The US 'Surge' as a Collaborative Corrective for Iraq
Apr 2008, Vol. 153, No. 2
By Matthew B Arnold
If you intervene in a country because you feel its current condition is a security threat, how do you subsequently transition it to a point whereby you feel it safe to leave? US President George W Bush answered this question concerning the US intervention in Iraq by announcing: ‘Our strategy can be summed up this way: as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down.’ As the US’s travails in Iraq have highlighted, achieving such an oscillation is decidedly challenging because of the difficulties of ‘collaboration’. Namely, invading a state and pushing it towards certain outcomes means foreign interventionists are fundamentally dependent upon their ability to successfully ‘work with or through’ indigenous partners who share the same objectives.
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By Matthew B Arnold
If you intervene in a country because you feel its current condition is a security threat, how do you subsequently transition it to a point whereby you feel it safe to leave? US President George W Bush answered this question concerning the US intervention in Iraq by announcing: ‘Our strategy can be summed up this way: as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down.’ As the US’s travails in Iraq have highlighted, achieving such an oscillation is decidedly challenging because of the difficulties of ‘collaboration’. Namely, invading a state and pushing it towards certain outcomes means foreign interventionists are fundamentally dependent upon their ability to successfully ‘work with or through’ indigenous partners who share the same objectives.
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