Parting Ways With Bush, Brownback Pushes
Plan to Divide Iraq
By Rob Hotakainen
McClatchy
Newspapers May 4, 2007
WASHINGTON - Sen. Sam Brownback says there's
only one sure way to bring peace to Iraq: Divide the country into three states
and separate the warring factions.
"I'd push more a political solution along with
a military solution in Iraq, and here I would push a three-state, one-country
solution in Iraq, with a Kurdish state, a Sunni state, a Shiite state, with
Baghdad as the federal city. I think we've got to push a political solution,
along with the military, to get to a stable situation in Iraq, which is our key
political issue of the day."
With Congress and the White House at
loggerheads over a proposed timetable to end the war, the Kansas Republican is
part of an unlikely Senate duo that's promoting the plan to partition Iraq.
Brownback and Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, both candidates for
president in 2008, say it would give breathing room for Sunni Muslim Arab,
Shiite Muslim and Kurdish leaders.
"I do not agree with setting a timetable for
pulling out of Iraq," Brownback, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, said in an interview. "The day we pass that is the day al-Qaida
declares victory. ... This three-state, one-country solution is your only viable
political solution."
At the first nationally televised debate for
2008 Republican presidential candidates, on Thursday night, Brownback touted the
plan when he was asked whether he'd differ in any way from President Bush on the
Iraq war. Some political analysts say it could be a risky move for Brownback,
who might lose favor with conservatives by bucking the president.
The Bush administration, which is aiming to
unite Iraq under one strong federal government, dismisses the plan. But it's
winning attention on Capitol Hill, since it's coming from two senators at
opposite ends of the political spectrum, both with serious foreign-policy
credentials.
Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, said the plan would allow the three states to make decisions
involving "their local police, their education, their religion and marriage -
the very things they're fighting over." He said the Iraqi federal government
would be responsible for common interests such as securing the borders and
distributing oil revenues.
Opponents contend that political solutions
can't be imposed on the Iraqis.
"It's awfully hard for us, and frankly maybe
slightly arrogant of us, to try to decide what politically will work for that
country," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee.
Congress had to return to the drawing board
this week after Bush vetoed a war-spending bill that would have forced him to
begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by Oct. 1.
Brownback said the stalemate gave Democrats and
Republicans a chance to come together to end the four-year-old war. And he said
the United States couldn't sustain the war with one-party support.
"There's a chance for both sides to show
statesmanship on this," he said.
Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to
Croatia who's advised the Kurds, is among the most enthusiastic backers of the
plan. Galbraith, who's written a book on the subject, argues that most Iraqis
don't want civil war but have rejected the idea of a unified Iraq. He said
Iraq's new constitution would allow the country's three main groups to establish
their own regions, each with its own government, army and control over oil
resources.
When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was
asked about the partitioning plan recently, she noted that Iraqis aren't
advocating such a structure.
"I don't think it is practical, particularly
along ethno-sectarian lines, to divide Iraq up and give authority based on your
sectarian identification, to say there's a Shia part of the country, a Sunni
part of the country, a Kurdish part of the country," Rice told RealClear
Politics. "Baghdad is a completely mixed city. What becomes of Baghdad? ... If
you try to do this, I think you're going to have an explosion."
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the
University of Virginia, said the Republican presidential candidates would have
difficulty separating themselves from Bush.
"What these Republican candidates are going to
find out, to their dismay, is that the eventual nominee will carry the burden of
the Bush administration and the Iraq war regardless of his position. It makes no
difference," he said. "That's how Americans assess responsibility; they do it by
party. So he (Brownback) can come up with 47 alternative plans, but he is going
to have to defend the Bush administration's Iraq policy, and it may or may not
be defensible by November of `08. Maybe things will be better or maybe they'll
be worse."
Moreover, Sabato said, the candidates run the
risk of angering the Republican base.
"Bush himself - and his Iraq policy - still
gets about a third of the American public support, and that third is almost
entirely Republican - and activist Republican," he said. "They're the people who
vote. So they're stuck. They have to stick with Bush but leave enough daylight
so that if somehow they get the nomination they'll have a prayer of winning in
November."
