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  • Serwer: Iraqis Beginning to Show Signs of Political Compromise
    Interview
    March 14, 2008

  • Biddle: Security, Political Improvements Seen in Iraq in Recent Months
    Interview
    November 15, 2007

  • Bush is still 'the decider'
    By Charles A. Kupchan, Senior Fellow for Europe Studies and Peter L. Trubowitz
    Op-Ed
    November 9, 2006

  • Telhami: Despite Elections, Iraqis Face ‘Tide of Sectarianism’ Making Forming of Successful Government Difficult
    Interview
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  • WSJ: Iraq and the Challenge Before Us
    By Zalmay M. Khalilzad
    Must Read
    January 9, 2006

  See Also

  Iraq, Elections

  Indecisive Moments

  Author:	Noah Feldman, Adjunct Senior Fellow

  April 7, 2008
  New York Times Magazine

  Everyone loves an election—right? Americans’ parochial love of the hustings (whatever they are) has been evident in Iraq almost from the beginning, urged along by the drama of the raised purple fingers and the Bush administration’s recurring need to show tangible markers of progress. The latest electoral venture—provincial contests scheduled for the fall of 2008—was recently approved by Iraq’s government under the usual American pressure.

  Yet the consequences of Iraq’s elections have been decidedly mixed. They have helped legitimize Iraq’s government and have forced the U.S. to deal with leaders who have real domestic constituencies instead of with handpicked proxies. These nontrivial gains have come, however, at the cost of revealing the deep divisions in Iraqi society and call into question the very notion of a single Iraq with a self to be determined.

  In fact, the main reason the U.S.has been pushing so hard for provincial elections is to repair the damage caused by the Sunnis’ poor showing in the elections of 2005. The theory is that more and better Sunni representation will help consolidate the security gains realized by the American counterinsurgency strategy, of which the troop surge is the most visible component. But fall may be too soon for these elections—not only because the hoped-for gains among Sunnis may not materialize but also because the elections are certain to worsen the Shiite disunity that is already spilling over into violence.

  View full text of article

• 

  New CFR Books

  

  In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.

  

  America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.

  

  In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.

  Complete list of CFR Books.

  

  

  New Independent Task Force Reports

  Confronting Climate Change

  This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.

  U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality

  This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.

  About Independent Task Forces at the Council.

  

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