Ideas on Iraq for the Next President
In Politico’s new “Dear 44” series, experts from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Center for American Progress Action Fund debate a different policy issue facing the next president each week. This week, Aram Zamgochian (PDF), project director for Middle East and Africa Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, discuss what the next administration’s policy toward Iraq should look like.
Zamgochian touts efforts by the Chamber of Commerce to help U.S. companies “identify credible investment opportunities, find sound local partners and develop policies to help them compete” in Iraq. He says such investment is “the true long-term insurance policy to guarantee against instability in a region that is crucial to our national security and business objectives.”
Katulis, on the other hand, urges the next president to follow the advice of the Iraq Study Group report. Though the report needs updating, he says, “its fundamental premise that a new strategy is needed to managing multiple and interlinked challenges in the Middle East — among them Iran, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Iraq — remains relevant and should guide the next administration’s efforts as it redeploys U.S. troops from Iraq.”
