Seems pretty clear to me. I hope they'll get it. Just abandon it and try again. From scratch. No face-saving maneuvers, please. Just paying attention and including some real experts on all of the multiple intertwined issues in the process. There is no way a bunch of folks from the US can fathom what is going on here by themselves.
| Normally, I'd think State and the Senate were playing good cop/bad cop. But the Senate ain't that subtle. Or smart. |
In a highly unusual statement, the U.S. Embassy said resolution would seriously hamper Iraq's future stability. "Our goal in Iraq remains the same: a united, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself," the unsigned statement said. "Iraq's leaders must and will take the lead in determining how to achieve these national aspirations. ... attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed," it said.
The statement came just hours after representatives of Iraq's major political parties denounced the Senate proposal.
And much of that was probably putting it together, too!
The Kurds in three northern Iraqi provinces are running a virtually independent country within Iraq while nominally maintaining relations with Baghdad. They support a formal division, but both Sunni and Shiite Muslims have denounced the proposal.
At a news conference earlier in the day, at least nine Iraqi political parties and party blocs — both Shiite and Sunni — said the Senate resolution would diminish Iraq's sovereignty and said they would try to pass a law to ban any division of the country. "This proposal was based on the incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of Iraq's past, present and future," according to a statement read at a news conference by Izzat al-Shahbandar, a representative of the secular Iraqi National List.
Well, the Iraqis don't seem to be doing much better themselves, do they?
On Friday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told The Associated Press that "dividing Iraq is a problem, and a decision like that would be a catastrophe."
Iraq's constitution lays down a federal system, allowing Shiites in the south, Kurds in the north and Sunnis in the center and west of the country to set up regions with considerable autonomous powers.
Nevertheless, ethnic and sectarian turmoil have snarled hopes of negotiating such measures, especially given deep divisions on sharing the country's vast oil resources. Oil reserves and existing fields would fall mainly into the hands of Kurds and Shiites if such a division were to occur.
Why doesn't the US just keep it until they come out with a workable solution that all can whine about equally. That'll light a fire under them.