Tuesday, December 19, 2006
International Crisis Group - After Baker-Hamilton: What to do in Iraq
ICG Report
The rethinking of U.S. Iraq policy represented by the Baker-Hamilton report is an important and welcome start but insufficiently radical if Iraq’s collapse and an unprecedented regional war are to be avoided.
After Baker-Hamilton: What to Do in Iraq,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the situation in Iraq and the wider region in the wake of the Iraq Study Group. Co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the Study Group described with necessary candour the magnitude of the Iraqi calamity. But though Crisis Group endorses many of its key recommendations, the change the report advocates is not nearly far-reaching enough, and its prescriptions are no match for its diagnosis.
“We are looking at Iraq’s complete disintegration into failed-state chaos, threatening to drag down much of the region with it”, says Crisis Group President Gareth Evans. “More troops in – or out – are not going to solve this. What is needed above all is a new multinational effort to achieve a new political compact between all relevant Iraqi players.”
All Iraqi actors who, one way or another, are involved in the country’s internecine violence must be brought to the negotiating table and pressed to accept the necessary compromises. That cannot be done without a concerted effort by all Iraq’s neighbours, which in turn cannot be done if their interests are not reflected in the final outcome.
After Baker-Hamilton: What to Do in Iraq,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the situation in Iraq and the wider region in the wake of the Iraq Study Group. Co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the Study Group described with necessary candour the magnitude of the Iraqi calamity. But though Crisis Group endorses many of its key recommendations, the change the report advocates is not nearly far-reaching enough, and its prescriptions are no match for its diagnosis.
“We are looking at Iraq’s complete disintegration into failed-state chaos, threatening to drag down much of the region with it”, says Crisis Group President Gareth Evans. “More troops in – or out – are not going to solve this. What is needed above all is a new multinational effort to achieve a new political compact between all relevant Iraqi players.”
All Iraqi actors who, one way or another, are involved in the country’s internecine violence must be brought to the negotiating table and pressed to accept the necessary compromises. That cannot be done without a concerted effort by all Iraq’s neighbours, which in turn cannot be done if their interests are not reflected in the final outcome.
