This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, July 18th, 2007. I'm Caleb Brown.

With prospects for reconciliation for an Iraqi government waning, what's next for the American occupation there?

At least one leader of the Iraq study group is now pushing for containment of sectarian violence in Iraq instead of continued engagement.

President Bush appears to be digging in.

Cato Institutes Christopher Preble, the Director of Foreign Policy Studies,

offers his take.

There has been continued disappointment with the lack of a

cohesive government in Iraq. No real reconciliation has taken place. Do you think

that there is a desire there among any of the parties to reconcile?

I'm sure that there are some people in Iraq.

There's no question who would much prefer that order be restored and that there

be some kind of reconciliation but the problem is

that the dominant players in Iraq all for different reasons are not inclined to

compromise the Shiites who were oppressed for so long by the Sunni minority are kind of feeling

their oats and are not inclined to compromise.

The Kurds have managed to kind of solidify their control of the Northern Territories and the

the Sunni Arabs who lost so much after the fall of Saddam's government are not

inclined to compromise or negotiate from a position of weakness.

So if you look at the three dominant parties, the three dominant factions, that's why I think

it's been so hard to achieve political reconciliation so far and why I'm not

particularly confident that will be a tremendous amount of progress over the next 60 days

Is the increased US troop presence there helping or hurting prospects for that type of cohesion?

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