Rory Stewart, author of The Places In Between and The Prince of the Marshes, has a piece in The New York Review of Books called Iraq: The Question. All it consists of are answers to some questions asked of him by the audience after his discussion with broadcast journalist Dan Harris at the Asia Society in New York on April 20, 2007. But it is definitely worth reading.
Two excerpts over the fold.
Here is the first:
What would I do in Iraq now? I am not an expert, but I believe that the time has come to withdraw, that our presence is infantilizing the Iraqi political system. That we're like an inadequate antibiotic. We are sufficiently strong to have turned what might have been a conventional civil war into a highly unconventional neighborhood conflict. But we're not strong enough to eliminate it entirely. At the same time I fear that, without intending to, we have discredited democracy in the eyes of many Iraqis. We have created a situation in which many Iraqis now feel that the only way to keep security is to bring back a strongman. They are extremely skeptical of our programs and suggestions for development.
The piece ends with this wonderful quote:
The problems in Iraq are now so deep, complex, and intractable that they cannot be solved by surges or new tactics. They can only be solved by Iraqi political leadership and Iraqi political processes. We can provide diplomatic and economic support. We can continue to protect ourselves against terrorist attacks on our home soil through intelligence and special forces operations in Iraq. But we cannot win through an indefinite blanket occupation because we lack the will, the resources, the legitimacy, and also the consent necessary to play such a role. My instinct is that Iraqis can overcome their problems and create a functioning