home > by publication type > op-eds > It's time to get out of Iraq - carefully
Email
| Authors: | Steve Andreasen Steven Simon, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies |
|---|
September 19, 2006
Philadelphia Inquirer
The war in Iraq is front and center this election season.
President Bush is again making the case that “the security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq” and “if we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.”
Most Democrats, and a growing number of Republicans, while opposed to immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq, believe the Iraq war has been a distraction from the war on terror, and that Washington should make clear to the Iraqi government that U.S. forces will be coming home.
We can expect the rhetoric surrounding these alternatives to get even blunter as both parties try to hammer home politically advantageous caricatures of the other’s position. Yet, no matter what the outcome on Election Day, one hopes that both the president and the new Congress will agree on a so-far elusive formula: how to withdraw from Iraq without further strengthening the appeal of radical Islam.
That effort should begin with a belated recognition of two essential points. First, the outcome of our struggle with radical Islam—whether the Sunni strain typified by al-Qaeda or Shia strain embodied by the mullahs of Iran—will in no small measure be determined by Washington’s ability to navigate renewed feuding between Sunnis and Shias that our intervention in Iraq has touched off. Second, we are more likely to make matters worse through an indefinite occupation of Iraq, which is likely to force our taking sides in an Iraqi civil war between Shias and Sunnis....
Steve Andreasen was director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council from 1993 to 2001. Steven N. Simon is the Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.