| Reports | Detail |
Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War | |||||||||||
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Synopsis:Iraq is already in a state of at least limited civil war, and may well be escalating to the level of a major civil conflict. What began as a small resistance movement centered on loyalists to the Ba’ath and Saddam Hussein has expanded to include neo-Salafi Sunni terrorism, become a broadly based Sunni insurgency, and now a broader sectarian and ethnic conflict.Excerpts A Survery of Options for Iraq: The Almost Good, the Bad, and the Ugly The US needs to act or it will be defeated in Iraq. Iraq is already in a state of serious civil war, and current efforts at political compromise and improving security at best are buying time. There is a critical risk that Iraq will drift into a major civil conflict over the coming months, see its present government fail, and/or divide or separate in some form.
The US cannot simply "stay the course," and rely on its existing actions and strategy. It needs new options to reverse the drift towards a major civil war and political failure. The military and police development effort falls far short of Department of Defense claims, must be reinforced and will take years to make fully successful. The economic aid and development program has failed, and new incentives are needed to offer any serious hope of Iraqi political compromise and conciliation.
The US cannot wait to see if its existing strategy and actions will work. They will not. The situation is spiraling out of control, and the US must either strongly reinforce its existing strategy or change it.
No mix of options will allow the US to succeed unless Iraqis can succeed in creating a more effective form of political compromise.
No mix of options for US action can provide a convincing plan for "victory" in Iraq. The initiative has passed into Iraqi hands. | |||||||||||
http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=3621
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