The Incredible Nothingness Of Joe Biden

It slipped quietly by when the Senate voted (shamefully) 75-23 to support this nutjob's plan to partition Iraq. No one even seemed to raise an eyebrow that Presidential candidate Brownback, and the spineless Texas Senator Hutchison, co-sponsored it.


It should come as no surprise, then, that Biden the bloviator now DEFENDS his foolishness on the very same day as Iraq tells him to pound sand.

My biggest problem with this Biden story is NOT whether Iraq should be partitioned. It IS, however, a very big deal that this clown would suggest we have earned the right to tell them what to do while balancing this against his assertions that we need to leave them be to fend for themselves...by abandoning our military presence there so Iraq might be forced (by some weird miracle) to figure out for themselves how to pacify itself and unite toward the goal of security and sound governance:

"Other Iraqi politicians have said we have no right to tell the Iraqis [what to do]," Biden told reporters. "Let me tell you, we have a right. Three thousand and eight hundred dead. Twenty seven thousand wounded. Billions of dollars. Let me tell you as President of the United States, they'd have to understand full well that if they don't keep their commitment to implement their constitution then they're on their own. And so, ladies and gentlemen, the idea that al Maliki questions whether or not we have a right to express our opinion, he'd better get it straight real quick. "

Given Biden's OWN yardstick, we have earned the right to tell almost every country on the planet just exactly how they are going to govern and conduct themselves.

From where the Iraqis sit, such an idea of slicing the country up into (what would ultimately become) factions, this is not a particularly well-received suggestion:

"The Congress adopted this proposal based on an incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of the history, present and future of Iraq. It represents a dangerous precedent to establishing the nature of the relationship between Iraq and the USA, and shows the Congress as if it were planning for a long-term occupation by their country's troops "

I doubt that's what this "crack" Senator-who-would-be-President had in mind when he fired up this stroke of genius in the first place.

This block of the article is worthy of duplication here:

"But whatever the intended effect by the Senate lawmakers to wade into the debate, the effort has backfired in Baghdad, where the resolution has been interpreted in light of Iraq's history of foreign occupation from the Ottoman empire to Britain and America. Iraqi political parties that have been deadlocked for months have rallied to defend the country's sovereignty and to defeat any effort by another country to shape Iraq's fate."

"We refuse the resolutions which decide Iraq's destiny from outside Iraq. This is a dangerous partitioning based on sectarianism and ethnicity," said Hashim Taie, a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the parliament's main Sunni representation.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political supporters joined their rivals in denouncing the U.S. Senate's measure. "This project is the strategic option for the American administration in its failure to igniting a sectarian war inside Iraq," Nasr Rubaie said. "They started to search for a replacement, which is to divide Iraqi."

Federalism has long proved a charged topic for Iraq. The Sadrists still are seeking a strong national government. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, another large Shiite political faction, also has started to downplay the idea of further weakening an already frail national government.
Leery of American intervention, Rubaie said the powers of the provinces and regional blocs should be defined once the United States has pulled its troops out of Iraq.

Hey Joe (and your sidekicks Brownback, Boxer, Specter, Kerry, Smith[Gordon], Nelson, Hutchison, Schumer, Mikulski, Lincoln, Reid, Feinstein, Brown, Carper, and Salazar) listen up-they want you out, but they want you to leave behind what you promised them when you approved of the war in the first place.

They, like many of US, could give a flip about what that may mean for your Presidential (let alone re-election) aspirations.