to them now, but will never stop resisting any attempt to impose control over their home province from the Shia led central government. That and Saudi influence with their sheihks is why they are now willing to bury the hatchet with us, and make common cause against the Shia, and common cause against the national government in Baghdad.

3) The Shia dominated national government in Baghdad can never allow Anbar province to go its own way. The Kurds are long gone down the road of secession, but Anbar is too important. Not because there is oil in Anbar--there isn't any--but for reasons of fundamental real estate.


As you can see from this map, the eastern reaches of Anbar province push right to the suburbs of Baghdad. No state on earth would allow its territory to split away so close to its capital. Anbar also represents a third of Iraq's territory. A Western nation "peacekeeping" force in Anbar would be parked literally on Baghdad's doorstep and could surround the Iraqi capital in a few minutes. A couple hours later and that invasion force can drive to the far eastern border of Iraq and will have split the country in two right through its middle. There's such a force sitting in Anbar right now. Today's US occupation force in Anbar will be tomorrow's re-invasion spearhead. We will call it a peacekeeping force, the Iraqis will see it as a sword at their throats. (This is what the cryptic expression "residual force" means in the bleatings of our candidates--a force left behind in the rump state of Anbar to threaten Iraq and contain Iran). Letting a province of the size and location of Anbar go its own way would be an intolerable security threat to any country on Earth, and no country on Earth would let it go without a fight to the end.

And in three steps we have assembled all the ingredients needed for a civil war--a classic, textbook civil war, not a maybe it is civil war, and maybe it's not, depending upon interpretations.

Thanks to the ever evolving meddling of the United States, this conflict is becoming a sectional as well as a sectarian blood letting.

The long range goal of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment is containment of IraN. (Or if you find that phrase exasperating, the shared aim is aggression against Iran.) Since even Bush can see that Iraq is lost to us, what we now fight for, and make our (bipartisan) plans for--plans including the partition of the state in a civil war--is to deny Iran's allies in Iraq their full control over the Iraqi state with the usual presumptions of full sovereignty and territorial integrity. If we cannot control Iraq in toto, we will at least make sure no one else can, by chipping away provinces that we can control, like the Sunni west and the Kurdish north. The centerpiece of U.S. "containment" of Iran over the next few years will be keeping the Iranians reacting to us by destabilizing their newly won client state in Iraq.

As for what the Iraqi people want, we have arrived at juncture of changing conditions and evolving motives where, like an Israeli Prime Minister speaking of the Palestinians, we would now say there are no such people as Iraqis. There are only Sunnis, Kurds and Shias. Some are useful to us, some are agents of Iran.

How about you letting them decide for themselves, after you brought them "freedom'n democracy"?

:grr: :grr: .grr:

---------------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

A few key facts about the Biden amendment:

* The legislation does not tell Iraqis what to do. It speaks only to what U.S. policy should be.
* Federalism is not a U.S. or foreign imposition on Iraq. Iraq's own constitution calls a "decentralized, federal system" and sets out the powers of the regions (extensive) and those of the central government (limited). The Constitution also says that in case of conflict between regional and national law, regional law prevails.
* Federalism is not partition. In fact, it's probably the only way to prevent partition or, even worse, the total fragmentation of Iraq.
* Federalism will not accelerate sectarian cleansing; it's the only way to stop it. Iraqis are already voting with their feet, as yesterday's article in the New York Times demonstrates. Before the surge, Iraqis were fleeing their homes at a rate of about 40,000 month; now, it's about 100,000 a month. Unless Iraqis come to some kind of agreement on sharing power peacefully, the cleansing will continue.

to see the US get their collective asses out of Iraq and let the Iraqi people fix their own country. The longer the US stays there, the worse the situation gets. Just get the bleep out...

1) it will take a year to get out and

2) Iraq will be completely destroyed by a wider civil war that will turn into a regional war that will be even worse.

Biden's solution is the only hope left. Everyone's realizing this now.

with you there and the Iraqi's are in serious jeopardy of having their oil stolen on them...

there is a solution that will stem the killing and allow us to get out responsibly. Take a look at Biden's answer last night in the debate. He said absent a political solution, he would pull out, but as long as there is a political solution that is possible, he will push for that so we can responsibly get out.

government have to nudge them toward anything? If we start withdrawing troops, I'm certain they'll cancel summer vacations and come up with a plan on their own.

US troops, I'm certain that the Iraqi's would figure out how to work together to get their country back together.

if We divide Iraq up it will be easier to pit them against one another and steal their resources. The Saudi's will be able to suck dry one portion and when Iran tries to influence another we will use that as an excuse to attack Iran.

Some rules of the game never change.

By JackRiddler
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=266566

And it is going to happen, Emit.

Check those links I provided. These are the guys who tell Cheney&Co what to do.

edited to thank you for the link, Emit.

the thick of this as well... I am sure that Iraq is under the dissecting knife at this moment... Oil stealing is real hard work don't ya know?

I'll bet that would be damned interesting as regards the proportioned map..

http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/mideast/info/maps/middle-east-military-and-oil-map.html

It might be a little outdated, though -- copyrighted in '03.

It's been all transparent from the beginning.