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News Tip: Obama Administration Has 'No Good Alternatives' in Iraq, Says National Security Expert

Law professor Charles Dunlap retired from military in June 2010 as a major general

The United States faces "no good alternatives" for dealing with escalating instability in Iraq, says Duke law professor, who's a retired Air Force major general.

Charlie Dunlap Jr.Professor of the practice, Duke Law School; executive director of Duke's Center on Law, Ethics and National Securitydunlap@law.duke.eduhttp://www.law.duke.edu/fac/dunlapDunlap specializes in warfare policy and strategy, cyber-warfare, military commissions, counterinsurgency, nuclear issues and air power; former deputy judge advocate general of the U.S. Air Force; retired from military in June 2010 as a major general.Quote:"Militarily, it doesn't seem likely that Maliki's forces, even with some U.S. help, will be able to regain the lost areas anytime soon.  It will be all they can do to hold on to Baghdad and the Shiite regions to the south.""Vice President Biden's much-disparaged proposal for a federated Iraq assembled from regions divided along Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish lines might need to be dusted off as it may be the best we can realistically hope for at this point, but even that is a long shot for several reasons, most of all because a Sunni entity dominated by ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) would be -- and should be -- unacceptable.""This is another international crisis where the Obama administration has no good alternatives."