What are the top five most important points made in the Iraq Study Groups findings?”
MIT political scientists list key points on Iraq Stephanie Schorow, News Office Correspondent December 6, 2006 The Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, is scheduled to issue its report today (Dec. 6). To mark its release, we asked four MIT foreign policy experts to summarize key points the United States should consider in addressing the Iraq situation. Barry R. Posen is the MIT Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the MIT Security Studies Program. * The United States should set a date certain for the disengagement of its combat forces from Iraq and announce it. The U.S. presence there stimulates nationalist and religious resistance from Sunni and Shia and at the same time protects all the parties from the full consequences of their political intransigence toward each other. The United States pays a high blood and money price to referee the current low-grade civil war, and to the naked eye is making no progress in ending it.
