Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Taps for Biden’s federalist plan for Iraq

The semi-separatist drive in the big southern Iraqi city of Basra has petered out, notes Reidar Visser, an expert on southern Iraq who is one of my "proven providers" on  the politics of the country. He says that the notion of loose confederation of Iraq’s three big parts — which has proposed by VP Biden ...

The semi-separatist drive in the big southern Iraqi city of Basra has petered out, notes Reidar Visser, an expert on southern Iraq who is one of my "proven providers" on  the politics of the country. He says that the notion of loose confederation of Iraq's three big parts -- which has proposed by VP Biden and others -- is doomed. "To the new Obama administration, the challenge is to interpret the failed Basra initiative correctly: what it really means is a rejection of federalism (meaning any kind of federalism) in Iraq south of Kurdistan - even in the most fertile ground that exists, and including the tripartite soft partition schemes with which some Democratic politicians have been associated with in the past."

The semi-separatist drive in the big southern Iraqi city of Basra has petered out, notes Reidar Visser, an expert on southern Iraq who is one of my "proven providers" on  the politics of the country. He says that the notion of loose confederation of Iraq’s three big parts — which has proposed by VP Biden and others — is doomed. "To the new Obama administration, the challenge is to interpret the failed Basra initiative correctly: what it really means is a rejection of federalism (meaning any kind of federalism) in Iraq south of Kurdistan – even in the most fertile ground that exists, and including the tripartite soft partition schemes with which some Democratic politicians have been associated with in the past."

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tag: Iraq

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