Biden, the cuckoo clock, was probably right three times

It's been said, with some gleeful lack of profundity by many a dime store philosopher, that a broken clock is right twice daily.

Joe Biden is an amiable buffoon who has enjoyed an intimate history with malapropisms, a less amiable history of political plagiarism, and functions for the political right in sort of the same way as George W. Bush did for the political left: as a poster boy for alleged idiocy.  But to paraphrase a less idiotic politician, Lloyd Bentsen, I know Joe Biden, Joe Biden is a friend of mine, and he is no George W. Bush.

Biden was probably right about Iraq.  And now, the US should take, at least part of his advice, and support a fully independent Kurdistan in the northern part of what has been Iraq.

Iraq, as neoconservatives failed to learn, is not a country.  It has no historical basis in reality. It was an arbitrary colonial creation by oil-greedy Europeans following World War I, and the PNAC crowd's silly efforts to "nation build" a non-nation will go down in history as one of geopolitics' greatest, and most uninformed, follies.

What we call Iraq could only exist as the preserve of some despot like Saddam Hussein, forcing the elements of it together by force. Now that a far less capable despot is in charge, it's unraveling.

An independent Kurdistan would probably be a viable nation, and one that, at least, is not openly hostile to the United States.   It would control much of Iraq's oil wealth as well, and given the chaos unfolding, a nation of Kurdistan is probably something Turkey would be willing to accept at this point, and it would be hostile to Iran.

A "three state" solution accepted earlier, including a viable, non extremist Sunni Arab state, a smaller Shia state allied with Iran, and a US-friendly, Iran-hostile oil-rich and non-Wahabist Kurdistan would have been a better alternative to the worst case scenario unfolding now.

By stepping in, and promoting Kurdistan, the US can salvage something out of this mess.

Slate: Could Iraq's chaos lead to an independent Kurdistan?