that the Senate recommended first in a resolution that had been a provision of Kerry/Feingold that Senator Warner agreed to include in the defense bill in 2006 or the Biden amendment to the defense bill in 2007 that passed after Biden amended it from a conference to divide Iraq to a conference where the Iraqis could decide to federalize Iraq where they drew the lines - that Iraq could have avoided the problems we have.
However, it can be noted that this hasn't worked in Syria. I do wish that it would been tried.
(The earliest Gelb proposal had the coalition essentially drawing the lines. In addition to this being something imposed on Iraq, it was line drawing by the British in the first place that has led to many states with multiple, warring factions. The bill that passed gave the design of any lines to the Iraqis:
A few key facts about the Biden amendment:
The legislation does not tell Iraqis what to do. It speaks only to what U.S. policy should be.
Federalism is not a U.S. or foreign imposition on Iraq. Iraq’s own constitution calls a “decentralized, federal system” and sets out the powers of the regions (extensive) and those of the central government (limited). The Constitution also says that in case of conflict between regional and national law, regional law prevails.
Federalism is not partition. In fact, it’s probably the only way to prevent partition or, even worse, the total fragmentation of Iraq.
Federalism will not accelerate sectarian cleansing; it’s the only way to stop it. Iraqis are already voting with their feet, as yesterday’s article in the New York Times demonstrates. Before the surge, Iraqis were fleeing their homes at a rate of about 40,000 month; now, it’s about 100,000 a month. Unless Iraqis come to some kind of agreement on sharing power peacefully, the cleansing will continue.
http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/Iraq/no_author/U.S.-Senator-Joe-Biden-Plan-for-Iraq-Emerges-as-Consensus-Bipartisan-Path-Toward-Ending-War-passes-Senate-Vote-75-23-in-Favor
(I am unfamiliar with the source, but thought the brief summary better than linking to the debate on this on CSPAN which was the only primary source I had)
On the floor of the Senate, Warner, the Chair of Armed Services, backed it but argued it was functionally the same as the provision of the year before that Bush was ignoring.)
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