Unfinished Business An American Strategy for Iraq Moving Forward

Iraq remains a problem that U.S. policymakers ignore at their own peril. While the security situation has dramatically improved since the dark days of 2006, the nation remains fragile and potentially volatile. In Unfinished Business, a small group of highly regarded experts from across the political spectrum analyze the situation and set forth a path for U.S. policy toward Baghdad. Washington has signaled its intention to withdraw military forces from Iraq sooner rather than later. What remains unclear is what America hopes to accomplish before its troops depart, or how it plans to reach its goals. The U.S must have a clear strategic concept, establishing well-defined goals and objectives that can be achieved even as it reduces its forces. The authors assert that the following should be the priorities for U.S. interests in Iraq: Iraq cannot be allowed to descend back into civil war. Iraq cannot reemerge as an aggressive state. Iraq should ideally be a strong, prosperous U.S. ally.

Kenneth M. Pollack is director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of A Path out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (Random House). Raad Alkadiri is partner and head of Global Risk at PFC Energy, a Washington, D.C.-based strategic advisory firm. J. Scott Carpenter is the Keston Family Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and director of its Project Fikra. Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy (Encounter). Sean Kane is the senior program officer for Iraq at the United States Institute of Peace and previously served with the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq.