Why You Don't Want a Partitioned Iraq

A well-known Senator, who's a long-time member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and guy who pitched himself as a "foreign policy expert" in his short-lived presidential campaign, pitched the de facto partitioning of Iraq Monday.

In an op-ed essay in [May 1st]'s editions of the New York Times, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) wrote that the idea "is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group . . . room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests."

The plan, basically, would create three quasi-autonomous regions, a Kurdish region in the northeast, a Sunni Arab region in central and western Iraq, and a Shi'a Arab region in southern and eastern Iraq.

And, in one fell swoop you would create an oil-rich ally for Iran, a bigger Kurdish problem for staunch U.S. ally Turkey, and a really angry quasi-state of Sunni Arabs living in the resource-poor sands of the west. So, in short, you've poked your friend in the eye, given the Iranians and Syrians just what they want - more friends - and given ethnic and religious militias a better reason to start a no-holds-barred civil war over resources.