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The liberation of Mosul from ISIS control is a major win for the Iraqi government, the United States, and the campaign to defeat the terrorist group 鈥� but a critically important question now looms: What comes next for US policy toward a country divided and tattered from years of war?

How can the US ensure that military victory against ISIS doesn't turn into political defeat in Iraq? How can Washington help sow the seeds of security, reconstruction, and political reconciliation, while guarding against intervention by external powers that could threaten those prospects? Indeed, is any of this possible?

 Four former US policy advisers with broad experience in Iraq and the Middle East addressed these and related questions.

Key Quotes:

Jane Harman:

鈥淚n my view, both Obama and Trump deserve credit for some of our military successes against the Islamic State.鈥�

鈥淭he doctrine we are using is 鈥榗lear, hold, and build鈥� and the question is: after Mosul has been cleared under the leadership of Iraq, who is going to hold and rebuild Mosul, a huge city that has been totally devastated?鈥�

Aaron David Miller:

鈥淭he fall of Mosul, and, perhaps months from now, the fall of Raqqa, too 鈥� the issue, I suspect, is going to be, what is the US going to do on the proverbial day... after? Will US policy be risk-ready鈥� or are we talking risk-aversion?鈥�

鈥淕eography and demography are destiny here 鈥� they鈥檙e two factors that no nation can alter.鈥� 

Antony J. Blinken:

鈥淎s a result of the liberation of Mosul, the physical caliphate in Iraq is more or less gone.鈥� 

鈥淸ISIS鈥檚] core narrative, that it鈥檚 building an actual state, is in tatters.鈥� 

鈥淓ven with the Islamic State more or less defeated militarily, the political and economic conditions that facilitated its rise will continue to fester.鈥�

鈥淎s Iraq awakens from this nightmare that Daesh represented, there may be greater appetite to keep some Americans around.鈥�

Amb. James F. Jeffrey:

鈥淲ithin a few years, with any luck, [Iraq will] be exporting almost two-thirds of the oil that Saudi Arabia does. It is a rich country agriculturally, it has water, it has all of the things you need for a prosperous Middle Eastern country 鈥�  and as I said, it has survived in a way Syria hasn鈥檛.鈥�

"They have tremendous needs that only the international community, the World Bank, the IMF can meet鈥� There are many ways in which the global system is important for Iraq in a way that it isn鈥檛, for example, for Syria.鈥�

鈥淢ost of the time we can get most of the actors 鈥� the Turks, the Israelis, the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris 鈥� to support a regional order of collective security led by us at the center. Iran is not in that league.鈥�

Colin Kahl:

鈥淚SIS isn鈥檛 going to disappear. Not only are they going to be a virtual, global, transnational phenomenon, even once the physical caliphate is completely smashed, but they鈥檙e not going to completely disappear from Iraq and Syria either. They鈥檙e going to revert to what they were before, which is a cellular terrorist network and insurgency.鈥�

鈥淚 think the wildcard in this is that [Masoud] Barzani may see that he鈥檚 getting toward the end of his tenure鈥� and most certainly, the legacy that he wants is to be the founding father of an independent Kurdish nation.鈥� 

鈥淎fter Mosul, that common cause [fighting ISIS] has basically evaporated.鈥�

鈥淲hen it comes to balancing Iran鈥檚 influence, we have to play the long game.鈥�

Robert Malley:

"It鈥檚 hard not to look at the coincidence between the large increase in civilian casualties in both Iraq and Syria [and] the shift in [American] administrations鈥� That, too, is going to have long-term consequences when our goal needs to be to diminishing any anti-US sentiment and any recruitment ability for ISIS or its successor.鈥� 

鈥淚SIS emerged in stages and it鈥檚 going to disappear in stages. ISIS has three identities: one is as a state-like caliphate, the other is as an insurgency, and the third is as a terror group."

鈥淲e have to learn the lessons of history. Iran has expanded its influence in several theaters in the Middle East... not because there wasn鈥檛 enough pushback; They're benefiting from the mistakes of others and they also benefited from chaos.鈥�

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