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| Author: | Robert McMahon, Deputy Editor |
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December 18, 2006
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) report has stirred debate in Washington with a raft of policy recommendations that includes linking broader Mideast issues with the resolution of the Iraq conflict. The Bush administration has followed the report with an intense round of consultations that is expected to lead to the announcement of policy changes early next year. Bush says he is sticking to his goal of helping make Iraq a stable democracy, and seemed to rebuff some of the ISG prescriptions. But he is hearing from top advisers and Iraqi leaders that the path to this goal involves everything from “surging” U.S. military forces into the country to massive increases in reconstruction aid to turning over large areas of control to Iraqi forces. There remains great anticipation about whether a series of events—a Democrat-controlled Congress taking office, the arrival of a new defense secretary, and the intense discussion spurred by the ISG report—will lead the administration to adopt a new approach to Iraq and the Middle East as a whole. Many experts expect the changes to be tactical rather than tectonic.
The stabilization of Iraq remains the top concern but experts say the extensive discussions within the administration are sure to involve broader regional issues as well. Scott Lasensky, a Middle East specialist at the United States Institute of Peace calls it “the most fundamental reconsideration of U.S. Middle East policy in terms of a public discourse” since 9/11. Henri Barkey, a former State Department policy expert on Iraq who now teaches at Lehigh University, says it is merely setting the stage for a larger shift in policy once Bush leaves office. “The major shift in American policy will come with the 2008 [presidential] elections irrespective of whether the Republicans or the Democrats win,” Barkey says.
Debate is reportedly focusing on the following areas:
No. Though the ISG report omitted mention of the policy of establishing democracy in Iraq, Bush and Rice have repeatedly said it remains a centerpiece of their efforts in Iraq and the region. But Rice told the Washington Post, “We've not always been able to pursue [this policy] in ways that have been effective." Bush’s UN General Assembly speech in September signaled an effort to engage Arab moderates but some experts say it is the autocratic allies of the United States in the region that can offer the most immediate assistance. Lehigh University’s Barkey says to advance U.S. interests in the region, the Bush administration needs to move vigorously toward building a coalition of key countries. This could prove effective, he says, in eventually approaching the Iranians and Syrians about future cooperation. “You don’t just go to the Iranians and say ‘Hi, let’s go and talk,’” says Barkey. “You talk to your allies, you talk to the Saudis, the Turks, the Jordanians, the Kuwaitis, the Egyptians, right, and you hammer out some kind of a vision, then say to the Iranians ‘We have a way of going forward, you want to join us?’”
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