President-elect Barack Obama will inherit an Iraq that has experienced substantial improvements in security, but remains rife with unresolved internal issues. If not handled carefully, Iraq's fragile progress could dissolve and the country could become a dangerous foreign policy minefield for yet another American president. Here are the top 10 issues the next administration must address:

1. Determination of Objectives: The Bush administration invested vast resources in the hopes of achieving maximalist aims in Iraq. Though the results in Iraq have clearly fallen short of those aims, the Obama administration needs to formulate a policy that is more comprehensive and nuanced than "end this war." What can the U.S. realistically achieve? What are the outcomes that the U.S. can or cannot live with? How does Iraq fit in to a cogent strategy for the broader region, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran?
2. Approach to Withdrawal: The Status of Forces Agreement moving forward between the U.S. and Iraqi governments, combined with the urgent need for reinforcements in Afghanistan, will shape the contours of withdrawal. But what if Baghdad wants to change the schedule? Will changing conditions on the ground affect the pace and process of withdrawal? Is Washington willing to extend or accelerate the current "time horizon" if the security situation significantly deteriorates?
3. Management of the Security Transition: Earlier attempts to transfer security responsibility to Iraqi forces in 2006 encountered many problems. Do current assessments of when provinces will be ready for transition accurately reflect conditions on the ground? Can the U.S. effectively "thin out" its forces, while maintaining robust enabling capabilities (intelligence, air support, medical evacuation) in critical areas?
4. Development of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF): America must help the Iraqi forces foster competence and professionalism and prevent the reemergence of sectarianism in the ranks. To make this happen, U.S. military advisors will likely be needed for years to come, particularly to help develop support capabilities that the Iraqis currently lack. Is this advisory effort effective as currently organized and prepared? How will advisors be allocated to meet growing demands in Afghanistan as well as Iraq? Can the Defense Department accelerate its Foreign Military Sales program to provide the ISF with badly-needed equipment?
5. Sunni Reintegration: The Sunni Awakening and Sons of Iraq groups are facing an uncertain future as they transition from American control to Iraqi payroll and command structures. How can the U.S. help ensure that Sunnis are reintegrated into Iraqi society so they have a stake in the political system and do not return to the insurgency?
6. Status of Kirkuk: Kirkuk, the oil-rich city of northern Iraq claimed by both Kurds and Arabs, will be a flashpoint for continued conflict. What role can the U.S. play to minimize the potential for re-escalation of Arab-Kurd violence over Kirkuk? Should U.S. policy emphasize indefinite postponement of this issue, broker a territorial compromise, or encourage Iraqis to "give" the city to one side and focus instead on sharing oil revenues?
7. Dealing with Iranian influence: As Iraq's neighbor, Iran has a natural interest in influencing Iraq's domestic affairs. However, Tehran's political obstructionism and support for militants ultimately undermines Iraqi as well as American interests. How much and what types of Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs can the U.S. tolerate? How can the U.S. help Iraqis counter the most destabilizing and pernicious Iranian influences?
8. Future of Political Relations with Iraq: How does the U.S. envision its relations with an emerging sovereign Iraq that is likely to exhibit erratic behavior on the international stage? How and to what extent should America insert itself in Iraqi politics? Should the U.S. government actively seek a balance of power between Iraq's major factions, so as to spread the risk and avoid linking itself to the fortunes of any one group? Or should it remain on the sidelines, so as to extricate ourselves as best we can?
9. Economic Development: Iraq's economy is currently 90 percent dependent on oil exports, resulting in substantial volatility in revenue. How can the U.S. help Iraq diversify its economic base? How can the U.S. encourage greater foreign investment in the Iraqi economy beyond the energy sector? What incentives could Baghdad provide provincial and local officials to improve transparency and revenue sharing mechanisms?
10. Return of Refugees: Huge numbers of Iraqis fled to Jordan and Syria to escape sectarian violence. Does Baghdad owe those nations financial aid? As refugees return, what is the best way to handle this influx? Is America committed to reestablishing the mixed-sect districts that existed prior to 2006? Is a level of sectarian separation necessary to keep the peace?

No panacea exists for Iraq's remaining ills, and no amount of planning will account for all of its complex and sometimes contradictory dynamics. But with America's direct influence likely to wane as its troop presence diminishes, it is increasingly important to anticipate the full spectrum of difficult issues and choices ahead, in order to devise the best way forward for the United States and Iraq.

Brian M. Burton is a research assistant at the Center for a New American Security and a graduate student at the Georgetown University Security Studies Program. John Paul Schnapper-Casteras is a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

America's standing in the world has been damaged by eight years of unilateralism and it must cooperate with rising powers to tackle emerging transnational threats, according to a major research project to be unveiled Thursday, Nov. 13, at a conference hosted by Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

The directors of "Managing Global Insecurity Project (MGI)" (MGI) from Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), New York University and the Brookings Institution will use the conference to present their "plan for action" for the next U.S. president.

"President-elect Obama should take advantage of the current financial crisis and the goodwill engendered by his election to reestablish American leadership, and use it to rebuild international order," said CISAC's Stephen J. Stedman. "Part of that is to recalibrate international institutions to reflect today's distribution of power. If you could find a way for constructive engagement between the G-7 and Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa-that reflects the reality of world power today-you could actually animate a lot of cooperation."

Stedman, Bruce Jones from New York University's Center on International Cooperation and Carlos Pascual from Brookings will discuss concrete actions for the incoming administration to restore American credibility, galvanize action against transnational threats ranging from global warming to nuclear proliferation and rejuvenate international institutions such as the United Nations.

"You find in American foreign policy a blanket dismissal of international institutions, especially regarding security," Stedman said. "But if you eliminate them, you don't have a prayer of recreating the kind of cooperation that exists in the U.N. There actually is a pretty good basis of cooperation on which to build."

The nonpartisan project also will be presented Nov. 20 at a high-profile event at the Brookings Institution that will feature leaders such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Brookings President Strobe Talbott. That in turn will take place on the heels of the upcoming G-20 emergency summit to discuss measures to stave off a global recession and give a greater voice to developing nations. MGI's "plan for action" includes a series of policy papers on hot-button topics such as economic security.

"The big thing we talk about is if you institutionalize cooperation with the existing and rising powers you can hope to build a common understanding of shared long-term interests," Jones said. "If you approach issues only through the lens of the hottest crises, you will find different interests in the very short term on how [problems] are handled."

Transitions 2009

The 20-month-long project, which incorporated feedback and direction from nonpartisan U.S. and international advisory boards, dovetails closely with the theme of FSI's fourth annual conference: "Transitions 2009."

"There has rarely been a moment more fraught with danger and opportunity, as new administrations in the United States and abroad face the interlocking challenges of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, hunger, soaring food prices, pandemic disease, energy security, an assertive Russia and the grave implications of failed and failing states," FSI Director Coit D. Blacker said. "This conference will examine what we need to do to prepare our own citizens for the formidable challenges we face and America's own evolving role in the world."

Timothy Garton Ash, an Oxford professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow, will deliver the conference's keynote address, titled, "Beyond the West? New Administrations in the United States and Europe Face the Challenge of a Multi-Polar World."

Blacker, who served in the first Clinton administration; Stephen D. Krasner, who worked in the current Bush administration; medical Professor Alan M. Garber; and Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper will open the conference with a reflection on the past and future and the watershed moment presented by Obama's presidency. The conference also will include breakout sessions with FSI faculty such as "Rethinking the War on Terror," led by Martha Crenshaw of CISAC; "Toward Regional Security in Northeast Asia," chaired by former Ambassador Michael J. Armacost, acting director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; and "Is African Society in Transition?" led by economist Roz Naylor of the Program on Food Security and the Environment.

Long-term security

For MGI project leaders Stedman, Jones and Pascual, the zeitgeist of the moment is America's relationship with the emerging powers. "The good news from an American perspective is, despite the financial crisis, despite everything else, sober leadership in China, India, Brazil and elsewhere understand, in the immediate term, there is no alternative to American leadership, as long as [it] is geared toward cooperation and not 'do as you please-ism,'" Jones said. "On the other side, the financial crisis highlights that U.S. foreign policy has to come to terms with the fact that it does not have the power to dictate outcomes. It has to build cooperation with emerging powers, with international institutions, into the front burner of American foreign policy." More broadly, international cooperation must be built on what Stedman calls the principle of "responsible sovereignty," the notion that sovereignty entails obligations and duties toward other states as well as to one's own citizens.

In addition to MGI's "plan for action," the three men have coauthored Power and Responsibility: International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats, to be published in 2009. The book criticizes both the Bush and Clinton administrations for failing to take advantage of the moment of U.S. dominance after the fall of the Soviet Union to build enduring cooperative structures. "We're in a much tougher position than we were five years ago and 10 years ago," Jones said. "There still is an opportunity, but time is getting away from us."

If revitalizing international cooperation fails, Jones said, transnational threats will gain the upper hand. "We will not be able to come to terms with climate change, transnational terrorism, spreading nuclear proliferation," he said. "U.S. national security and global security will deteriorate. [We] have a moment of opportunity to do this now."

Although Iraq dominates the headlines, the situation in Afghanistan may be more decisive to longterm international security, said Sarah Chayes, who has lived in the country since 2001 after covering the last stand of the Taliban for National Public Radio (NPR).

Chayes, an American who directs Arghand, a cooperative in Kandahar that produces soap from local plants and fruits as an alternative to opium production, spent Wednesday, Nov. 5, at Stanford. During several talks with CISAC faculty, staff, students and donors she discussed regional security, the future of democracy in Afghanistan and the stresses of everyday life in the ancient city of Kandahar, where she lives and where civilians must carry firearms to protect themselves. 

Chayes strongly criticized efforts to negotiate with the Taliban, which has fought a protracted guerilla war against the Afghan government since 2004. The extremist movement ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, when the Northern Alliance and NATO forces removed its leaders from power. "There is no intrinsic support from the population for the Taliban," Chayes said. "The Taliban want all, they understand they won't get all so they are trying to get what they can. Negotiating with the Taliban [offers] zero benefit."

Instead, according to Chayes, Afghanistan needs to experience the "real substance of democracy," not simply elections. It also needs a surge of non-military volunteers trained to mentor leaders working in civil society. "Thirty years of combat undoes a lot of structure" in society, she said. "People get things done as fast as possible because they might be shot in the next 50 seconds."

Chayes is the author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban. In 2006, she was awarded The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' inaugural Ruth Adams Award for her work explaining the impact of U.S. policy on Afghanistan after 9/11. The prize recognizes journalists who translate complex issues of peace and security into everyday language and images. Chayes left NPR in 2002 to help rebuild Afghanistan. Initially, she served as field director for Afghans for Civil Society, a non-profit founded by the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. She founded Arghand in May 2005.

The civilian nuclear cooperation deal between the United States and India, which President George W. Bush signed into law last week, has been controversial from the moment it was first outlined in New Delhi about three years ago. It would allow Washington to trade nuclear technology with New Delhi despite the fact that India is a de facto nuclear weapons state outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Critics of the deal insist, fairly convincingly, that doing so would cause irreparable harm to the nonproliferation regime, leaving the non-nuclear weapon states that abide by the NPT to question what tangible benefits exist for dutifully assuming their treaty obligations and submitting to NPT restrictions. Conversely, supporters of the deal legitimately point out that the benefits of a good relationship between India and the United States outweigh any potential harm. As with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle--it's unlikely that the nonproliferation regime would remain unscathed, but it's quite possible that the damage could be contained.

A major sticking point for critics is that the deal actually makes it easier for India to continue producing fissile material for its nuclear weapons program by allowing New Delhi access to the world market in nuclear fuel for its power reactors, thereby freeing its scarce uranium resources for the production of weapons-usable plutonium in dedicated reactors that are exempt from any international safeguards. Moreover, India's breeder reactor program--another potential source of weapon-grade plutonium--is also free from safeguards. It's hardly encouraging that India would have the capability to increase its stock of weapon materials, but in reality, this doesn't much matter--probably the main reason why India got away with keeping that capability. There seems to be a worldwide consensus that once New Delhi crossed the nuclear threshold, the amount of weapons in its arsenal is unimportant. In fact, in some important aspects this is exactly the case--beyond its symbolic value India's nuclear arsenal hardly provides any security for the country. Indeed, if the U.S.-India nuclear deal helps strengthen this understanding, it provides some silver lining to the nuclear arrangement's drawbacks.

The deal could also provide a much needed incentive for a critical review of some of the current nonproliferation regime's assumptions. One such assumption is implicit in Article VI of the NPT--nuclear weapon states and their close allies have control over nuclear technologies. This is still largely true for advanced commercially viable technologies, but the monopoly on weapon-relevant technology is firmly in the past. An idea that emerged during discussion of the U.S.-India nuclear deal was to ban the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to India, supposedly to limit its ability to ramp up production of weapon materials. Limiting production of weapon-grade materials is a reasonable goal, but if the only approach is to deny a country access to advanced centrifuges or reprocessing plants, that battle is already lost.

Similarly, much ink has been spilled over the effort to have India commit to a moratorium on nuclear testing as part of the deal. The intent behind the idea was certainly laudable. But if the threat of cutting off the supply of fuel for nuclear reactors is our best hope to prevent India from nuclear testing, the effort to prevent new nuclear tests is in big trouble.

Without a doubt, the U.S.-India nuclear deal presents a serious challenge to the NPT. But it also presents an opportunity to strengthening the regime and its most important, relevant elements. In particular, for all of its problems and challenges, the NPT has successfully established a norm that assumes that countries shouldn't have nuclear weapons. The official signing of the U.S.-India nuclear deal is a good time to remind New Delhi that if it wants to be a responsible partner in the nuclear trade, it must assume the obligations that come with this norm--even if India never signed the NPT. Of course, this would require the nuclear weapon states to get serious about their NPT obligations and responsibilities as well. And that's not such a bad thing either.