Getting back to the basics

For the past few weeks, the national dialogue in this country has been a delusion. People have been talking about pastors, patriotism and elitism while ignoring the critical issues facing this country, such as the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the deteriorating U.S. economy. To be fair, I understand why certain groups (namely Republicans and the 24-hour news businesses) would prefer to divert attention toward Rev. Jeremiah Wright rather than focusing on the catastrophes they helped create. Nevertheless, when I read that April was the deadliest month in Iraq in more than seven months, I am reminded of Sagan’s quote and the need to break this delusional debate. Ultimately, if we are to thrive as a nation, we cannot become immersed in side spectacles while ignoring the realities around us. We need to get back to discussing solutions to our problems, something this column will try to do regarding the Iraq war.

May 1 marked the five-year anniversary of the president’s “Mission Accomplished” speech about Iraq; that same day, two suicide bombers attacked an Iraqi wedding ceremony, killing 35 people and wounding 67. The sad truth is, despite heavily investing U.S. blood and treasure, our nebulous mission in Iraq is far from accomplished. But the deaths of 50 U.S. soldiers and more than 1,000 Iraqis in April alone disproves claims of “progress.”

Furthermore, Gen. David Petraeus’s testimony last month gave little hope to the notion of “progress” in Iraq when he said, “We haven’t turned any corners. We haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel.” Looking back, it is clear that the “peace” that existed in Iraq recently was not due to political progress or the “surge,” but mainly because of the whims of radical cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, who decided on a temporary ceasefire that has since expired.

In fact, Iraq continues to be governed more and more by ethnic militia groups that roam around the country, wiping out rival factions and innocent civilians. These sectarian groups operate unchecked because Iraq’s central government is weak and corrupt, and U.S. troops are too overextended to play the role of police (the actual Iraqi police force has been infiltrated by militia members). Furthermore, massive unemployment and crumbling infrastructure continue to feed the ranks of these militias and criminal gangs.

So what is the solution to all this? First we must accept the reality that there are no good options left (that ship has long since sailed) and that only Iraqis can achieve political reconciliation among themselves (it is their country after all, right?). With those two assumptions, the “least worst option” for Iraq is to adopt Sen. Joseph Biden’s plan, which received tremendous bipartisan support and was passed overwhelmingly in the Senate last September (75-23). Naturally, the Bush administration opposed the idea.

Sen. Biden’s plan calls for decentralizing political power in Iraq and allocating it among three self-governing federated regions: Kurd, Shiite and Sunni, which should mitigate the power struggle engulfing the country. The central government would be left in charge of common interests such as border security and the distribution of oil revenues, but the individual regions would be largely autonomous from one another in their day-to-day operations.

Although decentralization might seem radical, it really is not, as Iraq’s constitution allows for the creation of federal regions. Furthermore, Biden’s plan brings angry Sunni factions (once the ruling minority of Iraq) into the deal by guaranteeing them a proportional share of oil revenue (several billions of dollars). Each group would have an incentive to maximize oil production, making, as Biden says, “oil the glue that binds the country together.”

Some critics argue that this plan is a partition of the country, but the truth is that things are already heading that way because of the current massive ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods. By dividing the land along ethnic lines, it dramatically reduces the bloodshed by literally putting space between each group, allowing them to govern their own people as they see fit, as opposed to following a central government that is constantly in disagreement over regional policy.

If this plan sounds familiar, it’s because it has been successfully adopted in other violent sectarian regions, the most recent being Bosnia in 1995. Thirteen years ago, Bosnia was being torn apart by ethnic cleansing and civil war amongst a handful of ethno-religious groups. The U.S. eventually stepped in to keep the country whole by paradoxically dividing it into ethnic federations amongst the Muslims, Croats and Serbs. Now, more than a decade later, a fragile peace still holds.

Patrick Molnar is a business junior and a liberal columnist for the Mustang Daily.