As Mideast realigns, US leans Sunni
The White House is reembracing Sunni authoritarian regimes to counter the rise of Shiite Iran.
from the October 9, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
"We're not doing that for them, we're doing it for us" in pursuit of our fight with Islamist extremists, he says.
Some in the US government are using the "progress" the US has made in Anbar to argue specifically for creation of a Sunni-dominated region within a united Iraq.
In a statement last month following the appearance of Gen. David Petraeus before Congress, US Sen. Sam Brownback (R) of Kansas called on the US to promote the development of a Sunni region to help Sunnis move forward with a greater reliance on local, rather than national, institutions.
"We should not wait for national reconciliation to take advantage of the bottom-up political progress in Anbar and create a Sunni region that would play an integral role in a united Iraq," said Senator Brownback, who is a Republican candidate for president.
Brownback joined Sen. Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware, who is also a candidate for president, in cowriting an "Iraq Federalism Amendment" that passed with overwhelming Senate support (75 to 23) on Sept. 26.
The amendment calls for the US to press Iraqis to employ the federalism enshrined in their own constitution and divide the country into sectarian regions. The bill specifically calls on the administration to convene a conference for Iraqis to reach a comprehensive political settlement – widely recognized as the key to ending Iraq's strife – based on federalism.
Senator Biden unveiled last year his plan for Iraq to be divided into three autonomous regions – Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd – under a federal government. After the Senate endorsed that plan last month, both the Maliki government and the US Embassy in Baghdad criticized it as an imposition on Iraq's sovereignty and a recipe for Iraq's partition.
Biden counters that the plan is a realistic response to political conditions on the ground in Iraq "and in fact the only hope for keeping Iraq together."
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