Originally Posted by seand

You maybe need to clear up who you define as "the terrorists". There are dozens of different militias active in Iraq and they all hate echother just slightly less than they hate the US occupation.

I think that ultimately the only way the harsh ethnic divisions in Iraq will be settled enough to allow some degree of stability there so we can pull out without leaving chaos behind us is to encourage a high degree of "federalism" giving each ethnic enclave a high degree of regional autonomy. The truth of what success the surge has had has as much derived from letting this happen on a defacto basis (paying Sunni tribal leaders to police themselves and fight Al Queda in Iraq). Those tribal leaders formerly were content to help al Queda in Iraq (who did not exist till after we invaded) up until a few months ago and the Malaiki government is deeply opposed to us funding them because he sees them as a threat to the power of his Shiia dominated ruling coalition.

I think a lot of of what Sen. Biden says about Iraq and federalism (as well as Republican Mike Huckabee for that matter) is pretty astute.