Joe Biden has long been an advocate of a soft partition of Iraq.

He was a great choice for VP. Soft partition is a perfect place to start finding a political solution in Iraq. It will be up to the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to decide whether they want soft or hard partition or whether they want to start getting along with each other.

The Devil will be in the details.

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Turkey Forms Alliance With Iran Against Kurds

IF THE KURDS WANT TO HAVE THEIR OWN COUNTRY THEY NEED TO STOP MAKING MISCHIEF IN TURKEY AND IRAN , THE QUESTION NEEDS TO BE STUDIED. IT IS PART OF THE BIG PICTURE. THE DEVIL WILL BE IN THE DETAILS. BIDEN HAS PROPOSED SEPARATING IRAQ INTO 3 PARTS. RICHARDSON AND OBAMA HAVE EXPRESSED INTEREST.

Turkey Forms Alliance With Iran Against Kurds

Monday, October 15, 2007 11:15 AM

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman Article Font Size

U.S. ally Turkey and U.S. arch-enemy Iran have formed a military alliance to drive opposition Kurds from bases in northern Iraq they have used since 2004 to launch guerrilla operations inside Iran, rebel leaders told Newsmax at a secret base in the Qandil mountains.

Both Iran and Turkey have vowed to send troops into northern Iraq, but until now evidence of active military cooperation between them has remained a closely-held secret.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up political and diplomatic threats in recent days, telling the United States he would cut off U.S. access to the strategic Incirlik airbase in eastern Turkey if the U.S. tried to prevent Turkey from sending troops against the Kurdish bases in northern Iraq.

Leaders of the Party of Free Life of Iranian Kurdistan, known as PJAK, provided Newsmax with extensive evidence of the Iran-Turkey alliance in two days of exclusive interviews at a secret guerilla base deep in the Qandil mountains. An Iranian Revolutionary Guards outpost was visible on a nearby mountain peak.

“Iran and Turkey attacked jointly on August 16 against our forces inside Iran and against Turkish self-defense forces in northern Iraq,” a PJAK commander using the nom de guerre Xerat told Newsmax at the Iranian rebel base.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards “attacked us across a broad front in the areas of Sardasht, Piranshahr, Shaho, Urmieh, and along the border line,” Xerat said, citing the names of major cities in Iranian Kurdistan where PJAK rebels have been operating.

While those ground operations were underway, Iranian and Turkish artillery simultaneously began shelling civilian villages inside Iraqi Kurdistan from Metina, Zaab, Haftani, and Hakurke in the north, to Haji Oumran, Qalatdizza, Zeh, Marado, and Xinera in the south, he added.

Turkish artillery hit the northern villages, while Iranian gunners hit the southern ones.

Iranian troops attempted to cross into Iraq through the mountain passes, but PJAK fighters held the line.

“The goal of the Iranians is to drive us from the border area,” rebel leader Biryar Gabar told Newsmax. “They want to turn this area into a no-man’s land, so they can use it to smuggle weapons and Islamist guerillas into Iraq to fight the Americans.”

He called the Iran-Turkey entente “an anti-American alliance,” not just an anti-Kurdish agreement, and said that it resulted from deliberate decisions from the ruling Islamist AKP party of Prime Minister Erdogan to transform Turkey into an increasingly Islamist state.

A senior European official, who was involved in talks to bring Turkey into the European Union, told Newsmax recently he had been “stunned” by the hard-line toward the Kurds taken by AKP party leader Abdullah Gul, now Turkey’s president.

“He was totally uncompromising,” the official said. “He took a harder line than the Turkish military.”

Iran has been offering Turkey an economic agreement with Iran in July to build a strategic pipeline that will bring Iranian natural gas to Europe, in defiance of a U.S. led effort to increase the economic squeeze on Iran.

During a press conference in August while he was still foreign minister, Gul defended Turkey and Iran’s joint action against Kurdish guerillas in Iraq.

“They pose a threat to Turkey as well as to other neighbors. Therefore, every country has the right to defend its borders and take legitimate measures for its own security,” Gül said.

On Sept. 9, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani publicly called on PJAK and Turkish Kurdish militamen to leave Iraq, or limit themselves to purely political activities.

Since the liberation of Iraq by the Coalition, PJAK has maintained control of the Iran-Iraq border in this area, and prevented infiltration by Iran or al-Qaida-related terrorists.

The U.S. military sent liaison officers to meet with PJAK in 2003 and again in 2005 to discuss Iranian efforts to infiltrate Iraq, but have not pursued discussions further, PJAK officials said.

“From August 16-24, the Iranians tried to cross the border along the mountain ridge line, but we pushed them back,” Biryar Gabar said.

During the Iranian ground attacks, PJAK learned from its operatives on the ground inside Iran that Turkish officers were acting as military advisors to the Iranian troops, he told Newsmax.

Additional information was gleaned from the interrogation of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards soldier captured by PJAK guerillas who is now being held inside Iraq, and from papers taken from the bodies of 60 Iranian guards troops killed during the clashes.

PJAK fighters have killed 200 Revolutionary Guards troops and lost seven of their own soldiers since the fighting began on Aug. 16, Biryar Gabar said. Another PJAK fighter was wounded, he added.

Since the failed ground offensive by the Iranians, Turkish officers have begun training Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops in counter-insurgency operations at the Soleiman training camp near the Iranian city of Urmieh.

“The Iranians had little experience in counter-insurgency operations, so the Turks are training them,” guerilla leader Xenat said.

“Our friends saw Turkish officers coordinating the operations of the Iranian army in the Kelaresh area,” he added. Kelaresh is in the border region outside of Salmas and Urmieh, Iran.

An exclusive Newsmax source in Iran reported in late August that eight Turkish officers were then in Urmieh, coordinating the anti-Kurdish military campaign with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

At the command level, Iranian and Turkish military officers have held monthly coordination meetings in the Turkish cities of Harakeh, Van, Bashakale, and in the Iranian cities of Urmieh, Mahabad, and Salmas, PJAK officials said.

The Iranian government sent a 12-member delegation to Hakkari, Turkey, for a summit meeting with Turkish officials on Sept. 10, PJAK officials said.

The Iranian delegation included the governor of Urmieh province, Hassan Gaffari Azer, and the deputy commander of the border guards, Coloonel Gurban Ali Muhubi.

They met with the governor of the Hakkari district, Ayhan Nasuhbeyoglu, security chief Cavit Cevik, the commander of the local gendarmerie, Colonel Zuhuri Atilla Ataal, and the governors of two adjoining districts.

PJAK guerilla leaders also pointed to the recent creation by Iran of civilian village guards, known as “jash,” in the Iranian Kurdish areas, as another sign of Turkish military cooperation with Iran.

“The Turkish army used a similar tactic when fighting the PKK in the 1990s,” said Xenat, a former PKK fighter who is originally from Turkey but joined PJAK once the PKK dissolved its military wing in early 2000.

The “jash” village guards act as spies for the Revolutionary Guards to identify PJAK guerilla fighters., he said. They are also dressing up in Kurdish guerilla uniforms and attacking Iranian villagers, pretending to be PJAK fighters.

“The Turks have been fighting a dirty war in anti-guerilla operations for 30 years. Now they are teaching this to the Iranians,” Xenat said.

PJAK leaders said they were countering the Iranian disinformation efforts through political work on the ground inside Iran, and by attacking Revolutionary Guards units and Iranian officials such as judges who had sentenced PJAK guerilla fighters and political operatives to death.

Unlike earlier Iranian Kurdish guerilla groups, PJAK has integrated women into both its political and military wing.

For example, on Sept. 10, PJAK launched a reprisal attack against a Revolutionary Guards base near Shaho, in northwestern Iran, that was coordinated by a female guerilla fighter, said Arsham Kurdman, the head of the PJAK women’s movement.

Twelve Iranian troops were killed during that particular attack, she told Newsmax, while PJAK had no losses.

War materiel captured during that attack is now being used by PJAK fighters inside Iran, she added.

© 2007 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

McCAIN DOES NOT KNOW THAT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUNNIS, SHIITES AN AL QAEDA

GENERAL PETRAEUS HAS SAID THAT VIOLENCE WILL ONLY END WHEN THERE IS A POLITICAL SOLUTION.

McCain does not even know who are the players much less subleties of their interactions.

BIDEN on Iraq: What Will The Region Look Like in 2012?

April 6, 2008 by Babylonians

April 3, 2008

BIDEN: “We cannot continue to make it up as we go along. We must mark a direction on our strategic compass — and deliberately move in that direction.”

Washington, DC – Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE) held the Committee’s third Iraq hearing of the week, entitled “Iraq 2012: What Can It Look Like, How Do We Get There?” The witnesses this morning compromised of experts with a profound understanding of the social, sectarian and political dynamics inside Iraq and in the region. The full panel included Professor Carole O’Leary of American University; Dr. Dawn Brancati of Harvard University; Ambassador Carlos Pascual of the Brookings Institute; Dr. Greg Gause of the University of Vermont; and Dr. Terrence Kelly of the RAND Corporation.

The witnesses offered insight as to what they believe Iraq might look like four years from now and what policies the United States should pursue inside Iraq, in the region and beyond to help Iraq get there.

Next Tuesday, when the Foreign Relations Committee reconvenes, they will hear testimony from Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus. The question they will have to answer with is “After the Surge: What Next?”

The full text of Sen. Biden’s opening statement, as prepared for delivery, is below:

“In some ways, this session is the most important we will have during these two weeks of hearings on Iraq. Before the war began, this Committee warned that the failure to plan and define realistic objectives in Iraq would cause us to pay a heavy price.

“We cannot continue to make it up as we go along. We must mark a direction on our strategic compass — and deliberately move in that direction.

“Ironically, despite all the debate in Washington and beyond about our Iraq policy, there is one premise just about everyone shares: lasting stability will come to Iraq only through a political settlement among its warring factions. So the single most important question you would think we would be debating is this: what political arrangements might Iraqis agree to and what are the building blocks to achieve them?

“Yet we almost never ask ourselves those questions. Today we will.

“We’ve asked each of you to think ahead: in a reasonable, best case scenario, what might Iraq look like politically four years from now, in 2012, and what policies should we pursue now — inside Iraq, in the region and beyond — to help Iraq get there?

“My own view, as my colleagues know all too well, is this: absent an occupation we cannot sustain or the return of a dictator we cannot want, Iraq will not be governed from the center at this point in its history. I believe Iraq’s best chance to remain unified and stable is through a decentralized system of government that devolves considerable power to the local and regional levels, but that has a real, identifiable, and effective central government. In a word: federalism.

“We cannot impose this or any other solution on Iraqis – and we don’t have to because federalism is enshrined in the Iraqi constitution. And it is a vision my colleagues in the Senate and House have endorsed and put into our law. I am not wedded to my plan. If there is a better way to meet our objective of leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind, I will support it.

“As important as defining the objective is how we get there. It is critical, in my view, that we establish a process that gets Iraq’s neighbors and the world’s major powers much more actively involved in helping Iraqis arrive at a political accommodation. Our influence in Iraq is a waning asset. The influence of Iraq’s neighbors and the major powers is a wasted asset.

“I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, who have given great thought to a vision of the future Iraqis might share and how the international community can help them realize it.

“Professor Carole O’Leary is Program Director and Scholar in Residence at the Center for Global Peace at American University. Dr. Dawn Brancati is a Fellow at the Institute of Quantitative Social Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Gregory Gause is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. Dr. Terrence Kelly is Senior Operations Researcher at RAND Corporation. And Ambassador Carlos Pascual is Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here.”

HOW ABOUT PARTITION OF IRAQ AS THE “POLITICAL SOLUTION”

NOT AN IMPOSED PARTITION BUT ONE STUDIED AND WORKED OUT WITH SUNNIS, SHIITES, KURDS,TURKS,SYRIANS AND OTHE ARABS.

The devil is in the details. It is the one way that getting rid of Saddam will have resulted in a better Iraq. Even GW Bush would get some vindication.

Biden has proposed it. Richardson and Obama have given it some credence.

BIDEN HAS PROPOSED A VERY GOOD SOLUTION FOR A PROBLEM THAT HE HELPED TO CREATE.

Federalization or soft partition is not only already in the Iraq constitution but Iraqis are already doing it themselves by leaving the country, building their own walls and ethnic cleansing.

UNFORTUNATELY Joe Biden also helped create the problem that now exists for us by trusting and supporting BW Bush’s use of military force in Iraq.

In defense of Biden :

1. He was trusting and supporting the President in a time of national crisis and before it became apparant that GW Bush was not to be trusted.

2. He assumed that GW Bush would show good judgement in exercising the power given to him. He apparently did not realize the extent to which GW Bush was controled by the Neocons whose agenda was to establish the USA as the world’s undisputed superpower in the 21st century (See PNAC)

PARTITION = THE POLITICAL SOLUTION THAT IRAQIS WANT

(From the Babylonians site)

Shiites’ Biggest Party Supports Federalism
Oct 8th, 2007 by babylonians

October 7, 2007

At a meal at the council’s headquarters in Baghdad to break the fast during Ramadan, [Ammar al-Hakim, son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council] invited journalists to attend and did not object to female reporters not wearing a scarf. On most other occasions, female visitors would be asked to wear a veil.

Hakim is popular among the young generation of Iraqis and is regarded as a tolerant leader.

He was trained by his uncle Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, who was killed in a bombing in Najaf in 2003 shortly after he arrived back in Iraq from exile following the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Outside interference was another factor hurting Iraq, Hakim said.

“Maybe some agendas from outside, which side with this or that, is a reason for the deepening of these problems,” he said without elaborating.

Hakim echoed the view within SIIC that federalism was a good solution for Iraq’s problems, allowing fair competition in the provinces that would allow Iraq’s people to be better served.

He said by forming regions, there would be less competition in Baghdad and therefore less tension over jobs.

“When the central government has very wide authority and it controls everything, therefore everybody wants to ensure their rights in the central government,” said Hakim, who rejects the idea of a specific Shi’ite or Sunni region.

“Last year, the parliament froze forming regions for a year and a half. So now one year has passed and we still have six months in which serious work needs to be done to prepare the ground for people to have their say and … begin forming regions within the timetable we have,” he said.

Iraq’s constitution describes Iraq as a republican, parliamentarian, democratic and federal state but it does not define specifically the degree or nature of the federalism that Kurds and some Shi’ites are seeking in parts of the country.

Sunni Arabs fiercely opposed federalism and worry that it could lead to the country’s partition.

IRAQI PRESIDENT SUPPORTS SOFT PARTITION OF IRAQ

fROM THE SITE OF THE BABYLONIANS (Which is the go-to site for info re: How to clean up the Iraq mess.)

Talabani Supports Proposal to Divide Iraq Into Three Regions

By Catherine Larkin

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani endorsed a plan gaining support in the U.S. Congress to divide Iraq along ethnic lines into three separate regions under a limited central government.

Talabani, a Kurd, said a so-called soft partition of Iraq would prevent civil war among the country’s Shiite and Sunni Muslims and Kurds.

The U.S. Senate voted 75-23 in favor of a non-binding resolution supporting establishment of such a federal system in Iraq. The idea has been championed by Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware and the resolution, approved Sept. 26, was co- sponsored by Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Both lawmakers are seeking the presidential nomination of their parties.

“I think the resolution passed by the Senate is a very good one,” Talabani said today on CNN’s “Late Edition” program. “It is insisting on the unity of Iraq, of the security of Iraq, of the prosperity of Iraq, of national reconciliation and asking our neighbors not to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq.”

The plan calls for the central government to handle national security and distribution of the country’s oil revenue among the three regions. The Iraqi government has been struggling to pass a national law governing how such distributions will be done.

The Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, have expressed opposition to any move to split up the country. Regional officials in Kurdistan have been criticized by the current Iraqi government for signing independent agreements with companies for oil exploration and production.

Talabani was in Washington last week for a meeting with President George W. Bush and members of Congress. The Iraqi leader also said he expected that the country’s army will be able to take over enough security duty so that the U.S. may be able to withdraw more than 100,000 of its troops “by the end of next year.” The U.S. currently has about 165,000 troops in Iraq.

To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Larkin in Washington at clarkin4@bloomberg.net

POLITITIANS WHO NEED TO LEARN HOW TO READ

Babylonian Society
Soft Partition, Confederation, Federation… different names: one hope for IRAQ The politicians who need to learn how to read!
Sep 30th, 2007 by babylonians

Babylonian Society

September 30, 2007

Iraqi politicians are going crazy! The Senate wants to divide Iraq! EXCUSE ME! Did those politicians read the Biden-Brownback-Boxer amendment? Did they even read the Iraqi constitution? Iraq’s biggest tragedy is its politicians’ refusal to deal with reality. 86 years of tragedies… we demand change and Iraq old-style is not working anymore.

In recent op-ed, Sarmad Aqrawi says: “I just can’t understand why people went crazy over the Biden amendment? It’s already in the Iraqi constitution!” He adds: “Supporters of federalism among Shiites and Kurds are attacked for no reason whatsoever.” Aqrawi translated Senator Biden’s call to support his amendment and challenged all Iraqis to find something that would suggest breaking Iraqi laws in the Biden amendment. Here’s the piece translated into Arabic by Aqrawi:

“I urge Congress to pass the Biden-Brownback-Boxer amendment to create a federal system in Iraq, as their Constitution provides, that gives each region of the country control over the daily lives of its citizens, and securing the support of the United Nations and Iraq’s neighbors for this plan.”

Said al-Faham, a Shiite writer says in another op-ed: “I consider Mr. Biden a man who really loves Iraq!” He criticizes the crazy campaign against the Biden amendment saying that: “we think with our hearts refusing to deal with reality. Iraq is a fake state since the day it was born and it’s already divided!”

Al-Faham adds: “we should support Mr. Biden’s plan. This is our last chance and we should not waste it.”

Adnan al-Babili, an Iraqi writer, says in a recent article titled “There’s nothing wrong with partition”: “the Senate’s decision to support federalism in Iraq reflects a realistic approach to the Iraqi conflict. What keeps Iraq united is in fact the American existence.”

It’s time for a new Iraq and nothing will take us back to the old days of persecution. If you don’t like Biden’s proposal, what’s your idea.

There’s that Chinese proverb: It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Please, people stop cursing the darkness and try to light a candle… try to bring hope to the hopeless condition in Iraq like what the Biden-Brownback-Boxer amendment offers and if you can’t light a candle, if you don’t have a idea to stop the killings and suffer Iraqis live with everyday, please shut up!