Richard WarnickAnthony Cordesman: ‘only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq’
It turns out Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, went to Iraq with Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. Based on essentially the same information they were presented with, Cordesman concludes:
From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq’s ability or inability to rise above its current sectarian and ethnic conflicts, to redefine Iraq’s politics and methods of governance, establish some level of stability and security, and move towards a path of economic recovery and development. So far, Iraq’s national government has failed to act at the rate necessary to move the country forward or give American military action political meaning.
Cordesman does hold out the faint possibility of future success in Iraq, however he’s clear that the present strategy is failing.
Really, the present strategy is not much different from the ad hoc, localized approach that’s been followed by U.S. commanders ever since they invaded Iraq and found out there wasn’t any occupation plan.
RELATED POSTS:
Denial is a River in… Iraq (July 31)
O’Hanlon and Pollack: A War We Might Not Win (August 4)
UPDATE: Greg Sargent at Talking Points Memo warns that the Associated Press and Washington Post are peddling the view that Cordesman agrees with O’Hanlon and Pollack. Not only that, they are claiming that many critics of the Bush Iraq policy are now pointing to recent military “progress” as a reason to be optimistic. There is no evidence for this claim. At all.
