FINALLY THE RIGHT SOLUTION:
THE IRAQ FEDERATED REPUBLIC

At GOALS FOR AMERICANS, we have argued forcefully and passionately for the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. We provided the historical perspective and current realities in Iraq to justify our vision called PLAN V For Peace and Victory In Iraq, which we issued in Jan. 2008.

We believed that the FEDERALISM enshrined within the 2005 Iraqi Constitution represented the only hope for keeping Iraq together, while also allowing the warring ethno-sectarian factions enough autonomy from one another to enable them all to co-exist, and hopefully co-prosper in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

This was our cautiously optimistic opinion back then! It is still our opinion today!

WE ARE NOW ADVOCATING THE PEACEFUL DIVISION OF IRAQ INTO FIVE INDEPENDENT REGIONS OR PROVINCES – NORTHERN, WESTERN, CENTRAL, SOUTHERN, AND CAPITAL REGIONS – TO COME TOGETHER IN THEIR CAPITAL CITY OF BAGHDAD!

The sobering reality of the indisputable and incompatible differences between these factions in Iraq has forced us to come to a new conclusion. While most of America turns away from Iraq and concentrates on Afghanistan, we have held our attention on this unfinished war, and what we see and understand about Iraq this summer does not bode well for a sustainable peaceful outcome – Unless we make this change and America and the U.N. can become the overriding Stewards of Iraq… to work in concert with Iraq’s own parliament.

The very problems that now threaten to blow Iraq apart at the seams are the very same unresolved problems we outlined in detail in PLAN V. Let us not delude ourselves or the citizens of Iraq any longer.

Like a gathering storm, these problems will overwhelm Iraq and plunge it back into sectarian, ethnic and tribal chaos if drastic changes are not made.

THE ESSENTIAL UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS WE ALL RECOGNIZE – THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAILURE

#1 THE FAILURE OF ELECTORAL REFORM:

The Iraqi Constitution was thrown together in 2005, and one of the major flaws was the Election Laws that made it impossible for individual citizens to vote for candidates in their own right. Iraqis were forced by law to vote for or against lengthy slates of candidates that were all grouped together. And invariably these slates were religious or tribal in origin.

A secular democratic country cannot survive when elections are buried under the suffocating weight of religious affiliations. After two major flawed elections, Iraq still refuses to embrace the concept of THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, or even the concept of THE SEPARATION OF TRIBE AND STATE.

A SHIA THEOCRACY is beginning to form in Baghdad and that will kill forever whatever semblance of democracy Iraq still has.

The al-Makaki government recently asked Parliament to legalize drastic new censorship laws. What more proof do we need?

#2 THE FAILURE OF RECONCILIATION:

After six chaotic and deadly years of ethno-sectarian violence, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds still put their tribal and religious loyalties above the good of the country. A lasting unity of purpose and identity within any population is impossible under these circumstances. Iraq is failing itself!

As former U.S. Representative Lee Hamilton so correctly put it in PLAN V : “If the Iraqis do not reconcile, all the troops in the world will not provide security

In the West, we continuously fail to understand the concept of religious vengeance and tribal grievances and what powerful and destructive forces they can be within a society – especially a society that has been traumatized by a brutal dictator who played ethnic factions against one another. We fail to understand that in the Middle East, angry memories and blood grievances last forever, The obsession for tribal or religious revenge is a passion that never dies.

The blood feud between the Shia and the Sunnis goes all the back to the treacherous days after WW1 when England and France forced their will on the provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire in Mesopotamia and created the artificial country we call Iraq. So, too, does the animosity between non-Arab Kurds in the northern mountain provinces and the secular Arabs in the south, Sunnis and Shiites. Iraq was pasted together from the ashes of the defeated Ottoman Empire. It has never been a legitimate country.

This misbegotten creation of a country never developed a true identity throughout the 20^th century. It’s varied religious and ethnic populations never came together as Iraqis – as equal citizens under one flag with a common unifying loyalty.

Our great conceit was in thinking we could ignore this history of perpetual antagonisms and hostilities between Iraq’s competing factions and simply invade the country and create a functioning democracy in short order. Our ignorance of the history of these people blinded us to the impossibility of our ambitions for Iraq.

A MIRACLE OF RECONCILATION IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN IN IRAQ NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE WISH IT TO BE!

Knocking down the statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad didn’t make it so, nor has throwing millions of dollars of reconstruction money all over the place for the past few years.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in his “infinite oversight”, told us before the invasion began that we would be greeted as liberators. Instead of that outcome, Shiites and Sunnis alike launched insurgencies against our military forces and attacked and killed many of our civilian reconstruction workers. They blew up the UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing Sergio de Mello, the top UN envoy in Iraq, along with many other dedicated UN diplomats. This bombing in the early months of our occupation was a cowardly act that foreshadowed the carnage and violence of the years to come.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told us that Iraqi oil would pay for the war and reconstruction. Instead of that outcome, we have already spent almost 700 billion dollars on the war and occupation with no end in sight.


After the invasion, when resistance against our forces continued, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told us that it was just the work of a few “dead-enders.” Instead of that outcome, a lethal insurgency killed almost 4500 of our soldiers and seriously injured many thousands more over the past six years. They attacked the Green Zone with rockets, shot down our military helicopters, terrorized the roads with IEDs, and brutalized their fellow citizens.


And finally, there was the ultimate demonstration of ignorance and arrogance, as President Bush stood on the aircraft carrier deck in front of a huge banner that read “Mission Accomplished.”


Instead of that outcome, we sank deeper and deeper into the quicksand pit of Iraq, battling a lethal insurgency while Iraqis went about the terrible business of killing one another. Bush left office six years later, handing his “Unaccomplished War” over to President Obama. Bush handed over a war without end!

THE FAILURE TO CREATE OIL LAWS – JUSTICE DENIED!

The central government has had six years to insure that the revenue from Iraq’s great oil wealth will be distributed evenly and honorably among all the citizens, not just those who control the Oil Ministry or surround the oil and natural gas fields. They have failed to do so.

As a result, Kurdistan has already taken steps to lay claim to the oil-rich Kirkuk Province (At At’min) and city of Kirkuk, and they have long since started negotiations with international firms for exploration and development contracts, without permission from the central government in Iraq.


Recently, al-Malaki attempted the same thing, in a failed attempt to extort outrageous concessions from the oil firms.

This demonstrates to us that the Iraqi government is incapable and unwilling to do what’s best for the whole country. The Kurds are doing what’s best for them while al-Malaki is trying to solidify his Shia dominance by negotiating oil exploration contracts by fiat.

The Iraqi Parliament has demonstrated neither the guts nor the vision to legislate OIL REVENUE SHARING LAWS. Iraq will never move in the direction of lasting unity without a fair and honest distribution of the oil and gas wealth.

Their failure to do this will doom the naive notion of Iraqi unity!

	INDEPENDENCE…
	AND THEN AN IRAQ FEDERATED REPUBLIC!

At GOALS FOR AMERICANS, we have come to the conclusion that the religious and ethnic makeup of Iraq is too fractured and too mired in ancient tribal hostilities to ever hold together on its own.

We have concluded that it is in the best interests of everyone that Iraq be peacefully divided into FIVE SEPARATE REGIONS (OR STATES) that reflect the five most harmonious groupings of the various populations and resources in Iraq. The borders of these regions (states) of course follow the various boundaries of the existing 18 provinces divided, also, with regard to resources and historical considerations.

WE HAVE ALREADY DONE THIS IN OUR PLAN V !

The Iraqis can not be trusted to work together for the common good of all their citizens!

THE BAGHDAD BOMBINGS ON AUG 20 SHOULD BE OUR WAKE UP CALL. TIME IS RUNNING SHORT. IT IS TIME TO WORK TOWARDS THE PEACEFUL ARRANGEMENT OF IRAQ INTO FIVE REGIONS, EACH ONE MADE UP OF EXISTING PROVINCES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE IRAQ CONSTITUTION.

OBAMA MUST support this promissing concept that can definitely create the much needed democratic arrangement of its existing 18 provinces into a most harmoneous grouping of States for the new Republic.

AMERICA & UNITED NATIONS MUST BECOME STEWARDS OF THE NEW IRAQ FEDERATED REPUBLIC UNTIL THEY CAN STAND ALONE!

IT IS THEIR ONLY HOPE — IT IS THEIR VERY BEST OPTION!

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