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CiteTesting the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?
Examining the decline of violence in Iraq at the end of 2007, Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, and Jacob Shapiro argue, "A synergistic...
Speaker: Stephen Biddle, Roger Hertog Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on Foreign Relations
December 12, 2011
CFR's Stephen Biddle discusses the increasing emphasis on non-military ties between the United States and Iraq. President Obama's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took place amidst "widespread concern on the part of many inside Iraq and out, that Iraq may not be ready yet to maintain the stability of its own political system and its own security system without a U.S. military presence," says CFR's Stephen Biddle. The failure of negotiations over a continued U.S. presence in Iraq means that "there will be no possibility for anything that looks like a traditional, orthodox peacekeeping role," Biddle explains. "With that peacekeeping presence now gone, the non-military, economic, diplomatic, cultural relationship that President Obama and Prime Minister Maliki were negotiating over today is certainly the right way forward, and may help at the margin to stabilize Iraq's internal politics."
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Examining the decline of violence in Iraq at the end of 2007, Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, and Jacob Shapiro argue, "A synergistic...
Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, and Jacob N. Shapiro examine the reasons for the reversal in 2007 from years of intense bloodshed in...
Stephen Biddle argues that troop withdrawal from Iraq should be slow and gradual.
Stephen Biddle discusses the perils of viewing the situation in Iraq as a "solved problem."