Gelb: Federalism Is Most Promising Way to End Civil War in Iraq
Council on Foreign Relations
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor, CFR.org
Interviewee: Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus, CFR
October 16, 2007
Leslie H. Gelb, former writer for The New York Times, and a senior Defense and State Department official before becoming president of CFR, says the plan to persuade Iraqis to accept a federal form of government is the best way to “maintain harmony” among Iraqi groups. The plan, which he has co-authored with Senator Joseph R. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was approved with seventy-five votes in favor in a recent nonbinding resolution. But Gelb says it is still not popular among many Arabs who, he says, are used to strong central government.
The U.S. Senate recently passed a nonbinding resolution authored by Senator Joseph R. Biden, calling for a federal system of government in Iraq. Of course you are a co-author of this resolution since you and he have written many articles on the need for just such a federal system in Iraq. Could you explain in a terse way what this proposal does that passed the Senate?
The idea is to encourage Iraqis to adhere to their own constitution and work on reconciliation amongst themselves by decentralizing power to regional governments—to create a federal system in effect—and that they have to do it themselves. We can push and cajole but it has to be their decision. And it reflects our beliefs and the beliefs of seventy-five senators that this is the only promising way of bringing about political reconciliation among the different Iraqi groups.
Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.
Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
