Unfinished Business

Iraq still hangs in the balance. The dramatic improvements in Iraqi securitybetween 2007 and 2009 have produced important, but incompletechanges in the nation's politics. These changes make it possible to imagineIraq slowly muddling upward, building gradually toward a better future.But we must be constantly on guard against the considerable potential forIraq to slip into all-out civil war. There are dozens of scenarios ?from militarycoups, to official misconduct, to the assassination of one or two key leaders ?that could spark such violence.

In Unfinished Business, a team of five experts from across the politicalspectrum analyze the situation in Iraq. They present a well-reasoned andfeasible path for U.S. policy toward Baghdad ?one that would give priorityto preventing Iraq from slipping into civil war or becoming an aggressivestate but that would also lead to a clear American goal: a new, strong, andprosperous ally in the Middle East.

Ultimately, the United States must condition the continuation of theU.S.-Iraqi relationship on the willingness of Iraqi political leaders toguide their country in the direction of greater stability, inclusivity, andeffective governance.

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 theUnited States Institute of Peace and previously served with the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq.