Phebe Marr – a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace who is a Leading American Specialist on Iraq and Southwest Asia.

Crafting a national identity has been a long and difficult project for Iraquis. Now, the internecine conflict of a divided state threatens their hard-won sense of who they are as a people. Reconstituting that image will not be easy but it is fundamental to hopes for lasting peace and stability. Phebe Marr explains why this is so.