A couple of specifics: Sadr is an avid anti-collaborationist anti-separatist. He is generally called a "nationalist", which is not wrong, but does not fully express his position. He has been one of the strongest forces for maintaining Iraq as a unified state. In that regard he has reached out repeatedly for unity to various Sunni groups.

"   I don't think it is a good idea to divide a country along religious lines."

One of the points missed utterly by most Americans, including Biden, is that you CAN'T divide Iraq along religious lines, although the sectarian and ethnic cleansing so nicely enabled by the Americans has made that a little less impossible than it was. Iraqis have NEVER been divided from one another along religious lines, and are still too intertwined by affiliation, intermarriage, etc. to make that doable without creating an even worse upheaval than we have seen so far.

"But Biden was only looking give the Iraqis what he thought they wanted which was a federation."

If Biden thought that was what Iraqis wanted, then he is even more abysmally ignorant and hubristic than I thought, and he must have carefully ignored all the polls and other indexes that show the exact opposite.

"It did not have to be permanent."

Once done it would have been virtually impossible to undo.

"He wanted to stop the killing."

Again, not a point in Biden's favour, but rather yet another indication of his ignorance and hubris. Trying to divide Iraqis along sectarian lines would not have stopped the killing, as many Iraqis and others who were actually paying attention, and who knew something about Iraq past and present warned.

"Iraq will settle these questions on its own."

The longer the U.S. stays and mucks things up, or keeps its fingers in the pot stirring, the harder that will be.

"We are going to end the illegal occupation and go home."

No you're not. Not in the foreseeable future. In case you haven't been paying attention, Obama does not intend to do more than reconfigure the occupation and keep it going indefinitely in its "new" form. As for McCain - got help the Iraqis and the world if he is elected, which is what I am increasingly convinced will happen. And if it DOES happen, screw the Americans for being stupid enough to elect him.

"Let us watch and see how unified the country stays and will the unity be at the point of a religious sword."

During more than 80 years as a secular, and unusually pluralistic state for the region, Iraq was very unified and Iraqis were known throughout the Arab world for their strong nationalism. They did not need a "religious sword" (which by the way sounds like yet another Muslim stereotype - I hope you didn't mean it that way) to hold them together. And even now they do not want the separation that has been forced on them by the American occupiers and their Iraqi proxies.

"Again it is the Iraqi's decision."

Really? It has not been their decision for the last five and half years. On the contrary, they have not been consulted at all, and their views and desires have been utterly ignored. When is it going to finally become their decision.

"Let us ask the Kurds first."

Why as the Kurds first? You want to give the most weight and the most say to a relatively small minority who are living under two brutal, corrupt warlords who arrest anyone who expresses a dissenting view, or even so much as displays an Iraqi flag (yes, Kurds living under the two mafiosi warlords have been put in prison for carrying or displaying the Iraqi flag, as recently happened to some Kurds when they were celebrating Iraq's victory in the Asia Cup)? So, just how free do you think people living in Kurdistan are to express their views?