Resolved: The United States should encourage the implementation of a soft partition in Iraq.

For your points: (note: I numbered these for my own convenience, and to make it easier to find my rebuttals of your points in later rounds) 1 while this may be true in soft partition cases in the past, Iraq is an unique situation, in no other historical case of soft partition is there a set of circumstances similar to Iraq's. No other soft partition took place in a country that had a large outside force occupying it that could help with the partition process (logistics of moving people and where they should be moved, among other tasks). Think of Iraq as a bar, the Sunnis and Shiites as two people fighting, and the US as the bartender. When the two people start beating each others brains out, the bartender will naturally try to separate them, so they can cool down and recover. This is exactly what a soft partition would do, it would allow the Sunnis and Shiites to go to their own region (which according to Dr. Henry Grab, is what they wanted from the beginning of Iraq's inception) so they will no longer fight. 2 according to Senator Joseph Biden's plan for soft partition, the new Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish "states" would have the majority of power, all the federal government would do is distribute oil revenues, so there would be a "regime change" that this article requires. 3 this discusses the difficulties of a soft partition, and I will admit they will be hurdles. However, right now the US is at a crossroads, stay the course, and possibly stay in Iraq for 100 years like McCain suggests, or start working on a solution, and soft partition is that solution. It will require effort and resources, but as former president John F. Kennedy said, "We choose to do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard". 4 Baghdad would have to be an independent city, as it is the nation's capital, so it cannot be affiliated with the new states. The article you cite is also from before the surge started, the surge which helped ally the Sunnis with the US, which is one of the reasons Anbar province, formerly the most violent, is now one of the safest. Therefore, it is unlikely a soft partition would create such a anti-US Sunni state. 5 as far as the risk of people joining a militia to "get back their homes", a soft partition would have to be voluntary. Forcing people to leave would create a situation this article describes. However, by keeping it voluntary, as the Biden plan says, will prevent that. the US would have to lead a housing swap program so that people know they have a home to go too wherever they choose to be relocated too, but such a system will ensure that people are compensated for their home, and that no one will be forced to leave unwillingly. 6 as I said before, the US would have to help with the logistics of a soft partition, the division of lands being one of them. As I also said before, the soft partition would be voluntary, if a family does not want to give up its lands to move to a new state, then it does not have too. One way to address the issue of cities would be to have more cities then Baghdad be unaffiliated, perhaps even having their own region. 7 So far you seem to have forgotten that for a soft partition the Iraqi government would have to agree, the resolution does say "encourage", meaning we aren't doing it without there support. Of course it would also depend on the way the soft partition is carried out, if done correctly, and with the manpower and resources necessary, such an outcome will not happen. For these reasons and my so far unrefuted ones, i urge you to vote pro: that the US should encourage a soft partition in Iraq. Doing so will allow us to move forward in Iraq instead of the constant "staying the course", which has not improved the situation Iraq.