BBC: Iraq report urges containment (Brookings)

[jannyk]

"In a city that is increasingly tuned to bad news from Iraq, a report from the Brookings Institution, one of Washington's leading foreign policy think-tanks, makes sombre reading. "With each passing day," it says, "Iraq sinks deeper into the abyss of civil war."

snip

"Unlike last year's report from the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group, whose goal appears in large part to have been consensus at home, this Brookings study is a tightly-argued case for urgent practical steps to deal with a looming catastrophe.
Its title - Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover From An Iraqi Civil War - says it all."

snip

"This, then, is where the Brookings study kicks in. It argues that the key goal for the Bush administration now should be to prevent the crisis in Iraq from spilling over into neighbouring states. This spill-over could take various forms - floods of refugees, outright military intervention, damaging economic effects, terrorism or even new insurgencies in other countries. What is needed, according to Kenneth Pollack is a new policy of containment - to insulate Iraq's neighbours from the corrosive effects of a full-scale civil war."

snip

"Abandoning Iraq is not an option. And if containment is to work, the report says that there must be a resolute commitment by both the US and the whole international community. A study of previous civil wars, it argues, suggests that half-measures and incremental steps only make matters worse."

much more at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6312037.stm

[malaise]

1. Imagine if this was happening in

the US heartland. How would the surrounding states react when the invader tells them to stay out. Meanwhile refugees seek shelter in droves but the invader says don't you dare interfere.

How the fugg is Iraq or anywhere outside of the US George's Bush's business.
I wish that man all that is evil.

[cassiepriam]

4. Ironic, Israel was formed because no one would accept Jewish refugees.

Seems like we are coming full circle.......

[Solly Mack]

2. containment, eh? Now where have I heard that before....

[magellan]

3. You'd think a think-tank would get it.

Bush** has no intention of resolving this crisis before it spreads. Regional war in the middle east is what he and the neocons have been fantasizing about all along. It gives them the excuse to drop more expensive bombs and pocket lots more money and generally spread the American MIC Empire. So they think.