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822. Evaluating Iraq's Provincial Reconstruction Teams While Drawdown Looms: A USIP Trip Report
- Author:
- Sam Parker and Rusty Barber
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- Since their 2005 inception in Iraq, PRTs have struggled to fully define their mission, overcome structural problems, learn to work alongside their military counterparts and assist Iraqis down the path to self-governance and stability so that U.S. forces can withdraw. While the concept was born in the Afghan conflict, PRTs in Iraq bear little resemblance to their Afghan cousins, which are led and largely staffed by military officers. PRTs in Iraq are largely civilian-led and are required to address a host of issues including local governance, economic and women's development, health, agriculture, rule of law and education. In this respect, they resemble mini development task forces, harnessing civilian expertise sourced from the U.S. and augmented by military civil affairs officers.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Security, Economics, Health, Terrorism, War, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East
823. Iraq in the Obama Administration
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- The following U.S. interests underlie any U.S. consideration of policy toward Iraq and should guide the Obama administration: Restore U.S. credibility, prestige and capacity to act worldwide. Improve regional stability. Limit and redirect Iranian influence. Maintain an independent Iraq as a single state. Prevent Iraq from becoming a haven or platform for international terrorists. These interests cannot be fully achieved without continued U.S. engagement, even as the level of American forces needed to maintain security declines. Iraq is important to the U.S. Ignoring or hastily abandoning Iraq could risk a collapse with catastrophic humanitarian and political consequences that the new Administration would not be able to ignore.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Humanitarian Aid, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia
824. Telling the Story: Documentation Lessons for Afghanistan from the Cambodian Experience
- Author:
- Scott Worden and Rachel Ray Steele
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- Documentation centers dedicated to researching, recording, archiving and protecting information related to mass crimes and human rights abuse conflict have been organized in countries as diverse as Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala and Iraq. Their work is an integral part of a transition from an authoritarian regime or war to sustainable peace. Victims want to tell what happened to them, be acknowledged, and know how and why atrocities occurred. Moreover, an accurate accounting of past crimes applies pressure to remove perpetrators from power and raises awareness toward preventing future abuse.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Human Rights, War, and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, Asia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia, Guatemala, and Southeast Asia
825. Fragile States
- Author:
- Mark McGillivray, Wim Naudé, and Amelia U. Santos-Paulino
- Publication Date:
- 03-2008
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Many of the world's poorest countries can be described as “fragile states” wherein governments cannot or will not provide an environment for households to reduce, mitigate or cope with poverty and other risks to well-being. Many of these states are in conflict or just emerging from conflict. The UNU-WIDER project “Fragility and Development” explored state fragility and its relationship to household vulnerability, noting that there is a lack of research on the economic dimensions of conflict, aid and development in fragile states. This research brief provides a summary of the various contributions made by this project, including case studies on Iraq, Kosovo, Palestine and Somalia. It also addresses a number of pertinent questions. When are states fragile? What are the costs that fragile states impose on their people and the international community? Should the sovereignty of fragile states be reconsidered? And how can aid flows to fragile states be made more effective?
- Topic:
- Government, Politics, Post Colonialism, and Political Theory
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Palestine, Kosovo, and Somalia
826. The Role of Epistemic Communities in Offering New Cooperation Frameworks in the Euphrates-Tigris Rivers System
- Author:
- Aysegul Kibaroglu
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- The Euphrates-Tigris region has faced significant political changes since the late 1990s. These changes can be attributed to improvements in bilateral relations, mainly in the security domain, between two of its major riparians, Turkey and Syria. In the meantime, another major riparian, Iraq, has lived through devastating war and occupation, which has had implications for regional water issues. These changes have brought new actors, involved or interested in the hydropolitics of the two-river basin, to the region.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Turkey, and Syria
827. Iraq, the U.S., and the Region after an American Withdrawal
- Author:
- Robert Jervis
- Publication Date:
- 02-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
- Abstract:
- The US will leave Iraq at some point, and needs to plan for this eventuality. There are many uncertainties involved, but taking them seriously is the first step toward being able craft a policy that will reduce the damage to us, Iraq, and the region. Even if the US stays until the violence is brought down, its departure will lead to the reopening of local and regional bargains because of the lack of enforcement. The greatest danger is that heightened civil war will lead to intervention by Iraq's neighbors, but the very possibility of large-scale violence creates possibilities for arrangements to avoid it because all of the parties know that they could lose badly if things get out of control.
- Topic:
- International Relations and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East
828. Is It Interests or Values?
- Author:
- Joseph Ferguson
- Publication Date:
- 07-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Comparative Connections
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- At the conclusion of the final summit meeting between Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin at the Russian resort of Sochi in early April, relations between Moscow and Washington appeared to have righted themselves. The cordial meeting between the outgoing presidents left a sense of optimism in both Moscow and in the West that U.S.-Russia relations would improve until at least the fall presidential elections in the United States. Things have quieted down between the two nations over the last quarter, as the leadership of both countries has gone about business at home and has lessened (though not ceased) the often-negative rhetoric. But when the summer concludes, Russia will again loom large in U.S. political debates, and the big questions of U.S. foreign policy – whether they revolve around Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Northeast Asia, or even Venezuela – will necessarily include Russia policy. And as President Dmitry Medvedev unveils his own version of “sovereign democracy,” U.S. foreign policymakers will be forced to address the fundamental question of whether U.S. policy toward Moscow is centered on its strategic interests, or on democratic values.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Russia, United States, Iraq, Washington, Moscow, Venezuela, and Northeast Asia
829. The Divide Over European Security
- Author:
- C.D. Van Aller
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Connections
- Institution:
- Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
- Abstract:
- The war in Iraq continues to divide the Western democracies, nations once optimistic that the post-Cold War environment might lead to a more secure world. Even if solutions proved difficult to achieve, many hoped that these societies would share common viewpoints on threats to peace. Yet there have been contrasting security perspectives that have been highlighted by the conflict in Iraq, such as that of former European Union High Commissioner for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, who stated in 2003 that “Europe is not at war.” One of the main cleavages is between Europe and the United States generally, with the former considering that the U.S. has increasingly been too dedicated to the unilateral use of force, views held by both elites and the general public in Europe. Even before the Bush Administration, Samuel Huntington de-scribed U.S. foreign policy as one of “world unilateralism,” with a single-minded devotion to its own interests while minimizing those of other countries. Since the Iraq war, Harold Pinter has stated, the U.S. “has become a fully-fledged, award-winning, gold-plated monster. It has effectively declared war on the world....” Many people in Western Europe have some sympathy with this view, if not its hyperbolic quality, and the war in Iraq appears to have amplified long-held convictions about the world's sole remaining superpower.
- Topic:
- Security and Cold War
- Political Geography:
- Iraq and Europe
830. What Can Iraq's Neighbors Contribute?
- Author:
- Daniel Serwer
- Publication Date:
- 06-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- While Iraq may be in desperate need of friends and help from its neighbors, the United States must first define its role and timeline for being there and then open the door for Iraq to accept that help.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Globalization, Government, and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq