I’m puzzled why many press reports about Joe Biden touting his foreign-policy expertise and using as example the plan he supported to divide Iraq into three ethnic enclaves. This was a terrible notion, and would have led to far more violence in Iraq than anything we have seen there, along the lines of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but worse. It would have taken one security challenge and given us three or more even more difficult challenges. Furthermore the plan was opposed by 90 percent of Iraqis, and was being pushed only by a small group of inside-the-Beltway intellectuals who were certain they knew better what the Iraqis needed than the Iraqis themselves. It bespoke of a very unselfconscious type of imperialism. The partition plan was seen as the alternative to the Surge strategy, which once fully implemented turned out to be a highly effective means of reducing violence and increasing cooperation between the various ethnic and sectarian factions. The Surge was a more sophisticated approach than partition, surely. But why analysts cite the partition plan as evidence of Senator Biden’s national-security chops is a little perplexing since the plan was never implemented, never needed, and if attempted would have been a disaster.