Browse by Date

March 2008
M T W T F S S
« Feb   Apr »
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

Middle East Analysis

Awakening to New Dangers in Iraq: Sunni ‘Allies’ Pose an Emerging Threat

By Brian Katulis, Peter Juul, Ian Moss, Center for American Progress

posted on 03/10/08

The fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war rapidly approaches, which means the very tenuous and dangerous military and political situation in Iraq will come back into the spotlight. The conventional wisdom among most conservatives and Washington policy elites is that the surge has “worked.” This conventional wisdom ignores the fact that the fundamental objectives of the surge—to create a more sustainable security framework for Iraq and advance Iraq’s political transition—have not been met. …

Unfortunately, what has been extolled as a central “success” of the surge has also exacerbated existing political divisions and fomented new political cleavages in an already fractured and fragile Iraqi body politic. … With intra-Sunni tensions and violence rising, continued sectarian divisions between Shi’a and Sunnis, and ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs plaguing Iraq, the country is no closer to a sustainable security framework than it was at the start of 2007. In many ways, the situation in Iraq is beginning to look increasingly like what has recently transpired in Lebanon, with the emergence and strengthening of smaller political factions, each with its own armed militia asserting its influence in different parts of the country. …

Until the United States begins to redeploy its forces from Iraq there will be no progress toward the creation of effective local governing institutions around the country and political reconciliation at the national level. Only then can the United States broker a new constitutional convention—with the help of Iraq’s neighbors—to create a new government capable of holding Iraq together and defeating global terrorist networks. Access the full article>>