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Analysis: Which Way Forward on Iraq?

Council on Foreign Relations

Updated: December 11, 2006
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner

The calm after the storm set off by the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report has settled in, leaving the question of what happens next. While nobody expects President Bush to adopt the ISG report wholesale—particularly its recommendations to pull out combat troops by 2008 or to engage Iran and Syria (NYT)—he has indicated some change in course can be expected. The White House says it will weigh the ISG report along with forthcoming reports coming from the Pentagon, State Department, and National Security Council before making any major changes in policy. This new Backgrounder addresses these proposals competing for the president’s attention.

The ISG report has stirred debate in foreign policy circles. Some say it is a recipe for failure in Iraq. Instead of regional diplomacy or fewer combat troops, what is needed is more "energy and competence in fighting the fight" (WSJ), suggests Eliot A. Cohen of Johns Hopkins University. Others say the report is overly generous to Iraqi neighbors like Saudi Arabia, which indicated it may back Iraq's Sunnis in the event of a U.S. pullout. " Saudi Arabia is the elephant in the room that cannot be mentioned," writes Greg Palast in the Guardian. Roger Cohen, writing in the New York Times, says the problem with the report is it "treats Iraq as an existing country needing a quick fix in the name of resurgent American realism, rather than a still-to-be-born country that needs to be ushered into being in the name of American idealism."

The ISG is critical of the U.S. approach to Iraq. But it says Iraqi leaders “who are not working toward a united Iraq” also share responsibility.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.