Iraq: The Way Forward—A Conversation with General Wesley Clark

Council on Foreign Relations
Washington, DC
February 14, 2006

Speaker: Wesley K. Clark
President and CEO, Wesley K. Clark and Associates, LLC; former Supreme Allied Commander, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1997-200) and former Director of Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Chiefs of Staff (1994-96)

Presider: Peter Ackerman
Managing Director, Rockport Capital, Inc.; member, Board of Directors, Council on Foreign Relations

PETER ACKERMAN: (In progress) -- until May 2000, General Clark was NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe and simultaneously commander in chief, U.S.-European Command. During this momentous period, General Clark commanded Operation Allied Force, which protected a million and a half Albanians from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. In addition, he was responsible for the peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and for all U.S. military activities in 89 countries of the United States, Middle East and Africa, including 109,000 U.S. service members and 105,000 civilians.

Reprinted with permission.

By Gen. (ret.) Wesley Clark
Washington Post
Unabridged Version
August 26, 2005

In the old, familiar fashion, mounting US casualties in Iraq have mobilized increasing public doubts about the war. Now, more than half the American people believe that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. They're right. But it would also be a mistake now to pull out, start pulling out, or set a date to pull out. Instead we need a strategy to create a stable democratizing and peaceful state in Iraq – a strategy the Administration has failed to develop and articulate.

From the outset of the American post-invasion efforts, we needed a three-pronged strategy – diplomatic, political, and military. Iraq sits geographically on the fault-line between Shia and Sunni Islam – and for the mission to succeed we will have to be the catalyst for regional cooperation. Iraq cannot be "isolated from its neighbors and tensions in the region. We needed to engage Iraq's neighbors to insure that a stable, democratizing Iraq was not a threat to them, to isolate Iraq from outside supplies, leadership, and manpower, and to gain from them resources and support to alleviate the burdens on the US.