Testimony by Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa Program Director, International Crisis Group to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 9 April 2008.
from ICG
The tactical successes associated with the surge offer a fragile but genuine opportunity to reassess our overall approach and put the emphasis where it needs to be: steps by the US administration to credibly pressure the Iraqi government and alter the regional climate. This entails ceasing to provide the Iraqi government with unconditional military support; using our leverage and the threat of withdrawal to encourage progress toward a broad national compact and a non-sectarian, impartial state; designing a long-term program of cooperation to replenish Iraq’s depleted human resources; and, importantly, engaging in real diplomacy with all of its neighbors, Iran and Syria included.
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