What We Must Do for Iraq Now Joe Biden, V.P.

[elleng]

EIGHT days ago, Iraqi political leaders agreed on a framework for a new government to guide their country through the crucial coming years. Since the elections there in March, our administration has said that the Iraqi people deserve a government that reflects the results of those elections, that includes all the major blocs representing Iraq’s various communities and that does not exclude or marginalize anyone. That is what they will now have.

While President Obama and I — and an outstanding team of American officials in Washington and Baghdad — played an active role in supporting this effort, the most important steps were taken in Iraq, by the leaders of Iraq’s largest political parties. Their accomplishment is the latest and strongest evidence of a key development in Iraq: over the past two years, politics has emerged as the dominant means for settling differences and advancing interests.

Time and time again in recent months, Iraqi leaders have painstakingly worked through thorny issues — including disputes over who is eligible to run for office or serve in government, challenges to the election results and power-sharing arrangements — without resorting to violence. It hasn’t always been pretty, but politics rarely is, in Iraq, in America or anywhere else. By agreeing to form a national partnership government, however, Iraqi leaders have sent an unmistakable message to their fellow citizens, their region and the world: after more than seven years of war and decades of dictatorship, Iraqis seek a nation where the rights of all citizens are recognized and the talents of all are harnessed to unlock the country’s full potential.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/opinion/21biden.html?hp