34. The United States should adopt a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

I negate. Observation 1: That the resolution is in the present tense ("should adopt"), which means that my opponent must prove why the US should adopt his plan *right now*. Saying that an action must be taken first, THEN withdrawing is a negation of the resolution. I accept my opponent's definition of should and adopt. I oppose the definition for "timetable for withdrawal from Iraq". My opponent defined this in piecemeal, and then put it back together. I, however, believe this definition is incomplete, and does not capture the intent of the term as it is used in the military community. The distinction is small but key. My definition is better because it comes from a number of sources (comments) that give contextual meanings: "A plan to which only entails the removal of troops from Iraq." I negate this idea on the idea that a Soft Partition is a superior plan. Contention 1: Soft Partition is an inevitability. Galbraith, Peter W. [Former U.S. Ambassador]. "THE CASE FOR DIVIDING IRAQ." Time. November 13, 2006. Vol. 168, Issue 20. The case for the partition of Iraq is straightforward: It has already happened. The Kurds, a non-Arab people who live in the country's north, enjoy the independence they long dreamed about. The Iraqi flag does not fly in Kurdistan, which has a democratically elected government and its own army. In southern Iraq, Shi'ite religious parties have carved out theocratic fiefdoms, using militias that now number in the tens of thousands to enforce an Iranian-style Islamic rule. To the west, Iraq's Sunni provinces have become chaotic no-go zones, with Islamic insurgents controlling Anbar province while Baathists and Islamic radicals operate barely below the surface in Salahaddin and Nineveh. And Baghdad, the heart of Iraq, is now partitioned between the Shi'ite east and the Sunni west. Contention 2: If the USG does not implement a soft partition, there will be over 1,000,000 civilian dead. The Saban Center for Middle East Policy. "The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq." Analysis Paper Number 12. June 2007. http://www.brookings.edu.... While Iraq may not yet resemble Bosnia in 1995 in which ethnic separation had progressed to the point where fairly clear regional borders could be established, it is well beyond the Bosnia of 1992 when the separation was just beginning. Moreover, while Bosnia eventually wound up as a reasonably stable federation, as many as 200,000 may have lost their lives before that settlement. A comparable per capita casualty toll in Iraq would imply one million dead. It should be the goal of policymakers to avoid such a calamity by trying to manage the ethnic relocation process, if it becomes unstoppable, rather than allow terrorists and militias to use violence to drive this process to its grim, logical conclusion. Contention 3: The United States has a moral obligation to stop the ethnic cleansing - something which simply leaving ("timetable") does not solve. Larry Diamond, James Dobbins, Chaim Kaufmann, Leslie H. Gelb, and Stephen Biddle. "What to do in Iraq: A Roundtable." Foreign Affairs. July/August 2006. http://www.foreignaffairs.org...- chaim-kaufmann-leslie-h-gelb-stephen-biddle/what-to-do-in-iraq-a-roundtable.html In any case, it is beyond the power of any Iraqi government to stop the violence between the communities if they are not separated first. Although the main Shiite militias are controlled by factions within the uia, they do not answer to it or to one another. The most active death squads seem to be those of the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which controls the Interior Ministry. Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army has also killed many people. As a result, Iraq is breaking up into communal cantons. As they become unsafe, mixed towns and urban neighborhoods are becoming segregated. No one knows how far this process has gone already; some reports suggest that many towns have already become monoethnic. Shiite and Sunni militias have been inundated by new volunteers, and new independent neighborhood militias are forming, too. Free movement between Sunni and Shiite areas will be increasingly curtailed by checkpoints manned by militias, if not by government forces, as is already happening within and around Baghdad. Iraq will eventually develop internal communal borders with a few heavily guarded crossing points. Since the ethnic makeup of Baghdad is far too complex for the city to be divided into just two parts, some of its neighborhoods will become isolated enclaves surrounded by barbed wire. This ugly solution has worked before: in Jerusalem, Mount Scopus was a Jewish island from 1948 to 1967. Any such partition of Iraq would likely be de facto, because many Shiite leaders still hope that a unified country can emerge, and no regime in the Middle East would tolerate formal independence for the Kurds. In the meantime, the United States will remain the strongest military force in Iraq. As such, it will have one remaining duty: the moral obligation to minimize the damage, human and otherwise, caused by ethnic cleansing. This is also a U.S. national security interest: the U.S. government is - and will continue to be - blamed by most of the world for all of the harm that befalls the people of Iraq. The shorter that bill of indictment, the better. =============== Refutation =============== Contention 1 - Cost. I agree - cost is an issue. But I should win this point because Soft Partition is one of the fastest solutions to leaving Iraq, and allows the Iraqis to begin self government (leading to an eventual removal of troops) by as early as 2010. This is - by any account - an excellent schedule. And when considering how long it will take to set up a government in Iraq that is stable (I assume that my opponent isn't advocating we just leave them screwed over with no govermnet), Soft Partition may actually work FASTER than just leaving. Why? It solves the problems in Iraq. It removes the sectarian fighting that plagues the region and promotes a peaceful solution, rather than simply treating the "symptoms" (just leaving). Contention 2 - Pretenses. This furthers my argument about a moral obligation; we screwed their sovereign country over, and now they are powerless (see my evidence) to remedy their situation. We MUST fix the situation before leaving, which is a negative position. Contention 3 - Deaths. This also furthers my argument; soft partition solves the main catalyst to violence, reducing the number of troop deaths. As for civilian deaths; my evidence has already shown that without a Soft Partition, there may be as many as 1,000,000 civilian deaths. So my side solves the affirmative's issue, making this a Con point. Contention 4 - Opinion. My opponent is correct in saying the Iraqis want the US out. What he neglects to mention is that they also explain how. ABC NEWS/USA TODAY/BBC/ARD POLL – IRAQ: WHERE THINGS STAND Monday, March 19, 2007. "Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss Marks a National Survey of Iraq" "Over 98.7 percent of Kurds voted in a nonbinding referendum for independence synonymous with soft partition divisions. 85.3 percent of Shiites and 56.9 percent of Sunnis voted similarly." The Iraqis voted in 2007 in favor of a soft partition. So I agree with my opponent; lets listen to the Iraqis! In percentages greater than have elected any president in the history of the United States, they've spoken; soft partition Iraq. So as for voters: I outweigh my opponent's entire case on the fact that we have a moral obligation to implement soft partition as the only capable military force in Iraq. If we don't, we risk over a million civilian dead. But beyond that, my plan is well backed and solves all of my opponent's contentions. Vote Neg.