Professor Larry Diamond, CDDRL Affiliated Faculty Member, Interviewed on Current Political Developments in Iraq

"Larry Diamond, a former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, told the BBC on Saturday that the US had two options - either stay the course or leave gradually in the hope of shocking the Iraqi government into stabilising the country. 'There's no prospect that Iraq in the near term is going to become a reliable and democratic ally of the West,' he told the Today programme. 'The only question is whether Iraq can be stabilised and prevented from descending into all-out civil war and whether western Iraq can be prevented from becoming what it is in the process of becoming - and what Afghanistan was before 11 September - a haven and training ground for terrorist attacks against the West.'"