A bi-partisan plan to divide Iraq?

The Democrats have long demonstrated that they are not really an opposition party as far as the Iraq war is concerned. The division plan may ultimately be the policy adopted but at present it still seems the US is trying to forge some sort of unity by giving the Sunni's some power within the central government but the civil strife within the country may generate more support for division as time passes.

White House, Democrats reported in “compromise” talks on Iraqi partition
By Bill Van Auken
26 June 2007


Top Bush administration officials have reportedly opened up talks with leading congressional Democrats aimed at forging a “compromise” plan for reducing US troop levels in Iraq that is predicated on the country’s partition along sectarian lines.

These discussions, first reported Sunday by the Los Angeles Times, are said to involve both US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Washington’s former ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, who now represents the US at the United Nations.

Citing unnamed government officials, the LA Times said that these two and others “have been quietly talking with lawmakers about how to adjust policy in the months ahead.” The report added, “Among other ideas, they have discussed whether the United States should advocate a sharply decentralized Iraq, a notion that has seen a resurgence on Capitol Hill.”

The newspaper account cast the informal talks as an attempt by the administration to preempt another partisan debate on the war like the one that accompanied the congressional vote last month, in which the Democrats engaged in weeks of antiwar posturing before delivering the votes required to pass the $120 billion “emergency” war funding bill sought by the White House.

It quoted an unnamed administration official as stating that President Bush and other top officials in the administration “realize they can’t keep fighting this over and over.”

The Democratic congressional leadership has indicated that it will renew its bid to attach language proposing timetables for the partial withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and limiting the length and conditions of deployments in the occupied country.

Leading Republicans as well have indicated that they are expecting a shift in course by September, when the top US military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker are set to give reports to Congress on the progress of the military “surge” that has deployed an additional 30,000 troops in the country, and on the level of compliance by the Iraqi puppet regime with “benchmarks” set in Washington.

The reported talks are presented by the LA Times largely as a matter of party politics, with the newspaper noting that “the odds of compromise are long,” given the Bush administration’s refusal to accept any withdrawal that would “imperil Iraq” and the Democrats’ reluctance to “sacrifice a crucial 2008 campaign issue if they agreed to a deal with the White House.”

However, the reported talks between the administration and congressional leaders on an alternative policy based on the ethno-religious partition of Iraq have far more significant implications. They provide an indication of the growing desperation within the American political establishment over the deepening debacle in Iraq and a warning as to the level of criminality to which Washington is prepared to resort in order to secure its interests there.

The apparent willingness of senior administration officials to discuss with congressional leaders proposals for Iraq’s partition comes in the context of the failure of the surge to quell resistance to the US occupation or reduce overall violence in Iraq, while American casualties are hitting record levels.

On the day after the publication of the LA Times report, a suicide bomber struck a meeting of US-aligned tribal leaders at a central Baghdad hotel, killing 13 and wounding dozens more. Meanwhile, the past week saw at least 30 US troops killed and many more wounded.

Senior military officers have warned that the present surge cannot be maintained indefinitely without pushing the current strain on the US armed forces to the breaking point.

The proposal to partition Iraq is designed to divide the country into three autonomous mini-states ruled along sectarian lines by the three largest ethno-religious groups—Shia in the south, Sunnis in the center and west and Kurds in the north. It envisions US troops—albeit in substantially reduced numbers—continuing to occupy the country indefinitely on the pretext of conducting “counter-terror” operations, training Iraqi forces and protecting US interests.

All of the so-called “antiwar” bills proposed by the Democratic leadership before it capitulated fully to White House demands also included provisions for this “reduced mission,” which would undoubtedly involve the continued deployment of tens of thousands of American soldiers and Marines in Iraq.

Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been the most vocal proponent of the partition plan. According to the LA Times report, UN Ambassador Khalilzad, who left the embassy in Baghdad in April, has organized discussions on the plan with Biden and his co-sponsor of legislation proposing partition, the right-wing Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Both men are seeking the presidential nomination of their respective parties.

Also sponsoring the legislation are Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida, as well as Republican Senators Gordon Smith of Oregon and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

Other Republicans have voiced cautious interest in the plan. Maine Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican, made one of the more revealing comments on the proposal. “It’s essentially giving federal approval to ethnic cleansing,” she said. “On the other hand, nothing seems to be working.”

Ethnic cleansing is the inevitable result of the Biden plan, and its supporters routinely cite the breakup of the former Yugoslavia as the model for their proposal.

In Iraq, such an ethnic-territorial division has horrific implications. Before the 2003 US invasion, fully one third of all marriages in Iraq were between Shia and Sunni. Every major city in Iraq is multi-ethnic, and the proposal for partition would turn each of them into far more bloody battlegrounds than they are today.

Substantial minority populations, like the hundreds of thousands of Turkomans concentrated in the area of Kirkuk, would be disenfranchised and prey to expulsion as part of this partition. Their plight would bring with it an increased potential of Turkish intervention against the Kurdish state.

The essential attraction of such a plan for those in the administration and the US Senate who are now reportedly discussing it is not its prospect for reducing sectarian violence in Iraq—just the opposite would be the inevitable result. Rather, it is a classic example of the old colonial strategy of divide and rule being played out once again in the Middle East.

The division of the country into three relatively powerless statelets would pave the way for the carve-up of Iraq’s oil resources by US-based energy conglomerates, which would dictate their own deals to the newly “autonomous” regions.

The seeds for such a political dismemberment have already been planted. First, the occupation authority headed by L. Paul Bremer institutionalized the division of the spoils within the Iraqi puppet regime along ethnic lines. This was followed by the adoption of a new constitution in 2005 which included the right of “regions” to form their own security forces and manage their natural resources.

The drive to implement a new oil law—the most important benchmark imposed by Washington on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki—only serves to deepen sectarian divisions.

The announcement Monday that the new US-dictated law had been approved by the Iraqi cabinet and would go to the parliament for debate was accompanied by a storm of criticism that the al-Maliki government had caved in to pressure from Kurdish separatists to cede even greater control over the distribution of oil revenues.

The law opens up Iraq’s oil sector to exploitation by foreign corporations for the first time since the early 1970s. Critics of the law have warned that it will represent a profit bonanza for foreign energy conglomerates, while depriving Iraq of both control over its resource and the lion’s share of the benefits derived from its exploitation.

Issam al-Chalabi, who served as Iraq’s petroleum minister from 1978 to 1990, told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram that the new law is a “ready-made recipe to divide Iraq.”

The concept of partition has been most actively promoted by supposed “liberals” identified with the Democratic Party, such as Peter Galbraith, the former US ambassador to Croatia under Clinton, and Leslie Gelb, a former assistant secretary of state in the Carter administration and columnist for the New York Times, both of whom have written extensively on the proposal.

Biden, while posturing as a critic of the Bush administration over the Iraq war, himself voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing the US invasion and has voiced his full support for the illegal policy of “preventive war.” His central criticism of the White House was the failure to send in more troops after the US invasion of 2003.

That Biden’s plan for carving up Iraq is now getting a greater hearing within the Bush administration is only another indication that the Democrats, no less than the Republicans, are prepared to carry out the most heinous crimes against the Iraqi people in pursuit of the key objective that has driven the war from its outset: the securing of unchallenged US hegemony over the Middle East and its strategic energy resources.

Collusion between Bush and Democrats on Iraq

This is very controversial in places. Chin just blithely and without qualification states that 9/11 was planned and executed by the US govt.! Certainly I don't find the official story very believable but I doubt that the US government planned and executed the attacks. At the most the government let them happen and knew something about them but did not act.

Iraq war funding bill fiasco masks collusion between Bush and Democrats
Expansion of Middle East oil war is a bipartisan imperative


by Larry Chin

Global Research, May 26, 2007





On May 22, 2007, Washington’s Democrats obediently capitulated to the Bush administration, handing Bush a war spending bill completely stripped of conditions that would, in any way, slow the administration’s relentless Middle East conflagration. In fact, the new bill is an even more egregious blank check for a massive “surge” of Bush administration violence throughout the region, opening the door for a war with Iran. New Iraq “benchmarks” pushed by the Democrats themselves will result in new atrocities and more bloodshed, funded by the Democrats themselves.


In refusing to definitively corner a scandalized Bush administration, the Democratic Party leadership has earned itself a tidal wave of rage, vitriol and disgust from Americans who harbor any illusions that the Democrats have any intention of ending the war, or “bringing the troops home”.(see Entire US government failed us on Iraq by Keith Olbermann, and Funding Iraq occupation without deadlines or time lines is a travesty)

The Democrats’ open betrayal of their own constituents, their resounding slap in the face to the vast majority of the American people (70% of whom oppose the war) lays bare the true nature of the Democratic Party, and the US government itself. Dick Cheney stated with smug confidence weeks ago that the Democrats would surrender. Now, the Democrats have not only tossed away their own credibility, and their dreams of future political gain. They have fully revitalized Bush-Cheney and the Republicans.

Bipartisan criminal consensus confirmed

The US political and economic system, ruled by consensus, is deeply criminalized. It thrives on war and oppression. It is an elite racket, sustained by resource conquest, collusion, fraud, lies, cover-up, and the indoctrination and manipulation of minds. “The people”, whose votes never count, are viewed with contempt.


The Republicans and Democrats are factions of the same criminal New World Order, funded by the same criminal interests, beholden to the same think tanks, foundations, corporations and military-intelligence-industrial interests, following the same geopolitical script, written by bipartisan consensus.

Given this reality, it is no surprise that the Democratic leadership has kept its promise to keep the impeachment of Bush and Cheney “off the table” and reach “across the aisle”. Consensus interests are at stake.

The vast majority of the Democrats, particularly the corrupt Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), want the war and bloodshed to continue.

The vast majority of Democrats are, and have always been, enthusiastic and willing partners in the “war on terrorism” and are co-architects of an ever-expanding "homeland security" apparatus.

The vast majority of Democrats do not oppose the war in the Middle East. They support its expansion and the deepening of the occupation, as long as it is “managed” properly, and under the control of a US-led international consensus.

As Michel Chossudovsky wrote in America's "War on Terrorism":


“The Democrats are not opposed to the illegal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor are they opposed to the militarization of civilian institutions, as evidenced by their 1996 initiative to repeal the Posse Comitatus Act [which has now been completely obliterated by the Bush administration, the Patriot Act, and other post-9/11 acts]. Moreover, their perspective and understanding of 9/11 and the “war on terrorism” is broadly similar to that of the Republicans.

“This ongoing militarization of America is not a Republican project. The ‘war on terrorism’ is part of a bipartisan agenda. Furthermore, successive US administrations since Jimmy Carter have supported the Islamic brigades and have used them in covert intelligence operations.”

The vast majority of Democrats do not want the troops to come home. They support the permanent presence of the US in the Middle East, as much as the Bush administration does. The largest embassy/military base in the world is being built in Iraq as you read this.

The Democrats want Iraq’s oil, as much as their neocon partners do.

The Democrats and Iraq oil

Perhaps most telling of all, the vast majority of Democrats want to steal Iraq’s oil as much as the Bush administration does. They, too, understand Peak Oil and Gas and energy depletion, and the imperial need to seize and control what little is left.

In a glaring development unreported by the mainstream media, the Democrats’ spending bill specifically forces the privatization of Iraqi oil to multinational corporations, and other strongarm measures that further strip Iraq of its sovereignty.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of the very few Democrats (along with Mike Gravel, another presidential candidate) who have been willing to denounce their own party’s venality, courageously exposed this aspect of the bill, on the floor of the House. (See Kucinich claims war masks real objective: Iraqi oil; Has Anyone in Congress or Mainstream Media Actually Read Bill?; Kucinich reveals Dem funding bill includes privatization of Iraq oil)

The Democrats worked very hard with the Bush administration and the Republicans to make sure these key provisions were written into the bill. So much for the liberal/progressive rhetoric.

The next phase of the “war on terrorism”
The new blank war check, this massive rejuvenation for Bush’s neocons, at the same time that Bush has quietly written a presidential directive giving himself dictatorial powers , in the event of a “catastrophic 9/11-style event”. Both the Bush administration and the Democrats are actively planning this event, and preparing for ways to consolidate their powers in its aftermath.

Bush-Cheney has also written a new directive for the destabilization of Iran, which will be fully supported by the Democrats.

An attack on Iran, delayed from the original spring date, is simply being pushed to the summer or fall of this year, when the destabilization program “bears fruit”.

The small minority of Democrats who actually oppose the war, and have truly opposed the Bush administration have been politically neutered, and rendered insignificant. Others have been blackmailed and intimidated, forced to cooperate.

The congressional Democrats have, in the course of numerous “probes”, exposed a variety of the Bush administration’s crimes since being given the majority of the Congress. But these investigations are limited hangouts that pose no real threat to the Bush “crime family”, that have come nowhere near exposing Bush, Cheney, Rove, etc. The mass murder of 9/11, and the “war on terrorism” remain the focus of purposeful and tight-as-a-drum consensus cover-up. Individuals who should have long ago been jailed and subjected to capital punishment for treason and murder are, instead, continue to rule the planet, and commit crimes at will.

The eternal blank war check
Any illusions that the Democrats will ever “end the war” or “bring the troops home” were erased months ago, when the (then-confident) Democrats floated a deceptive policy “limiting US forces in Iraq to fighting ‘Al-Qaeda’”. This itself was the recipe for endless, eternal war.

The “Al-Qaeda” and 9/11 fictions are bipartisan products. Neoliberals, progressives, and neocons alike have uniformly embraced and promoted the propaganda that all opposition to the US war and occupations, all insurgencies and resistance, is “sectarian violence’ linked to “Al-Qaeda”. Any “enemy” of US interests are connected to “Al-Qaeda”, or eventually transformed into “Al-Qaeda”.

Beyond the rhetoric and posturing, the true bipartisan agenda, captured in the language of all of the war legislation, is crystal clear. No limits to the war. No limit to troop strength. No limit in scope. No change in US policy. No opposition, but absolute knowing cooperation, with the Bush administration.

So brazen is the Bush administration, that George W. Bush continues to retell debunked criminal lies over and over, on camera, into microphones, years later. Just yesterday, Bush devoted an entire speech at the US Coast Guard Academy to the lie that 9/11 and Iraq were connected.

Following Bush’s goose-stepping lead, Republicans immediately fell in lockstep behind their dictator, issuing flatulent repeats of the original 9/11 falsehoods and reiterations of Bush’s own 9/11-Iraq connection. Republican Congressman John Boehner stupidly weeped, “3,000 of our fellow citizens died at the hands of these extremists, when are we going to get them?”


In another reach into the old playbook, Bush “declassified” intelligence fabrications about Osama bin Laden, "Al-Qaeda", and Zarqawi. In the new fiction, Bush-Cheney places this Al-Qaeda “super terror cell” is placed in the middle of Iraq.

With this propaganda, Iraq conveniently is magically transformed into the “hotbed” of Al-Qaeda, and the staging ground for operations within the United States.

Bush boasted:

“In the minds of Al-Qaeda leaders, 9/11 was just a down payment on violence yet to come. It is tempting to believe that the calm here at home after 9/11 means that the danger to our country has passed.”

Given the fact that Al-Qaeda (including Osama bin Laden, and Zarqawi) is a creation and a military-intelligence asset of Anglo-American interests, and given the fact that the US government planned and executed 9/11 (using these assets as its front), Bush is simply promising that his administration intends to ratchet up its attacks against the American populace, and the world. He is confident that the masses, particularly the dumbed-down and acquiescent American populace, will never figure it out.

The danger posed by the Washington consensus has never been greater


Larry Chin is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Larry Chin