U.S. Foreign Policy In Post-SOFA Iraq By Eric Davis

Many would consider this piece very much too optimistic about the degree of U.S. influence in a post-occupation Iraq (a less euphemistic way of saying post-Status of Forces Agreement Iraq).  One suspects too that the Saudis and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries as well as Egypt would regard the policies Professor Davis advocates to be far too favorable to the Shiite parties and insufficiently challenging to their alignment with Iran.  Iraqi Arabs might consider them too deferential to Kurdish separatism.  Still, this piece is one of the few in the United States to consider the future of Iraq after the U.S. departure and the points it makes need to be part of a national discussion.   http://www.fpri.org/enotes/2011/201109.davis.iraq.html

U.S. Foreign Policy In Post-SOFA Iraq

By Eric Davis

September 2011

Eric Davis is professor of political science at Rutgers University and former director of Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He is the author of Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq (University of California Press, 2005) and the forthcoming Taking Democracy Seriously in Iraq (Cambridge University Press, 2012).