After The War

by Patrick Appel

Marc Lynch advises Arab leaders:

Arabs should recognise that the impending – and very real – US drawdown will place greater demands on them. They were long able to ignore the Bush administration’s entreaties to step up in Iraq because they never believed that the US would actually leave. As the sincerity of Obama’s commitment becomes clear, they must urgently rethink that assumption. At a minimum, they should be moving quickly to remove Iraq from its Chapter Seven status at the United Nations – which still designates the country as a threat to international peace – and forgiving the enormous outstanding Saddam-era debt. They should also be actively working to help the Iraqi Sunni community get its stake in Iraq’s government, before their disillusionment leads to the return of the Sunni insurgency. And they should be taking a proactive role in dealing with the refugee crisis.