FA: Politics First (1)

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In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, Stephen Biddle, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack wrote in an important article entitled "How To Leave a Stable Iraq" that the United States should build on progress in Iraq by refraining from significant troop drawdowns in the short term until progress is consolidated:

Both to deal with the new problems and to guard against any revival of the old ones, any further troop drawdowns, now that the "surge" is over, should be modest until after Iraq gets through two big rounds of elections -- in late 2008 at the provincial level and in late 2009 at the national level -- which have the potential either to reinforce important gains or to reopen old wounds. But starting in 2010, if current trends continue, the United States may be able to start cutting back its troop presence substantially, possibly even halving the total U.S. commitment by sometime in 2011, without running excessive risks with the stability of Iraq and the wider Persian Gulf region.

In the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs (November/December), I have a brief response, entitled "Politics First: Why Only U.S. Withdrawal Can Spur Iraqi Cooperation" (no link as of yet, sorry: the issue seems to have reached subscribers, but is not yet online - I will add a link when it's available). I argue that "
Abu Aardvark