IRAQ ON THE BRINK
Americans might feel a humanitarian desire to end the slaughter in Syria, but the conflict there does not directly affect U.S. strategic interests. That is not true in the case of Iraq, where the spillover from Syria is threatening to rekindle the civil war that began in the wake of the U.S. invasion in 2003. Iraq has become OPEC's second-largest oil exporter, and optimistic projections about the future stability of oil prices rest far less on the tapping of North American shale resources and far more on the expectation that Iraq will continue to boost production for years to come -- a dubious assumption if the country slides back into sectarian conflict.
There is no question that Iraq is suffering from the Syrian inferno next door. Weapons, funds, and Sunni militants flow back and forth across the border. But Iraq's problems spring principally from the country's own messy postwar politics and security situation. The fear and the desire for retribution that reemerged the instant that U.S. troops left Iraq have overwhelmed the Iraqi state, which still lacks strong, independent institutions. For the United States to help quell the spreading violence, it will have to pressure the Iraqis to restore the cross-sectarian power-sharing arrangements that Washington helped forge in 2008.
But the United States had much more leverage then than it does today, and so it will have to acquire some new political capital. The administration's recent decision to sell 24 Apache attack helicopters to Baghdad is a good start. Washington should consider bolstering more broadly its counterterrorism and military assistance to Baghdad, along with helping address Iraq's myriad shortcomings in agriculture, education, health care, and dozens of other areas -- as long as Baghdad demonstrates a willingness to rebuild a functional power-sharing arrangement.
The United States also needs to find its voice on Iraq. The Obama administration has consistently preferred quiet diplomacy to public statements. But Washington should speak out when Iraqi leaders, including (but not limited to) Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, act in ways that subvert Iraq's stability. The administration's word still holds weight in Baghdad, not least because Iraqi elites still attribute great, if unseen, power to Washington.