Two weeks ago, faced with the imminent reality of 4,000 American deaths in Iraq since 2003, the U.S. Senate voted to adopt a resolution calling for a radical restructuring of Iraq’s broken system of national governance.

The resolution, proposed by Democratic senator Joe Biden of Delaware, urges the Iraqi people to federalize their country by devolving considerable power to three cooperative, yet autonomous, ethnic provinces – one mainly Shi’a, one mainly Sunni, and one mainly Kurd.

Shortly after the Senate vote, both the Iraqi parliament and the U.S. embassy in Iraq vehemently rejected the resolution, the latter stating that Biden’s proposal would “produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed.”

Given that the proposal acknowledges a terminal breakdown in the process of Iraqi political reconciliation, the embassy’s reaction is hardly surprising. But the harsh reaction of the Iraqi parliament was unexpected, and should be interpreted in the U.S. as a clear sign that it’s time for us to leave, and leave now.

The Biden-Gelb plan, as the proposal is commonly called, represents a giant leap forward in the process of stabilizing Iraq. What’s more, it would be relatively feasible to implement, as it simply codifies what’s already been occurring on the ground in Iraq since the insurgency began: Shi’as, Sunnis, and Kurds all fleeing violence-stricken, ethnically mixed neighborhoods to live amongst their ethnic counterparts in what are essentially self-constructed ghettos.

Thus, the livid reaction of the Iraqi parliament to an American plan which is not only ameliorative, but is already being implemented by Iraqis themselves, tells us two very important and very worrying things.

First, it tells us that the U.S. has fostered such intense resentment in the Middle East that no matter what solutions we propose they will be rejected out of hand. And second, it tells us that a significant majority of Iraqis simply do not share the West’s vision of Iraq developing into a stable liberal democracy.

The first conclusion was hinted at earlier this year, when Iraqis took to the streets over a proposal by the U.S. military to construct security walls within the city limits of Baghdad. The rhetoric accompanying the Iraqi protests, which emphasized a tenderhearted desire to coexist, could only be described as absurd when juxtaposed with the footage of bombings and beheadings constantly being aired on Iraq’s nightly news.

The second conclusion helps us to decipher the seeming absurdity that accompanies the first. Despite their deep ethnic and religious enmity, many Iraqis are unwilling to disengage politically, primarily due to fear and oil, the Middle East’s twin hydras.

Few Iraqis desire to rule over or injure their fellow citizens. But many harbor a deep sense of fear and mistrust, and are hardly willing to leave their enemies to their own devices. It certainly doesn’t help that the Biden-Gelb plan relies primarily on trust to equitably distribute the country’s oil.

At the moment, many Iraqis feel that the only way to ensure their individual security and that of their families is through armed conflict with their enemies. Given Iraq’s bloody history, they may in fact be right.

But as long as this is the case, no American pacification plan can ever hope to succeed, because military theory 101 states that guerrilla insurgencies (and counter-insurgencies) live and die by the support of the local populace.

Iraq’s al-Anbar province offers a revealing example. Last year, a U.S. intelligence assessment reported that province was all but lost to Sunni and al-Qaeda militants. This year, the province is, according to the New York Times, “undergoing a surprising transformation.” This isn’t because of a ‘surge’ in U.S. forces, but rather because the local populace simply got fed up with the out-of-control violence.

If, as we’ve seen, Iraqis have zero interest in grand “Amerikee” plans for reconciliation, then there truly is no end in sight. And if that’s the case, the only sane question can be: why let that 4,000th American die?