The New York Times opinion page has become of late a job application form for unemployed, or underemployed, Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Last month, the Times presented its April Fool’s joke, “Two Deadlines and an Exit,” by Senator John Kerry.  In it, Kerry gets “tough” on Iraq, threatening not the Jihadists and Baathists who wish us harm, but those who wish us well – our pro-democracy allies.

This month, the Times celebrated May Day with “Unity Through Autonomy In Iraq,” by Sen. Joseph Biden and Leslie Gelb.

In it, Biden proposes a “new” solution for Iraq.  “The idea,” he writes, “is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group – Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab – room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests.  We could drive this in place with irresistible sweeteners for the Sunnis to join in, a plan designed by the military for withdrawing and redeploying American forces, and a regional nonaggression pact.”

Taking these four points individually:

1) “Decentralization.” 
We would be curious to know which ethnic group will be assigned Baghdad, where all groups live.  We would be curious to know which ethnic group will be assigned Kirkuk.  We would be curious to know who will do the assigning.  When Iraqis are surveyed, one of the most consistent findings is their utter rejection of schemes that disunite the nation. 

Critics carp, with some justification, about the arbitrary lines the receding colonial powers of Europe drew in the Middle East.  But its hard to make that claim about the land of the two rivers, which, despite shifting demographics, has been a cohesive cultural unit for over five millennia.  Anyone who visits the blogosphere of Sunni, Shi’ite, liberal, and even Kurdish sites will be impressed by the nationalism and patriotism displayed therein.  Polls have consistently demonstrated Iraqis’ preference for a strong central government, compared to partition, regionalism, and even federalism
To cite only the most recent – the massive International Republican Institute poll of late March, 2006:

· 53% of Iraqis reject the concept of federalism altogether – whether in the form of regionalism or in the form of greater power to the “governates” (states).
· Only 6% favor a special status for the Kurdish region – a surprising finding, given that Kurds comprise 20% of Iraq’s population.
· What Iraqis do endorse is a broad-based unity government.  By 53% to 25%, the people prefer a government broadly representative of all Iraq’s factions compared to one in which the dominant coalition “should occupy all top ministry positions.”

Biden and Gelb are simply ignoring the fact of Iraqi nationalism.

2) Incentives for the Sunnis.
 Polls show that over 80% of Sunnis oppose decentralization.  Biden suggests one incentive that might “sweeten” this alternative:  “They [the Sunnis] also have to be given money to make their oil-poor region viable. The Constitution must be amended to guarantee Sunni areas 20 percent (approximately their proportion of the population) of all revenues.”

What does Biden fancy that the argument about decentralization is about?  A government capable of redistributing wealth from source areas to destination areas is precisely what the advocates of a centralized government are fighting for.  If the “decentralized” Iraqi government contains the principal demand of the centralizers, why call it “decentralized” at all?

And who, by the way, is going to pass this amendment?  And by what means?  And with what political consequences?

Iraqi democracy may very well reach such a solution over time.  If we impose it, the primary consequence is that the pool for potential insurgents would swell from 20% (the Sunnis) to 100% (adding the Shiites and Kurds whose democracy we would thereby betray.)

3) International guarantees
The “decentralization” of Iraq, Biden suggests, must be accompanied by a grand regional non-aggression pact, to which all the regional powers would adhere under the supervision of the United Nations.

What is he talking about?  A splintered Iraq, with ethno-religious dominance defining each of the three statelets, is the outcome that the “regional powers” most fear.  First, it would trigger precisely the type of ethnic cleansing that it is supposed to cure (see point one.)  The surrounding Sunni powers could face a massive exodus of Sunnis from northern and southern Iraq.  Iran, Turkey, and Syria, all of which harbor substantial  Kurdish minorities, fear an autonomous Kurdish governate.  They suspect that such a state will be more inclined than an Iraqi state to harbor Kurdish nationalist groups with terrorist proclivities. 

So why does Biden consider a regional accord integral to plan that makes such an agreement vastly less likely?  Is this not idle talk about idle talk?  Is this not idle talk squared?

4) “Withdrawal and redeployment.”
 This peculiar mantra, a staple of Democratic Party foreign policy, implies that the war against terror can be won by disengaging from the enemy.  But we’ve already tried this in Somalia, and after the bombings of the U.S.S. Cole, the World Trade Center (1st time), and our African embassies.  It doesn’t work.  It teaches terrorists that America, when pressed, will not fight.

What makes Biden think that a cowering force in Kuwait, hosted by an tottering autocracy, will command more respect (or fear) than a triumphant force in Iraq, hosted by a popular democracy?

It is unsurprising that the final component of the Biden-Gelb proposal is “cut and run.”  This is the ubiquitous premise of Democratic Party Mideast policy.  What is interesting is what the other three components have in common, i.e., rampant U.S. unilateralism.

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