Biden's recent proposal.

[Owen Densmore]

Joseph Biden and others are coming up with a hybrid solution for  
Iraq, patterned after that used in Bosnia.  Its an interesting idea:  
unity through autonomy.
   http://www.joebiden.com/news?id=0024

I wonder if any geo-political modeling has been done for cases like  
this.  It would be interesting to see if unity emerges though  
separate autonomous states.

     -- Owen

Owen Densmore
http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org



Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq
05/01/2006

By Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and Leslie H. Gelb.
Originally published by the New York Times on May 1, 2006

A decade ago, Bosnia was torn apart by ethnic cleansing and facing  
its demise as a single country. After much hesitation, the United  
States stepped in decisively with the Dayton Accords,which kept the  
country whole by, paradoxically, dividing it into ethnic federations,  
even allowing Muslims, Croats and Serbs to retain separate armies.  
With the help of American and other forces, Bosnians have lived a  
decade in relative peace and are now slowly strengthening their  
common central government, including disbanding those separate armies  
last year.

Now the Bush administration, despite its profound strategic  
misjudgments in Iraq, has a similar opportunity. To seize it,  
however, America must get beyond the present false choice between  
"staying the course" and "bringing the troops home now" and choose a  
third way that would wind down our military presence responsibly  
while preventing chaos and preserving our key security goals.

The idea, as in Bosnia, 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.

It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a strategy  
for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the  
problem along to his successor. Meanwhile, the frustration of  
Americans is mounting so fast that Congress might end up mandating a  
rapid pullout, even at the risk of precipitating chaos and a civil  
war that becomes a regional war.

As long as American troops are in Iraq in significant numbers, the  
insurgents can't win and we can't lose. But intercommunal violence  
has surpassed the insurgency as the main security threat. Militias  
rule swathes of Iraq and death squads kill dozens daily. Sectarian  
cleansing has recently forced tens of thousands from their homes. On  
top of this, President Bush did not request additional reconstruction  
assistance and is slashing funds for groups promoting democracy.

Iraq's new government of national unity will not stop the  
deterioration. Iraqis have had three such governments in the last  
three years, each with Sunnis in key posts, without noticeable  
effect. The alternative path out of this terrible trap has five  
elements.

The first is to establish three largely autonomous regions with a  
viable central government in Baghdad. The Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite  
regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws,  
administration and internal security. The central government would  
control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues. Baghdad  
would become a federal zone, while densely populated areas of mixed  
populations would receive both multisectarian and international  
police protection.

Decentralization is hardly as radical as it may seem: the Iraqi  
Constitution, in fact, already provides for a federal structure and a  
procedure for provinces to combine into regional governments.

Besides, things are already heading toward partition: increasingly,  
each community supports federalism, if only as a last resort. The  
Sunnis, who until recently believed they would retake power in Iraq,  
are beginning to recognize that they won't and don't want to live in  
a Shiite-controlled, highly centralized state with laws enforced by  
sectarian militias. The Shiites know they can dominate the  
government, but they can't defeat a Sunni insurrection. The Kurds  
will not give up their 15-year-old autonomy.

Some will say moving toward strong regionalism would ignite sectarian  
cleansing. But that's exactly what is going on already, in ever-
bigger waves. Others will argue that it would lead to partition. But  
a breakup is already under way. As it was in Bosnia, a strong federal  
system is a viable means to prevent both perils in Iraq.

The second element would be to entice the Sunnis into joining the  
federal system with an offer they couldn't refuse. To begin with,  
running their own region should be far preferable to the  
alternatives: being dominated by Kurds and Shiites in a central  
government or being the main victims of a civil war. But they 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.

The third component would be to ensure the protection of the rights  
of women and ethno-religious minorities by increasing American aid to  
Iraq but tying it to respect for those rights. Such protections will  
be difficult, especially in the Shiite-controlled south, but  
Washington has to be clear that widespread violations will stop the  
cash flow.

Fourth, the president must direct the military to design a plan for  
withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008 (while  
providing for a small but effective residual force to combat  
terrorists and keep the neighbors honest). We must avoid a  
precipitous withdrawal that would lead to a national meltdown , but  
we also can't have a substantial long-term American military  
presence. That would do terrible damage to our armed forces, break  
American and Iraqi public support for the mission and leave Iraqis  
without any incentive to shape up.

Fifth, under an international or United Nations umbrella, we should  
convene a regional conference to pledge respect for Iraq's borders  
and its federal system. For all that Iraq's neighbors might gain by  
picking at its pieces, each faces the greater danger of a regional  
war. A "contact group" of major powers would be set up to lean on  
neighbors to comply with the deal.

Mr. Bush has spent three years in a futile effort to establish a  
strong central government in Baghdad, leaving us without a real  
political settlement, with a deteriorating security situation ? and  
with nothing but the most difficult policy choices. The five-point  
alternative plan offers a plausible path to that core political  
settlement among Iraqis, along with the economic, military and  
diplomatic levers to make the political solution work. It is also a  
plausible way for Democrats and Republicans alike to protect our  
basic security interests and honor our country's sacrifices.

[Parks, Raymond]

Owen Densmore wrote:
> Joseph Biden and others are coming up with a hybrid solution for
> Iraq, patterned after that used in Bosnia.  Its an interesting idea:
> unity through autonomy.
>    http://www.joebiden.com/news?id=0024
>
> I wonder if any geo-political modeling has been done for cases like
> this.  It would be interesting to see if unity emerges though
> separate autonomous states.

   Aside from the Bosnia precedent that Biden cites, there is the Swiss
and US precedent.  Both Switzerland and the United States of America
were formed from federations of separate autonomous states.

   At first thought, Germany might be considered a counter-example.  For
centuries, the German people existed in a multitude of separate
political entities of a variety of forms (feudal, oligarchic,
theocratic) that had an ostensible federal government, the Holy Roman
Empire.  That collection never gelled as Bosnia, the US, and Switzerland
did.  I suspect that there may be a threshold for power sharing from the
autonomous states with the federal government that never was reached in
the HRE.  Instead, Bismarck caused that threshold to be reached with the
various states of Germany in the late 1800s, when modern Germany was
formed from the autonomous states.

   So, the idea of unity emerging from separate autonomous states
carries with it a threshold of power sharing.  I'm not sure if that
threshold is the amount of power or rather the type of power.  In the
case of the US, Switzerland, and Bismarck's Germany, the key point seems
to be surrender by the autonomous states of the power to conduct
external relations (i.e. diplomacy) and the surrender of rights of legal
arbitration between the separate autonomous states (i.e. interstate
commerce).

--
Ray Parks                   rcparks at sandia.gov
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