Chatham House Report: Iraq On Verge Of Collapse
Iraq is on the "verge of becoming a failed state," according to a report issued today by The Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, also known as Chatham House. Al Jazeera reports that the study suggests that, despite the recent surge of troops in Baghdad, U.S. forces have only managed to push insurgents to nearby cities, and that they cannot create the conditions where various groups can resolve differences with each other.
Gareth Stansfield, author of the report, Accepting Realities in Iraq, also writes that there is not one civil war in Iraq, but many. And he writes that each of Iraq's three main neighboring states -- Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia -- have reasons of their own to see the current instability in Iraq continue.
Syndicated columnist David Ignatius, writing from Baghdad, also concludes that time to reconcile the different factions in Iraq is quickly running out.
Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse interviews an Iraqi tribal leader who says "the key to saving Iraq from the scourge of Al-Qaeda is to subject captured fighters to the swift and deadly rule of tribal justice."
"I always tell the Americans 'Why detain the enemy? Leave him to me, don't detain him,'" he chuckled during an interview with AFP in a Baghdad hotel."We have our own tribal legal system and this is constant and cannot be changed. Murderers must be killed under tribal law and unless we use this force against terrorism, terrorism will continue to rise."
5:38 PM ET | 05-17-2007 | permalink
