I am not posting it 'out there' tonite ~ everyone is too obsessed with money to care about something as important as getting out of Iraq. Even he recognizes that fact in this op-ed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/01/AR2007100101334.html?hpid=opinionsbox1The Value of an Exit Strategy
Clarity on Iraq Could Make Biden and Richardson Contenders
Astonishingly, 26 Republican senators broke with President Bush's Iraq policy last week. But you may not have noticed this, and it's not your fault.
Sen. Joe Biden's resolution calling for a federal solution to the Iraq mess -- sometimes known as "soft partition" -- got almost no attention, even though it passed, 75 to 23. There seems to be far more interest in how fundraising is going for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.
The vote on Biden's proposal to devolve power to Iraq's regions and three major groups could turn out to be a milestone in the effort to end the war. It was also a reflection of how much Republican frustration there is with the Iraqi government and the direction of President Bush's policy.
In an interview, Biden said he was not surprised that so many Republicans backed his nonbinding resolution. He believes that there are "not a dozen Republicans" who still think privately that "an American presence in Iraq will maintain a strong central government."
The biggest problem with federalism -- Biden rejects the term "partition," believing that a weaker central government is the only way to maintain even a semblance of unity in Iraq -- is that Iraqis themselves have not yet come around to the idea. Over the weekend the Iraqi government forcefully condemned the Senate's action. Partition or decentralization will not easily be imposed by the United States or even by a concert of allies.
This does not deter Biden, who joined his co-sponsor, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), yesterday in asking for a meeting with Bush on the resolution. Biden insists that the logic of decentralization is gaining ground among Iraqis, despite what their government is saying, and cites an encounter with a prominent Sunni leader during a recent visit to Iraq. Shortly after publicly criticizing Biden's decentralization proposals, this leader told Biden privately: "My heart is at war with my head." Biden said the Iraqi saw decentralization as the only practical way out of the current chaos. The official added: "I need time to convince my people."
Biden's clarity stands as a challenge not only to Bush but also to Clinton, Obama and Edwards. At a debate last Wednesday, each of them refused to pledge that American troops would be out of Iraq even by the end of her or his first term. If the troops will still be there, what strategy would they be advancing? If not federalism or "soft partition," what? Clinton, by the way, voted for the Biden resolution, while Obama missed the vote. Would federalism be Clinton's approach, too?
And if Biden is creating pressure on the front-runners from one direction, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is beginning to gain traction on the left with his commitment to withdrawing all troops "in six to eight months," as he wrote last month in The Post.
It's surprising that Richardson, whose domestic views are by most conventional reckonings to the "right" of much of the field, could ever become the left's favorite. But he has risen in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, partly because of effective early advertising, and he may now have a chance to catch on with antiwar voters.
John Nichols, one of the left's shrewdest electoral analysts, argued in the Oct. 8 issue of The Nation that "The Richardson Surge" would make it difficult for the front-runners "to continue dancing around the core questions of the war."
The leading Democratic candidates might well argue that Bush has made such a mess of Iraq that the seemingly crisp and clean solutions offered by Biden and Richardson simply aren't workable.
But there is no getting around how important Iraq is to so many Democratic primary voters. They are looking for well-defined alternatives to Bush's recipe for troop commitments as far as the eye can see. Biden and Richardson are trying to fight their way into contention by offering very different visions of a future that might allow us to leave.
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At the link, he asks for comments. I'm gonna give him a big hug
:hug:
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