The Armed Conflict Database provides up-to-date and objective information on 70 international and internal armed conflicts.
This is the first issue of 'Flashpoint' , a IISS newsletter highlighting key issues relating to
these conflicts and the geo-political circumstances surrounding them.
Issue 1 - Winter 2006
Halting Iraq’s descent into chaos
Violence is forcing changes in strategy
It seems that the United States and its allies were blinded by possibilities in Iraq: freeing the Iraqi people of a brutal regime; ensuring that a hostile dictator did not possess weapons of mass destruction; and creating a democratic government in the Middle East. The US-led coalition was determined to pursue those ambitious objectives despite a lack of broad support for pre-emptive military action and warnings that state-building would be fraught with difficulties. Those have now become painfully clear and the lofty aims have given way to a desperate effort to arrest a downward spiral towards chaos across much of the country.
