Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy.  It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq began 9 years ago this week, triggering a conflict that cost the U.S. approximately 4,500 lives and a trillion dollars of taxpayers’ money. In honor of that anniversary, Wikistrat’s analytic “crowd” debated: a) what America ultimately accomplished in Iraq, and b) where Iraq is likely headed in the years ahead. These are our six primary judgments.

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Editor's Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.

This month, Iraq’s oil minister visited Iran, prompting many pundits and policy makers to ask: Is Iraq becoming a 'client state' of Iran.

Iraq’s ruling Shia majority faces a dilemma: to identify primarily as ‘Iraqi’ or to give their first allegiance to the idea of a larger Shia community whose base is Iran, a country that supported Shia interests in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era.  To some leaders in Tehran (and in the minds of neighboring Sunni Arab governments), the answer is self-evidently the latter. As King Abdullah II of Jordan has characterised it, the Iranian efforts in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq are designed to cultivate and exploit a ‘Shia crescent’. However, even if this is Tehran's objective, there are significant countervailing forces likely to prevent Iraq from falling too far under the sway of Iran. FULL POST

I spent the last few weeks working on an essay for TIME Magazine on Barack Obama's foreign policy and, in association with that piece, I interviewed the president on Wednesday in the Oval Office. Here's an excerpt of that interview where we talk about Afghanistan and counterterrorism. 

Fareed Zakaria: When you look at Afghanistan over the past three years — the policies you’ve adopted — would it be fair to say that the counterterrorism part of the policy, the killing bad guys, has been a lot more successful than the counterinsurgency, the stabilizing of vast aspects of the country, and that going forward, you should really focus in on that first set of policies?

Barack Obama: Well, what is fair to say is that the counterterrorism strategy as applied to al Qaeda has been extremely successful. The job is not finished, but there’s no doubt that we have severely degraded al Qaeda’s capacity. FULL POST

Iran and the West are locked in a dangerous game of brinkmanship, a war of words and sanctions that could easily turn into something bigger. What happens next? This past Sunday on GPS, I discussed all this with a panel of experts.

Iranian-born Vali Nasr is a professor of international politics at Tufts University.  He recently served in the Obama State Department. Bret Stephens is the foreign affairs columnist of The Wall Street Journal, formerly the editor of The Jerusalem Post. Hillary Mann Leverett worked in George W. Bush's National Security Council as the director for Iran and Afghanistan. She is now CEO of the Strategic Energy & Global Analysis. Hooman Majd is one of Iran's finest authors and commentators. Born in Tehran, he now lives in New York.   He is the author of The Ayatollahs' Democracy. A transcript of our discussion is below:

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Editor's Note: Michael O’Hanlon was in Afghanistan earlier this month and is the author of the new ebook, The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity. You can read more from him on the Global Public Square.

By Michael O'Hanlon – Special to CNN

The clarion call has been sounded many times before, but this time it appears even more true and urgent than usual: Iraq is in crisis with the possibility of a return to sectarian strife if not all-out civil war. And this crisis cannot wait until the holidays are over for high-level U.S. attention.

Reaching this conclusion does not require critiquing the Obama administration’s recent policies on Iraq, and most specifically its bringing home U.S. military units in Iraq. While the recent victory speeches were clearly a step too far, the policy was, if unfortunate at one level, also difficult to avoid at another. FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Insurgents exploded bombs across Baghdad today in coordinated attacks on markets, schools, and government buildings. The explosions killed at least sixty-three people (NYT) and wounded close to two hundred.

The attacks came amid a political crisis (al-Jazeera) in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government. Earlier this week, Maliki, a Shiite, order the arrest of the country's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, accusing him having run a so-called death squad. The move threatened to undo Iraq's fragile governing coalition, while reigniting sectarian tensions throughout the country less than a week after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Initial reports suggested that al-Qaeda in Iraq (BBC), a Sunni insurgent group, was responsible for the attacks.

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Editor's Note:  Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This post is one of four from the Council on Foreign Relations in response to the question, Was the Iraq War worth it?

By Max Boot

Critics will claim that no gains could be worth the price we paid - over 4,400 lost lives and untold hundreds of billions of dollars. But we paid a far higher price in the Korean War (36,000 dead). Few would have thought in 1953 that this war, which ended with a deadlocked and ravaged peninsula, was a raging success. The outcome looks considerably better nearly six decades later, now that South Korea has become one of the most prosperous and freest countries in the world.

It is wildly premature to claim that Iraq could become another South Korea - although the latter started off far poorer than the former and had just as little experience with democracy (which is to say none). Yet it is not out of the realm of possibility. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. This post is one of four from the Council on Foreign Relations in response to the question, Was the Iraq War worth it?

By Andrew Bacevich

As framed, the question invites a sober comparison of benefits and costs - gain vs. pain. The principal benefit derived from the Iraq War is easily identified: as the war's defenders insist with monotonous regularity, the world is indeed a better place without Saddam Hussein. Point taken.

Yet few of those defenders have demonstrated the moral courage - or is it simple decency - to consider who paid and what was lost in securing Saddam's removal. That tally includes well over four thousand U.S. dead along with several tens of thousands wounded and otherwise bearing the scars of war; vastly larger numbers of Iraqi civilians killed, maimed, and displaced; and at least a trillion dollars expended - probably several times that by the time the last bill comes due decades from now. Recalling that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda both turned out to be all but non-existent, a Churchillian verdict on the war might read thusly: Seldom in the course of human history have so many sacrificed so dearly to achieve so little. FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Critics of the U.S. drawdown in Iraq claim that we are foregoing hard-won gains - years of blood, toil and tears - by getting out now. This is what Liz Cheney said on Fox the other day. I disagree. Let’s review the gains of the Iraq War: You have an Iraq that is not ruled by a brutal, tyrannical dictator, Saddam Hussein; you have some kind of democracy in Iraq; and the Kurds have been given an even greater measure of autonomy.

These are all important developments but they are not core security gains for the United States. And they are not really threatened by our leaving.

The original goals of the Iraq War were to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and to change the dynamics of the Middle East. We now know that WMDs did not exist. Historians will debate whether the Iraq War changed the dynamics of the Middle East more broadly. I think it did have an impact but it was part of a broader trend after 9/11 when America began reducing its support for dictators like Mubarak. Those moves were probably more important than Iraq.

Moving forward we can be sure that no matter what happens in Iraq, the future of Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia will be determined by none other than the Moroccans, Egyptians and Tunisians. If Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki becomes more dictatorial, does anyone really think that will affect what’s happening in Egypt?

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Editor's Note: Nathan Freier is a former Army officer, a senior fellow with CSIS's New Defense Approaches Project, and a Visiting Research Professor at the U.S. Army's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. He served in Iraq as a military strategist and travelled to Iraq on three occasions since leaving active duty to provide strategic advice.

By Nathan Freier – Special to CNN

From the beginning, I was convinced that American expectations for Iraq were unrealistic. Monday's press conference reinforced that conviction. In fact, I may be even more skeptical today. A "win" now - a relatively weak Iraq that doesn't trouble us or its neighbors and isn't a client of Iran - is a substantially lower bar than that which defined success in 2003. Leaving a token force there indefinitely would not change the outcome.

Yet, with the U.S. military presence ending this month, securing even this minimalist endstate will require continued U.S. attention and, therefore, should remain an administration priority. It isn't at all clear that this is the case. In fact, given the course of events in the Middle East, any administration would be challenged regardless of their attentiveness. Frankly, there is enormous risk associated with a politically under-developed Iraq suddenly adrift in a very difficult and unsettled neighborhood. FULL POST