Ellen Laipson, head of the Stimson Center and former Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council, has just released a Century Foundation report entitled "America and the Emerging Iraqi Reality: New Goals, No Illusions." She tries to look past the current arguments and uncertainties and focus on more fundamental strategic questions: "where do we want U.S.-Iraq relations to be in five years? ... Where does Iraq fit in America's strategic interests and agenda?" Her core argument is that the US needs to end the exceptional nature of its role in Iraq and conceive of a more 'normal' relationship:
The United States has to set its strategic goals in the region independently of how Iraq's political dramas play out. The time for social engineering is over; events in Iraq will be determined by powerful currents within Iraqi society and politics that are less and less susceptible to outside manipulation or influence. So the United States needs to set its own course, and no longer pin its policy on the ability of the Iraqis to play a part Americans have written for them.
She argues that the US should avoid a "special relationship" with Iraq in favor of a "more modest and realistic relationship." Looking back to history, she points out how counterproductive the cultivation of special relationships has usually been (she focuses on Iran in the 1970s and Egypt in the 1980s-1990s, but doesn't really touch Israel or the UK). This means supporting the government in Baghdad, to be sure, but taking care to "differentiate between US requirements and Iraqi progress." The heavy-handed American role in Iraqi politics "is now counterproductive: it is delaying rather than facilitating further reforms in the Iraqi political system." Or, as one commenter put it, the distribution of cabinet posts in the Maliki government is not a vital American national security interest.
I took part in an earlier workshop on the paper, and even where I don't agree on all counts I think Laipson raises important points for debate. She makes an important move towards thinking about the wider strategic questions which too often get lost in the weeds of daily events or in the Iraq tunnel vision which afflicts too much of the foreign policy debate. You can download the paper here.
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