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Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War DANIEL L. BYMAN KENNETH M. POLLACK Things FALL Apart Brookings Institution Press Washington, D.C. www.brookings.edu Cover photograph: © Thomas Anderson/Corbis Cover by Nancy Bratton Design Brookings “Iraq is rapidly descending into all-out civil war. Unfortunately, the United States probably will not be able to just walk away from the chaos. Even setting aside the humanitarian nightmare that will ensue, a full-scale civil war would likely consume more than Iraq: historically, such massive conflicts have often had highly deleterious effects on neighboring countries and other outside states. Spillover from an Iraqi civil war could be disastrous.” Thus begins this sobering but essential analysis of what the near future of Iraq could look like, and what the United States can do to reduce the threat of a wider conflict. Preventing spillover of the Iraqi conflict into neighboring states must be a top priority. In explaining how that can be accomplished, Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack draw on their own considerable expertise as well as relevant precedents. The authors scrutinize several recent civil wars— including conflicts in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Chechnya , Kosovo, and current struggles in Africa—for lessons on how civil wars can affect other nations. They draw from those experiences in developing recommendations for what the United States should do to contain spillover. It won’t be easy, and history suggests the odds are against success. Options are difficult and imperfect. But even while the Bush administration attempts to prevent further deterioration of the situation in Iraq, it needs to plan for a full-scale civil war if one develops. A SABAN CENTER AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION BOOK Daniel L. Byman is a nonresident senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He also directs the Security Studies Program and the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His books include Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge, 2005). Kenneth M. Pollack is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he is research director for the Saban Center. He is author of The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict between Iran and America (Random House, 2004) and The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (Random House, 2002). B Y M A N / P O L L A C K Things FALL Apart Things Fall Apart 1379-1 ch0 frontmatter 4/16/07 3:11 PM Page i [44.220.131.93] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:57 GMT) 1379-1 ch0 frontmatter 4/16/07 3:11 PM Page ii ...