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Monday, August 11, 2014

After Iraq: Surviving the Summer of Global Chaos

After Iraq: Surviving the Summer of Global Chaos

08/10/14
James Jay Carafano
Security, United States

If Obama really plans to come back from the beach with real long-term plans, he needs to address Iraq, as well as other foreign policy obstacles, in the context of relations with Tehran and Moscow.

“I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” said President Obama said Saturday.  Summing up his new strategy for Iraq, he added, “This going to be a long-term project.”
Indeed, it won’t be easy to sort out a winning way forward for Iraq. The president's problems with Baghdad are intertwined with a series of setbacks his foreign policy has suffered during this ongoing summer of chaos.
For weeks, the Administration has hopped from crisis to crisis like a globe-trotting traveler skipping across continents. From Syria to Ukraine to Iraq, then Gaza, back to Ukraine, then Afghanistan, back to Gaza, now Iraq, with another round of crisis possible in the Ukraine, the president's problems are piling up.
Without question each of these challenges is unique. There is no grand conspiracy bent on spoiling the First Family’s summer vacation. Besides, it matters little at this point how this mess started. Where the U.S. goes from here is far more important than mulling over where it has been.
Fixing foreign policy has to be the president's top concern.
What is most troubling about each of these troubles is what they have in common.
First, each impacts a vital U.S. interest. The stability of Europe, South Asia and the Middle East are all important to the United States. Each of these conflicts has the potential to lead to spiraling violence or strategic competition that could fuel much bigger dangers. The White House ought to take action in each case to safeguard American interests.
Second, in every one of these crisis the U.S. finds itself chaffing with Iran or Russia. The U.S. has sketchy relations and clashing interests with both. But the U.S. can't effectively engage with the world unless it figures out how to engage with them.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/after-iraq-surviving-the-summer-global-chaos-11054

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