Senator Biden has been repeatedly criticized by Senator McCain for calling for the dismemberment of Iraq. McCain charged Biden with saying that "that Iraq had to be broken up into three different countries," and called the plan "one of the more cockamamie ideas that I've heard in a long, long time."

Actually, the most sensible policy that follows from Biden's position is to recognize that Iraq is much more a tribal amalgam than a solid nation. Hence, the more each ethnic and confessional group is able and encouraged to govern itself, the closer we are to a stable Iraq. A federation with a high level of devolution to the various regions is the best model.

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