Iraq And Afghanistan — Any Silver Linings In Our Playbook?
By Ellen Laipson: There’s been a brief break in the storm clouds over Baghdad and Kabul this week; both countries’ struggles to form governments after elections achieved minor progress with the election of a parliament speaker in Iraq and an agreement to audit election results in Afghanistan. But the domestic dysfunction is deep, and cannot […]
New Angles On Iraq: Views Of The Stimson Center’s Experts
The Henry L. Stimson Center presents a collection of short essays on various aspects of the Iraq policy challenge prepared by our experts. We have drawn on the Center’s distinct areas of expertise in managing threats from weapons of mass destruction and in Asian regional security to pull together some new ideas and perspectives on […]
Iraq: Why Reconciliation Is So Hard
By Ellen Laipson – As American politicians debate deadlines and benchmarks for Iraqi performance, it is clear that Iraqi society and its new political class are not yet in a conciliatory mood. The various historic grievances now compete with new rivalries over land and power, creating new tensions that undermine the spirit of reconciliation. In addition, the execution of […]
The Future of US-Iraq Relations
An important transition is underway in the official relationship between the United States and Iraq. Since late 2008, relations have been governed by two agreements: one related to the planned withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2011, and one that sets a strategic framework for the future of US-Iraq relations and for broad cooperation […]
A Terminal Case? Iraqi Natural Gas Development
By Miles Watkins – Much attention has been paid to the Iraqi government’s auctioning of petroleum extraction rights over the last year. Worth $9 trillion, Iraq’s oil reserves are the fourth largest in the world and even at weak current levels of extraction, generate over half of the country’s GDP ($70 billion). And with the […]
How its Arab neighbours can help to build the new Iraq
The Obama administration has made Iraq’s reintegration into the region one of the cornerstones of its Iraq policy. It is naturally linked to US hopes for stability in Iraq – a country that has normal trade and political relations with its neighbours, and a friendly foreign policy in which no single external power dominates the […]
Oil Legislation in Iraq: A Step Towards Stability
By Ronan McGee – Oil is pivotal to the long-term stability and prosperity of Iraq. Its estimated 115 billion barrels are the world’s third largest proven oil reserves, and Iraq hopes to raise its present output of 2.5 million barrels per day to 6 million barrels per day. Such efforts will likely be accelerated as […]
Iraq’s New Reality: The Impact of Conflict on Minorities, Refugees, and the Internally Displaced
Several years of war, internal violence, and unrest have taken a severe toll on the Iraqi population. As US troops withdraw and Iraq begins the next chapter in its history, it is important to consider the status of the country’s most vulnerable populations and the challenges they face. This is the first report in a […]