Open Discussions /Gulf Cultural Club
Reverberations of war continue after 15 years:
Iraq looks to the future, bogged down by the past
*Dr Kamil Mahdi (Academic)
** Dr Zuhair Al-Naher (former government advisor)
***Karen Dabrowska (journalist and author of three tourist guides to Iraq)
****Dr Zayd Al Isa (Political analyst and writer)
Fifteen years is a reasonable time for a state to start building itself. Iraq was devastated by successive wars, the last of which was carried out by the Anglo-American alliance in 2003 on false pretentions. The Iraqi people suffered immensely as their country was ravaged by the aftermath of that destructive military intervention. For one and a half decades Iraq became a hotbed for terrorism, sectarianism, corruption and lawlessness. It even faced the spectre of fragmentation along ethnic and sectarian fault lines. Can Iraq rise again from the ashes? The forthcoming elections will be a pointer to the extent of Iraq’s revival and the extent of its resilience and desire to live in peace with itself. While the internal cohesion will remain a challenge, the foreign policy and the ethics of modern statehood will continue to cause internal discord and external challenge. It is time for reflection on Mesopotamia, its cultural riches and intrinsic problems
Tuesday, 17th April 2018
Dr Kamil Mahdi: With regard to Iraq looking forward my outlook on this is that is not so much looking forward as careering and stumbling from day to day. That is the reality of Iraq today. It is the reality for the ordinary people, their livelihoods and the precariousness of their lives makes it difficult for them to look after their children and their health and to go about their daily lives. They have serious problems in their interactions with the government. In every way it is a situation where people are not so much looking forward to a future in a way that they can plan and see ahead. It is much more a case of surviving and going from day to day. One would hope that things will change but I think we are still there.
Also worrying is the fact that the government has nothing but day to day short term programmes. Their actions are very much a reaction to events and crisis management. That is where we are with the government. We could see that in the security collapse and the occupation of Mosul by ISIS. ISIS was visible for years but it was not dealt with. This inactivity, this inability of government to deal with crises is a feature.
You see it in the aftermath of Daesh in the lack of an organised programme for reconstruction. There are is no big mass mobilisation. After a crisis of this kind the nation would rally together in a kind of mass mobilisation for reconstruction for getting out of the problem. We do not have that. What we have is a government going cap in hand to Kuwait and multi national companies in trying to rebuild a country.
There is no vision of how to deal with the pernicious presence of foreign forces. The government acts as if these forces are a guarantee of stability but we know that the occupation of Iraq was a catastrophe. We have a government that does not want to address this issue.
The Iraqi government has no position on major problems in the surrounding region. Just now there was a statement at the Arab Summit Conference in Amman. It was a statement which no responsible Iraqi would adhere to. Yet the president goes and signs a statement of this kind. It has things about Yemen and Syria. These things are not acceptable and do not touch on Iraq and Iraq’s position.
There are major existential problems which Iraq is facing as a country which are not addressed. The water issue. Turkey’s project, Iran’s project for the past 20years of cutting the majority of the tributaries coming into Iraq. This effectively sends saline water down where fresh water used to be. Despite its good relations with Iran, Iraq is unable to address a vital issue for the country in a diplomatic matter.
Similarly Iraq has extensive trade relations with Turkey but it is unable to use its clout to negotiate effective water policies that protect the rights of Iraq. There are many issues like that. The border with Kuwait. Iraqi is becoming a landlocked country. So Iraq goes to Kuwait for funding but does not deal with the major issue with Kuwait.
We can go on. There is the health problem and the population problem. The growth of the population in Iraq is so fast it is a long term issue. There is a lack of employment and there are the social mores that are encouraged by the government ideologies that are pushing in that direction. The government is not dealing with that. There are problems with housing, the infrastructure, illiteracy is rife and the infrastructure is dysfunctional. There is poverty and delinquency. You name it. There are no serious programmes for dealing with these problems.
Unemployment is high especially among the young educated people and in the rural areas. This is papered over in Iraq by the oil revenues. The oil revenues come in, they have increased despite the dips in 2009 and 2014 but overall oil revenues have been very high. They have papered over these problems but these serious fundamental problems are there.
As soon as the government is unable to pay salaries people who are out of jobs and people who are in temporary employment are pushed out. That is a major issue that is not addressed.
I have said these are the problems. We have a government apparatus to deal with these problems which is rife with corruption. Institutions are dysfunctional. So much is said about corruption but it is part of these multiple failures.
There is the absence of the rule of law, a dysfunctional legal system and a lot of popular mistrust in the forces of law. There are many institutions that stand above the law. I will single out political parties with armed wings. They in effect undermine the government institutions and the rule of law. To what extent is it on the table to reign them in and subject them to law? There is not a great deal of evidence so far. Some of these movements are able to behave themselves in public and in relations with other people but it is because they are willing to behave rather than the authority of the government that is able to guarantee to people that this behaviour continues in the long term.
There is an open political atmosphere in Iraq but it is severely limited by the lawlessness and disfunctionality of the government. There is no guarantee that the open political atmosphere can remain for always. These problems are all interconnected and systemic and require interconnected policies but the political system itself is dysfunctional. I said it was dysfunctional. In fact it was deliberately created by the occupation as a dysfunctional system. Parties that lost connection with the people relied on the occupation to re-establish their authority and played along with the dysfunctional system. They played on sectarian identities and extenuated the sense of victimhood amongst people. This was at the expense of common awareness and national issues and to bring about programmes to address these national issues.
The sectarian system set up by the occupation was favoured by the ruling parties and produced fiefdoms in public institutions – not a government that is effective and responsive to the people. A democracy that we see today in Iraq is a façade in my view and the elections are corrupted in very many ways. The elections will make a marginal difference – -not a great deal of difference.
You can see in Iraq today a lot of positive developments. There is the defeat of Daesh, the improvement of security and the economic reprieve with the rise in oil prices that takes some of the pressure away. The failure of Massoud Barzani’s chauvinistic project in the Kurdish region is also something to see as positive because it also reflects on the rest of the country and its ability to develop a common programme as a whole. These give a breathing space but who is there to utilise this breathing space?
There needs to be a popular movement that needs to be able to challenge the parties that have built their power. Corruption also needs to be challenge along with the huge disparities between income wealth and power that is the legacy of 15 years of occupation in Iraq.
Dr Zuhair Al-Naher: I agree with the objective assessment which Dr Kamil gave. Anyone who has studied Iraq and has examined the situation will see that there are huge challenges. Iraq has been through a very tough time on many many levels and for many many reasons.
My difference in assessment from Dr Kamil is that I think we are starting to recover. The previous governments have not been up to the level and have not stood up to the challenges that Iraq faced. I believe that with Dr Haider Abadi we are beginning to have the foundations of recovery. I believe that first the defeat of ISIS is a huge step forward, increasing and improving security to a very new level of improvement. When you go to Baghdad streets, markets, shopping malls and restaurants are busy. People are living their lives as normal people in a large city.
Of course the threat is still there even though ISIS has been defeated. They have no ground but they have areas they can operate in in an overt manner. There are dangers with the sleeper cells and their underground activities and we see this in various attacks and bombings. They are much rarer now but they still exist. There needs to be very large intelligence operation to clear these elements out. The government recognises this. The security forces and intelligence apparatus are focusing on this aspect.
In terms of the economy Iraq has gone through a huge economic challenge. The previous governments of Nouri and Jafferi did not have an economic plan and the increase or the high level of oil prices meant that these leaders were able to employ hundreds of thousands of government employees increasing the burden on the budget but really without much benefit. When the oil prices collapsed it was a major problem. This is when Dr Haider Abadi came to power. He was able to manage this and avert an economic disaster to the level of bankruptcy. He did this through a programme and was able to just keep the country afloat essentially. He took international loans which burdened Iraq.
I agree with Dr Kamil that with the destruction that occurred in Iraq there should be a national economic salvation programme of reconstruction which must be effective and really a wide reaching programme on many different levels. This simply has not occurred. Iraq is relying on international investors and we know that investors need the right climate to invest and Iraq’s investment climate is far from ideal. So this is something that the new government needs to tackle very effectively and decisively.
Corruption is not a new problem. Corruption was there during the time of the former Saddam regime which encouraged corruption. Corruption became endemic and systemic within the whole system. It is not easy to get rid of such an issue which is so embedded in the institutions and the system.
Dr Haider Abbadi has tried to tackle this as far as possible with limited effect but still he has a programme. He has brought in new advisers, he has brought in some specific strategies to deal with this. There is still a huge amount that needs to be done. But we are beginning to tackle these huge challenges.
The other issue which was talked about was the role of militias. One of the main elements that defeated ISIS was the fatwa by Ayatollah Sistan the main religious ruler. The fatwa or decree stated that any able bodied man should fight against ISIS in order to avoid the military collapse of the army and police which was very apparent. This defeated ISIS but was also used by different militias to gain control or power.
Again the government has tried to incorporate these so-called militias into the main stream of the armed forces and a lot more work needs to be done on this. Now they have a political role and will be engaged in the elections. That aspect needs to be controlled by the government and the rule of law needs to be enforced.
In terms of the Kurds developments were very positive. Dr Haider Abadi handled the situation very wisely and with a very cool head. He managed to limit the secessionist aspirations of Massoud Barzani and avoided a split up of Iraq. This was a huge positive for the whole of the country.
In terms of relations with neighbouring countries, Iraq has always had a challenge. We have neighbours who are not always very friendly to Iraq but again I think Dr Haider Abadi has tried to balance relations with Iran, to improve relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and to improve relations with Turkey. Iraq is now in a much better place then it was before in terms of relations and of avoiding Iraq being a battle front between various regional forces.
With regard to relations with the international community again I believe that we have advanced in that relations with the major powers like the US, Europe, Russia and China a big economic power and Japan recently. The prime minister recently visited Japan.
All of these elements are the start of a recovery. There are huge challenges still and there are issues with education the services, a lot of issues and difficulties. But my belief is that we have started to recover and my hope is that in the coming elections this recovery will continue and it will continue only with the re-election of Dr Haider Abadi. My prediction is that there will not be an outright winner but my hope is that he plays a leading role in the improvement of the state of Iraq and the difficulties that it faces.
Karen Dabrowska: In my short talk I will only speak about Iraqi Kurdistan following my visit to the area of northern Iraq under the jurisdiction of the Kurdistan Regional Government. An independence referendum was held on September 25th 2015 on whether Iraqi Kurdistan wanted to remain part of Iraq or not.
I visited in October about two weeks after the referendum. It was a tourist trip with Lupine Travel which organises trips to what it describes as unique destinations among them North Korea, Eritrea and Chernobyl.
Tourism is about ancient sites like the Erbil citadel. The land on which it stands is one of the longest continually inhabited places on earth. The Kurdish mountains have been called the alps of the Middle East. Tourism is not meant to be about politics but in Iraqi Kurdistan everything is affected by politics. If you say you are going to Iraqi Kurdistan you are making a political statement.
In the referendum 90 percent of the voters voted for independence from Iraq. That’s why the only possible route into the region was overland through Turkey. Iraq was incensed that the referendum even took place and blocked international flights to and from Kurdish airports.
On the Turkish Iraqi border your answers have to be politically correct. When the Turks ask you where you are going you better say ‘northern Iraq’. If you don’t all the tourists will be asked to get out of the bus, the luggage will be searched and if any literature is found about a place called Kurdistan (which the Turks claim does not exist) or about the Kurds (there are no Kurds according to the Turks – they are mountain Turks) your trip might end before it starts.
Kurdistan refers to the place where the Kurds live. It is a an area of some 40,000 square kilometres, and includes parts of Syria to the West, Iran to the East, Turkey to the North, and Iraq to the South. These areas are sometimes referred to as Western Kurdistan, Eastern Kurdistan, Northern Kurdistan and Southern Kurdistan. It has a population of some 30 – 40m Kurdish people, one of the largest groups in the world without its own state. Reliable figures for population numbers are hard to find but estimates range between: Turkey 14 – 20m; Iran 8 – 12m; Iraq 5 – 8m, and 2-3m in Syria. There is also a large Kurdish diaspora worldwide. Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria may have their differences but they are in agreement about one thing: keep the Kurds down – self determination forget it.
The Arab and Muslim world is unanimous in its support for a Palestinian state and homeland but there is a deafening silence when it comes to support for a Kurdish homeland. The Western powers were instrumental in ensuring the Jews were given a homeland. The history of the region would have been very different if they supported a homeland for the Kurds and brought it into being. Be that as it may.
Then you come to the Kurdish check point and you are given a warm welcome by the border guards. Welcome to Kurdistan of course. The Kurds are issuing their own visas (not valid for the rest of Iraq) and flying their own flag.
After crossing the border we left our Turkish coach and boarded a Kurdish coach for the ride to Arbil, seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government. The roads are excellent and well maintained. There are not many check points in the Kurdish area. The Kurds say every citizen – all six million of them – are border guards and security guards. So determined are they to protect their region from terrorism they report anything unusual immediately.
The first thing that struck me about Arbil was that it is a modern, 21st century work in progress. There are many modern glass and concrete buildings but there are also many buildings which are half finished, waiting for walls, waiting for roves, waiting for occupants.
The topic of our discussion today is reverberations of war – a reference to the 2003 war which removed the regime of Saddam Hussein from power 15 years ago. To understand why Arbil is a work in progress today we need to quickly review recent history.
At the time of the 2003 war Iraq’s six million Kurds already had their own government. In 1991 after the first Gulf war to eject Iraq from Kuwait which it invaded in 1990 the Kurds staged a popular uprising which was so brutally suppressed by the Iraqi regime that 1.5million people fled towards the Turkish and Iranian borders. Turkey refused to let the refugees in and the deaths of up to 1,000 people a day on the Iranian Turkish frontier prompted the setting up of a safe haven by Britain and the USA which was officially handed to the Nations on 7 June 1991. The refugee crisis was alleviated, most of the refugees returned home and the Kurds were able to administer their own affairs in the safe haven which became a de facto autonomous entity ruled by the two main parties the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Elections judged free and fair by international observers were held in May 1992 and the Kurds were developing the three northern provinces under the control of the Kurdistan Regional government, Arbil, Suleiminayah and Dohuk. After the 2003 war they also occupied significant positions in the Iraqi government. The first foreign minister in post Saddam Iraq was Hoshayer Zubeiri and the President was the leader of the leader of PUK Jalal Talabani who served from 2006 – 2014) So you could say they never had it so good: the best of both worlds.
But it wasn’t all butterflies and rainbows. After the 2003 invasion Iraq was going to hell in a handcart and the Kurds were suffering as a result. I don’t want to give the impression that the KRG was without its problem such as corruption. But the region was stable and free from the never ending violence which plagued the rest of Iraq – that is why it was called ‘the other Iraq’.
And that is the region to which the refugees fled: not only Christians and victims of the ISIS takeover to Mosul but also Syrians and Arabs from the rest of Iraq. Today there are over 2 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraqi Kurdistan – 28% of the total population. One in four people is a refugee and in some towns like Dabagga there are more refugees than local inhabitants. But almost every Kurd has been a refugee at some time in his or her life and the Kurdish people welcome refugees. The KRG complains that the Iraqi government is providing no assistance to help care for these refugees and more assistance from the international community is needed.
Since the Kurds’ costly fight against ISIS in 2014 the KRG hasn’t been able to pay its 1.2 million civil servants their wages in full and the salaries of the highest paid people were cut. There have also been continuing issues with the government in Baghdad about the payment of the 17% of the total oil revenues the Kurdish region is entitled to under the constitution as the KRG has made its own contacts with companies such as Exxon Mobil which Baghdad considers illegal.
So development has slowed down, the government is in a financial crisis businesses are suffering and many ambitious building projects could not be completed. We see this in the Arbil Citadel, the would-be jewel in the crown of tourism. There were plans to turn an old Ottoman villa into a five star luxury hotel and the entire citadel area was going to be a city within a city devoted to crafts and the show casing of Kurdish traditional life. The charming lady in the tourist bureau looks out of the window at the half completed shops as she discusses plans. The plans are there but there is no timetable.
But every cloud has a silver lining. One of Iraq’s most famous refugees father Nageeb a Michael a Dominican monk converted a half-built building in Erbil into a centre for refugees. The Dominican library in Mosul housed a unique collection of ancient manuscripts dating to the ninth century. After 2003, the Dominican monastery was threatened by extremist so in 2007 Father Nageeb moved the entire library to the nearby Christian town of Qaraqosh. After taking control of Mosul in 2014, ISIS advanced on Qaraqosh, and Michael moved the library contents again, this time to a secret location in Iraqi Kurdistan.
We can talk of the tragic persecution and annihilation of Christians in Iraq but a picture is worth a thousand words and I want to share with you a scene I will never forget. In Ein Kawa, a district of Arbil stands a statue of the Virgin Mary. Not a particularly beautiful statue but the fact that this statue has remained standing, unvandalised and respected shows that if the will is there Iraq can over come its sectarian conflicts and hatred.
From Arbil we travelled to the mountains, Rawanduz. That’s where Kurdish millionaire, Hazem Kurda added a unique specially designed toboggan like people movers to transport visitors around his one million square meter Pank resort in the mountains. Like hundreds of Kurds he returned to the region when the safe haven was established to develop his country. The resort stands empty now, the presence of ISIS close to the border of the KRG frightened the tourists and a disillusioned Mr Kurda returned to Sweden where he made his fortune importing brown rice into the EU.
We also visited the remote mountain village of Lalish, the spiritual heartland of the Yazidi people. Sheikh Baba Tawesh had a wonderful message of peace: “We are all the children of one God, I hope everyone will be happy in this place.” Quite a remarkable statement from a religious leader when, according to the United Nations 2,100 to 4,400 Yezidis were killed by ISIS and a further 4,200 to 10,800 kidnapped or injured.
I think my time is almost over so just one final comment about the genuinely warm welcome from the Kurdish people wherever we went. I went out for a coffee one night and as soon as I sat down in a café a lady came up to me and said why are you here alone?
But there is a real disappointment at the reaction of the West to the referendum. The Kurds have been staunch allies of the West and will never forget the setting up of the safe haven. They talked of Haji Bush. American troops were not charged for meals when they went to the mountains for rest and recreation.
The US said the vote and the result lacked legitimacy. The UK said the Kurdish leadership behaved in a regrettable fashion. But, to put it bluntly, the Kurds got fed up of Iraq.
In 2003 they were willing to be part of Iraq. But in the words of Bayan Abdul Rahman the KRG’s representative to the USA the current Iraq is not the Iraq they hoped for. That is what led to the referendum.
“I believe the constitution is the way forward for Iraq”, Bayan said in a recent interview with Al Jazeera. “If the Iraqi constitution of 2005 had been implemented fully we may not have had a referendum.”
So what do we have now? A compromise. The Kurds still want to separate from Iraq, the dream of independence will never be extinguished but they are willing to mend fences with Baghdad and next month Iraq’s top court will begin hearings on the legality of oil exports from Kurdistan, which are at the centre of a row between the semi-autonomous region and Baghdad. The central government has agreed to restore the Kurds share of the budget and is engaged in a kind of let’s pretend everything is alright.
At the beginning of this month Iraqi Parliament Speaker Salim Al-Jabouri said : “The Kurdistan region believes in its involvement in a united Iraq. Baghdad respects the aspirations of the region and a prosperous life for the people of Kurdistan who deserve all the best.”
So in the compromise everyone is equal : equally unhappy that is.
Zayd Alisa: Firstly I have to start by thanking Saeed Shehabi for inviting me to deliver a speech regarding the latest developments in Iraq covering the period of 15 years since the toppling and ousting of the brutal, ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein and whether there have been achievements and accomplishments on the ground.
I have to say it is really not a good idea to blame other people or other parties or other officials or another prime ministers for what happened previously. Everyone who served in the Iraqi government, and obviously the responsibility decreases automatically according to your level of seniority, according to the executive powers you have got and according to the authority and control you can exercise. That is an obvious point and a fair point.
I do think that all the prime ministers, including the incumbent prime minister, have had a very heavy responsibility and they have to be held accountable for all the energy and resources. I am talking about billions upon billions of dollars that have been absolutely wasted, gone down the drain. I have to be fair and honest about it. That is a huge amount of money. We are talking about 15 years. It is indefensible, inexcusable and unforgiveable for anyone to try to actually absolve and exonerate a prime minister and say this prime minister has nothing to do with it because that is how power was handed over to him.
So we have the first prime minister, Allawi, blaming Saddam Hussein which is absolutely right. There was corruption, I do agree. He basically was responsible for waging war against his neighbour Iran and for invading Kuwait and he is responsible for the mess that the Iraqi people found themselves in. He is responsible for ruthlessly putting down the Iraqi people.
Then we have got Jafferi who also bears a certain portion of the responsibility and then we have got Al Malaki who actually ruled Iraq for eight years. To say Abadi had nothing to do with it he tried to do his best – he had four years. But it does not matter give him four more years. Why do we need to give him four more years. He has had a full four years. I do believe that when we talk about corruption which is a main point and has not been tackled. It has been kicked down the road. And let us imagine the unequivocal support from the grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani telling him tackle corruption, deal with it head on, sack, expel and eject those senior officials no matter how powerful, no matter how senior and name and shame those political parties even if they brought you to power.
And I have to say that when Abadi stood there he was backed up to the hilt by head of the Supreme Council Ammar Al Hakim, Al Ahwal bloc and Al Sadr and a faction of the Dawa Party. So he had tremendous support and the unenviable position of actually having the support of the Grand Ayatollah. He told him be courageous implying that he wasn’t strong enough or able or capable of tackling those blocs. The ayatollah said strike with an iron fist and get rid of corruption. Indeed I wrote an article saying I hope Abadi can do it. I hope he has got what it takes to stand up, challenge and defy those corrupt officials and incompetent senior officials who lack the education and experience and who have been actually dealing and treating the Iraqi people in the same way Saddam did. I am talking about the people in the Iraqi opposition. They made the opposition a laughing stock, a joke in front of the Americans and in front of Saddam Hussein. They should have been given medals by Saddam Hussein for what they did. That is corruption for you.
Now we move on to the economy. What actually on the ground in real terms have they achieved as far as the economy is concerned? Billions of dollars have gone missing. I do agree that the price of oil went down and that huge amounts of money were spent on fighting Al Qaeda first which was basically propagated, financed and supported by who else? Abadi admitted that five thousand Saudi nationals travelled to Iraq and they formed the core of the suicide bombers.
That was confirmed by MBC. More than 55 percent of the suicide bombers came from Saudi Arabia. They were actually backed and supported by fatwas coming from the religious establishment of Saudi Arabia, the main religious establishment. That is the establishment that gives religious backing to the Al Saud family that have killed so many Iraqis and Iranians and who are terrorising Bahrainis and killing Yemenis.
For a moment let us be practical. That is what Abadi says. I have been there, I have seen him, I met him, I know how he functions. He would give you a smile and say that has got nothing to do with us. Lets be practical. We are concerned about Iraq.
If that is true let me remind him about the Dawa Party. I think the gentleman there belongs to the Dawa Party. I know that because I have been there since the 80s when Kuwait was actually sending Iraqis from the Dawa Party back to Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Who stood up for those Iraqi party members, who backed them up? Who threatened the Saudis who were basically the main financer of Saddam Hussein? That is another thing. Who backed up Saddam Hussein? Who financed him to the hilt. Who actually went all around the world demanding the back up from Russia, China and America – all of them and financed all the war effort against Iran and against the Iraqi people. Thousands of deaths.
That basically moves us to ISIL and Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda. Where did they come from? We did not have them in Iraq. Even the Americans admitted that. They opened up the Iraqi border – yes they did. So who actually invested in encouraging and enticing pushing all those hard line extremist, radicals brain washed by the Wahabi Salafi establishment to go to Iraq. Fatwas. From where did the fatwas come from? From the religious establishment. How many people did they kill? Thousands of people. When was Al Qaeda eradicated? 2008 – 2009. Dick Cheney travelled to Saudi Arabia and told them enough is enough. If you don’t stop we are going to leave Iraq and leave you to deal with the mess. The Saudis did stop it for a time.
Let me move on swiftly. 2013. The Saudis said all those Al Qaeda supporters in the sanctuaries in Anbar you need to see to that. Our next fight to break the backbone of Iraq and ultimately of Iran is to actually topple the Syrian regime. And when they failed they were actually invited back into Iraq. How? By turning those same sanctuaries into save havens. Reactivating them by actually launching those protests.
In 2014 Iraq was invaded by ISIL. Who backed up ISIL? It was the Saudi ambassador in this country writing an article and saying America do not interfere. This is an internal rebellion, an uprising. Those are the Iraqis standing up to marginalisation sidelining, ostracisation. ISIS were actually stopped at the borders of Baghdad and turned to Arbil that the Americans had to intervene and the Saudis basically were absolutely quiet about it. That is 2014 and that is ISIL.
The gentleman said there are so many militias. They are not militias. They are the Popular Mobilisation Forces. They are the ones that answered the call of Grand Ayatollah Sistani and they took up arms and they led the fight back of Iraq against ISIS from the borders of Baghdad they held them back and they pushed them back and liberated areas. For example Tikrit. Tikrit was liberated by the Popular Mobilisation Forces. What did the Americans say? They told Abadi we have to stop them because we have to use our air power. Why do they need to use their air power? Because they need to demonstrate that their presence in Iraq is vital. They have to regain their influence in Iraq. That was 2014.
I remember 2015 and Ramadi and we are talking about the great leadership of Abadi. Ramadi was on the brink of falling. The Popular Mobilisation Forces begged Abadi. Let us intervene. Let us stop Ramadi from falling. He listened to the American instructions. That is Martin Dempsy. What did Martin Dempsy say? Ramadi is insignificant, it is not strategic, even if it falls we will get it back.
That basically continued with Iraq pushing and begging and pleading in the most humiliating way. A Saudi ambassador was appointed in 2015. The gentleman talks about good relations. And it is a major achievement. I do believe that there was huge excitement in the Iraqi administration. That was the major achievement of Jafferi. He came to Iraq. Let us look at what happened. The first moment he came to Iraq he was actually putting down, demanding in the clearest possible way that Popular Mobilisation forces are sectarian forces. We have to actually stop them from taking on ISIL and taking the fight to ISIL because we want to preserve ISIL. We want to maintain ISIL as a credible threat against Iraq, against Syria and against Iran. Obama was trying to convince the Saudis can you please change your attitude, your behaviour towards Iraq – unsuccessful.
Let me move to Trump. When Trump came it was music to the ears of the Saudis, Salman and his son. What do the Saudis want from Trump? Number one Salman wanted Trump to help out because Obama refused in ousting and dislodging Mohamed Bin Naif. He wanted his son to become the king.
Number two he wanted him to pledge and to actively work to scrap the Iranian nuclear deal because they want to say that Iran is the main threat not the terrorism fatwas and the hardline emanating from the extremist Wahabi- Salafi ideology which is from Saudi Arabia.
What do they want? In return for the £460bn Trump agreed. He is a businessman. He went to Riyadh on this first visit. No democracy. We do not care about democracy, we do not care about human rights. Iran is the main source of terrorism even though Obama and Clinton pointed the finger of blame at Saudi Arabia. They defied all that. There was a phone call. That was when the turning point came. Trump phoned Abadi and the readout from Abadi sharply contradicts the readout from Trump. That was the first experience. Abadi was used to Obama. Trump said change all the ministers in the Iraqi government but Abadi is a red line. Trump had this phone call. And in the readout you can see that Abadi agreed with him that Iranian influence is a threat and that he is going to work with America and Saudi Arabia in order to confront and counter that threat.
The new strategy is a Trump inspired, Saudi sponsored strategy. We have to back up and support Ibadi – why? We need to present Abadi as a nationalist who stood up to ISIL, crushed ISIL who defied the Kurds and also crushed the Kurdish rebellion. The Americans told Barzani not now. We need to back up Abadi. If Kirkuk is included in Kurdistan Abadi would have no chance. No Iraqi prime minister can win if he losses Kirkuk. That is why the timing for the referendum was wrong.
What is the new strategy? Number one we have to back up Abadi, we need to shore up his feeble, feckless and futile leadership. Number two Saudi Arabia will back up and sponsor creating a Shia dominated bloc by waining those blocs off Iran and actually bringing them into the orbit of Abadi and creating a Shia dominated bloc that is sponsored by Saudi Arabia to take on and tackle the other Shia blocs that are aligned with Iran. If they succeed than Abadi becomes prime minister. If they don’t succeed they will create in Iraq a Shia versus Shia confrontation and this help and improve the Saudi influence in Iraq.
*Dr Kamil Mahdi is an experienced analyst of Middle Eastern politics and economics, in particular the political economy of oil-exporting countries. Mahdi is secretary of the International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, researching Iraq’s economy, politics and modern history including the politics and economics of sanctions, conflict and occupation. His other interests include economic policy in Arab countries; Middle East agriculture and the socio-economics of agrarian change. Mahdi is currently an Honorary Visiting Senior Fellow at the Middle East Centre of the London School of Economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Birmingham, 1982.
** Dr Zuhair Al-Naher is involved in strategic economic projects in Iraq. He was an adviser to the first government headed by Dr Ibrahim Al Jaffari. Then he became head of the international relations office of the Islamic Da’wa Party under the second government of Nouri Al Maliki. He was also spokesperson for the Party. He is a dentist by profession having practiced for twenty years in UK.
*** Karen Dabrowska is a freelance journalist focusing on the Middle East and Islamic Affairs. She is the author of three tourist guides to Iraq published by Bradt Travel Publishers the most recent being Iraq: the ancient sites and Iraqi Kurdistan. Before the 2003 war she published many articles about the activities of the Iraqi opposition and is now completing a biography of Mohammed Makiya an Iraqi architect who combined classic Islamic architecture and modern building techniques.
**** Zayd Alisa is a political analyst and a writer on Middle East affairs with numerous appearances on various TV channels, including the BBC and France 24. Zayd Alisa has published several articles and press releases relating to the Middle East, and has been a human rights activist for twenty five years and has actively promoted democracy and freedom of expression in the Arab world.
