Joseph Biden’s Iraq

Today in Iraq a suicide bomber killed 17 police recruits in Fallujah. In Baghdad, 37 people were found handcuffed and shot to death. That 54 people lost their lives in Iraq in one day has become so commonplace that the news did not even warrant a prominent place on The Washington Post web site. As I write this the headline on The Washington Post web site is a story about the Washington Nationals baseball team.

Against this backdrop of mayhem in Iraq, Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie Gelb have put forward a five-point plan to prevent a further slide into Civil War in Iraq. In an op-ed piece in The New York Times, Messrs. Biden and Gelb argue that Iraq should be divided into ethnic federations along the Bosnian model. While it is commendable that Senator Biden has finally proposed a thoughtful alternative to the Administration’s jingoistic and simplistic "stay the course" plan, the proposal does have some fundamental flaws that need to be addressed.

Senator Biden and Mr. Gelb believe that it is a zero sum game between the American military and the insurgents. They state:

As long as American troops are in Iraq in significant numbers, the insurgents can’t win and we can’t lose. But intercommunal violence has surpassed the insurgency as the main security threat.

This is a fundamental misreading of the situation in Iraq. The United States has already lost Iraq. The war in Iraq is not about military victories; it is about local, regional and global politics. The United States military cannot hope to win enough battles in Iraq to reverse the political loss the United States has already suffered. Insurgencies win against foreign occupations not by vanquishing the occupier on the battlefield but by making continued occupation a painful and counterproductive path for the occupier. By that measure the United States has lost in Iraq and the only political and military calculation left to make is how to withdraw and when. The communal violence in Iraq has not surpassed the insurgency but in fact is a direct consequence of the insurgency and America’s inability to quell it. For better or for worse, civil war in Iraq has been a goal of the insurgency. That civil war has made America’s presence in Iraq irrelevant at best and counterproductive at worst.

The centerpiece of the Biden and Gelb proposal is a division of Iraq into autonomous zones along ethnic lines:

The first is to establish three largely autonomous regions with a viable central government in Baghdad. The Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues. Baghdad would become a federal zone, while densely populated areas of mixed populations would receive both multisectarian and international police protection.

This proposal has appeal given, as the authors point out, that Iraq is already headed toward violent division. However, the proposal glosses over some difficult truths about Iraq’s ethnic and geographical structure that cannot be ignored.

First, there are sizable minorities that live within majority Shia, Sunni and Kurdish areas. Any partition into autonomous zones would lead to large scale ethnic cleansing and quite likely violent migration patterns as the minorities flee these newly formed autonomous zones. Though Iraq is distinctly divided into Shia, Sunni, Kurd, Turkmen and other minorities demographically, it is not necessarily divided along those lines geographically (except perhaps in the Kurdish controlled north where ethnic cleansing has already taken place). The proposed division of Iraq is less likely to look like Bosnia and more likely to look like the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947. In that instance there was large-scale migration of Hindus and Muslims resulting in violent clashes and significant loss of life. The end result was a geographical monstrosity that led to three wars and finally the formation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971.

Second, the proposal glosses over the thorny issue of oil revenues. Iraq’s oil fields are largely concentrated in the predominantly Shia South and in the contested city of Kirkuk in the North. The Sunni areas are largely devoid of oil reserves. The geographic distribution of the oil fields is a major stumbling block in any proposed partition of Iraq along ethnic lines. The city of Kirkuk in particular generates half of Iraq’s oil revenue. The Kurds have historically laid claim to this city and will not cede control of the city or its oil revenues under any federalist agreement. Though the problem of Kirkuk has gone largely unaddressed by the United States, I believe it will be the epicenter of a larger struggle for the future of Iraq. With Kirkuk as their capital, the Kurds have ambitions for a greater Kurdistan that spans Iraq, Turkey and Iran. This is a goal the Kurds are unlikely to give up through any negotiation that does not give them full control of Kirkuk and its oil revenues. Turkey and Iran will almost certainly intervene if and when an autonomous Kurdistan in Iraq comes into being. This is a powder keg that will cause major regional instability and is the fly in the ointment of the partition proposal. There is already cross border fighting between Iran, Turkey and the Kurdish region of Iraq and this will likely flare into open warfare in the event of a partition [via Juan Cole].

The other points in the proposal that offer Sunnis financial incentives, offer protection to women, recommend an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces, and recommend convening of regional summits all have merit but are eclipsed by the difficult task of overcoming the demographic and geographical challenges in Iraq. The incentives to Sunnis and the protection of women in fact argue for a stronger central government rather than a loose federation as has been proposed.

Senator Biden and Leslie Gelb have begun the process of exploring alternatives to the current policy of failure. The White House characteristically has rejected this proposal out of hand. However flawed the proposal is it is perhaps the first step in working our way out of the mess in Iraq and hopefully will spur other serious alternatives that may stem the civil war already raging in Iraq. The prospects of turning back from a violent restructuring of Iraq are bleak, but any proposal that attempts to avert further bloodshed should be given serious consideration.