Biden on Iraq Wall Street Journal

[color4u2]

Vice President Joe Biden had a high-profile seat for last week's most publicized national-security event: He presided over the Senate on Thursday as it ratified a new strategic arms agreement with Russia.

View Full Image

Getty Images

Joe Biden

.But the most important national-security moment for the vice president, and the country, actually came with much less fanfare the previous day, when Mr. Biden called the leaders of Iraq's key political factions and congratulated them on having, finally, belatedly, succeeded in forming a new coalition government.

Failing to ratify the strategic arms agreement would have been "really bad" Mr. Biden said in an interview, but he added: "I think the really big story is Iraq." A stable Iraq is crucial to what is arguably the paramount requirement for American policy: building up bulwarks that can stop the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East.

Whether this new Iraqi government—the one that will stand as American forces are withdrawn—will be a long-term bulwark is a question that can only be answered over time, of course. But Mr. Biden says, in essence, so far, so good.

"The really untold story here is the Iranians had virtually no influence" in formation of the government, he said in the interview. Iranian agents handed out money to Iraqi supporters in hopes of affecting the new government, he says. "They were trying to buy outcomes." Mr. Biden estimates the Iranian investment in that effort at $100 million.

Then, when it became inevitable that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would get a new term as prime minister, "they tried to make Maliki their own." And Mr. Biden insists, the Iranians failed at that as well.

That's a judgment crucial to U.S. policy. It's also important to Mr. Biden personally, for he has grown deeply invested in the Iraq outcome. He was a regular visitor when he was a senator, and has been to the country six times since becoming vice president. It fell to him to make weekly calls to Mr. Maliki and other factional leaders to prod them toward agreement.

Mr. Biden gives high marks to the last Bush administration ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, as well as subsequent Obama ambassadors Christopher Hill and James Jeffrey, for helping midwife the new government. Its creation was an exercise in water torture, taking nine long months after Iraq's national election, punctuated by regular exercises in factional brinksmanship among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Giant problems remain. Some cabinet posts still are unfilled; others were created just to give jobs to factions that needed to be pacified. The Kurdish north remains riven by Kurdish-Arab disagreements. And in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Prime Minister Maliki said that American troops can't stay in his country beyond the end of 2011 unless a new security agreement is negotiated by then.

"I think we have a stable government," Mr. Biden said. "But they've got a lot of hard decisions coming up now."

The good news, the vice president says, is that Mr. Maliki succeeded in forming a government without crossing the three "red lines" that Washington insisted be avoided. The first was that Iraq shouldn't form a government without full buy in from Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. The second was that the followers of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr be prevented from controlling any part of Iraq's security apparatus. And the third was that Mr. Sadr's followers not be in a position to bring down the government on their own.

The Shiite movement led by Mr. Sadr will still have influence, because he has been a sometime ally of Mr. Maliki. And Iran will have influence as well; Mr. Biden says he isn't under any illusions about that. "Iran has a long border" with Iraq, he said. "They will have a relationship. They should have a relationship." But he argues, in essence, that the formation of this new government means the relationship can be on Iraq's terms.

With Iran continuing its fitful move toward nuclear-weapons capability, and probing throughout the Persian Gulf, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories to expand its influence, an Iraq strong enough to resist Iranian coercion is almost as important to American policy as is the path of Iran's nuclear program.

Oh, and Iraq's formation of a new government is important for one other reason: It represents a bipartisan foreign-policy achievement. Mr. Biden continues to maintain that Iraqis' own rejection of extremist violence was at least as important as President George W. Bush's troop surge in tipping the balance toward stability.

But never mind: After a contentious campaign debate, the Bush administration handed an Iraq policy to a skeptical Obama administration, which carried it forward without major disruption to this month's important milestone. Which is more than many doubters would have guessed possible.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203568004576044632913086772.html

[TWONS29]

Failing to ratify the strategic arms agreement would have been "really bad" Mr. Biden said in an interview, but he added: "I think the really big story is Iraq." A stable Iraq is crucial to what is arguably the paramount requirement for American policy: building up bulwarks that can stop the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East.

This part stands out to me.. Biden having confidence in "a stable Iraq" This is very positive and You can also see how much this means to America. America wants Iraq to prosper. RV. Thank you for the post, I appreciate that!

[Keipher]

Thanks for the post!

[prettybaby]

We want an RV, they want us out of there! That is what I got out of this post.

Thank u