Joe Biden: “Today, Senators Brownback, Boxer, Smith, Bill Nelson and I are introducing a bipartisan resolution. It states clearly…”

“Today, Senators Brownback, Boxer, Smith, Bill Nelson and I are introducing a bipartisan resolution. It states clearly what so many of us agree on, the need for a political settlement in Iraq. But then it offers what virtually no one has put forward: a policy to actually secure that political settlement. We propose that the United States actively support a political settlement among Iraqis based on the provisions of Iraq's constitution that call for creating federal system of government, with strong regions and a limited central government. And we urge the administration to bring in the international community, including the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Iraq's neighbors, to support a settlement based on federalism and to convene a conference with Iraqis to help them reach that settlement. Each of us recognizes this reality: when a country is caught in a cycle of self-sustaining sectarian violence as Iraq is today, there are only four ways to end it: First, a bloodletting that leaves one side victorious or both sides exhausted. In the case of Iraq, that could take years . . . years we do not have and should not accept. Second, an open-ended foreign occupation that America cannot sustain. Third, the return of a strongman, who is not on the horizon. Even if he were, it would be a tragic irony to replace one dictator with another.”