American Imperialism–Between the Balfour Declaration and the Biden Declaration

A few days ago, Mr. Obama announced in a special gathering the name of his running mate, Mr. Joe Biden. This news might not have surprised anyone in the United States, for the selection of a personality with experience in U.S. diplomacy, or any other field, is considered normal in U.S. presidential elections, regardless of whether he meets the approval of Congress, which will discuss his nomination if Obama enters the White House. And while the opinions of political analysts conflict on Obama’s chances of winning the White House, the struggle is still going strong between him and Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate, who seems too optimistic and will perhaps announce his nominee for vice president.

As for us in Iraq, the issue is completely different, since the arrival of someone such as Biden to the post of vice president renews the hopes of those who want to partition Iraq, and puts them very near to realizing the dreams they long to turn into reality. I am not sure of the intensity with which those circles welcomed and applauded the expected news of Biden’s nomination, but I am absolutely certain that they were overjoyed. As for those wanting an Iraq unified in its lands and its people, there is no doubt that they consider Biden’s nomination a bad omen, and are perhaps renewing their campaign to expose the intentions of the man and condemn his disreputable resolution and aims.

And for those who have never heard of this man and his superstardom, he is behind the U.S. Senate Resolution issued on September 26, 2007, which recommended the partitioning of Iraq into three ethnic cantons: Kurds in the north, Shiites in the middle and south, Sunnis in the Western region. The resolution was condemned and its goals disparaged widely in Iraq and in the U.S. itself, while the U.S. administration renounced it through their embassy in Baghdad, protesting that the resolution was non-binding and did not reflect the position of the American government.

Mr. Biden was forced, under pressure from the campaign against his bill, to explain that he did not want a divided Iraq, but rather his intention was to expand the federal system stipulated in the Iraqi constitution.

But this is not the end of the matter, for the bill has supporters in the highest echelons of Iraqi authority, and in the highest leadership of its ruling parties, and they will try to revive it by any means to turn it into reality. And the expected presence of Biden in the White House has rekindled hopes to transform the Iraq partition resolution into a binding resolution on the American government, and thus the Biden Declaration would take the path of the Balfour Declaration to partition Palestine. And with that the world will have gone less than a century with two similar, though not necessarily identical, experiences.

The difference between the two declarations, or resolutions, is that the Balfour Declaration was primarily concerned with the establishment of a Hebrew state in the Palestinian territories, but the Biden Declaration has invoked three cantons, not one.

In the first case, the Jewish state was established 30 years after the issuing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and culminated in a mono-racial state, greedily aggressive toward its surroundings, that has obtained the unconditional support of all American governments and has employed terrorist methods in its land-grabs and expulsion of the natives.

As for the second case, the Biden Declaration, which was issued 90 years after the Balfour Declaration and 60 years after the establishment of Israel, did not specify when or from whom the three cantons will enjoy the graces which the Jewish state enjoyed and enjoys, whether from Biden himself or from American Imperialism. And it is still too early to scrutinize that “nationlet” or the subsequent country that will arise by nibbling at the lands of its neighbors, at whose expense it will expand, to become an outpost for globalist capitalism in Iraq. The fears expressed here will remain mere conjecture as long as Biden does not yet occupy his position in the White House, although this does not preclude any coming American administration from exploring the aforementioned Senate resolution.

Nobody knows what the response of the press will be to Biden’s chance at ascending to the White House and then the future of the bill to partition Iraq, which he advocates. But the reactions of political analysts were stormy when Biden announced his bill the first time.

In remarks about the Biden bill, the political analyst Joost Hiltermann said, “Despite sectarian cleansing attempts, Iraqis remain deeply intermingled and intermarried in a mosaic that could be changed only through campaigns of intimidation and mass murder.”

In the opinion of the American journalist Geoffrey Kemp, “This strategy is bound to disappoint because it is considered a deviation from the original plan which advocates of the invasion stirred up in Washington in 2003, since the justification and hope was to build a prosperous, secular and democratically-unified Iraq. Those were the aims which the Bush administration was intent on formulating just before it embarked on its military escapade in the summer of 2003. See how hopes have shrunk and practically abased themselves to the point of accepting a dismembered Iraq. What could be further from unity and secular democracy?”

In the opinion of his colleague, David Ignatius, “Of course it is possible to divide Iraq into three semi-autonomous cantons, but it is not an option that the U.S. should recommend. No matter how much blood and treasure we have spent in Iraq, we remain outsiders there.”

He added, “The Iraqis and their Arab neighbors will have a hard time forgiving America for the human suffering that has accompanied the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s regime. But if that story ends in the destruction of the Iraqi state, it will open a wound that may not be healed a century from now. Iraqis may ultimately decide they want a ‘soft partition.’ But until they do, we should not be in the business of dismembering a state.”

It is hardly unlikely, but indeed rather probable, that letters of congratulations are being sent to Mr. Biden on his nomination for vice president of the United States of America. Nor would it be surprising if, starting from now, the finishing touches were being put on a bill to partition Iraq, the second after the partition of Palestine in less than a century.