Iraq in Crisis: Understanding the Challenges Confronting the Nation

 

3 September 2014
The Palestine Center
Washington, DC

 

Yousef Munayyer: Getting into today’s event, which is titled “Iraq in Crisis: Understanding the Challenges Confronting the Nation” – obviously this is an issue that has been in the news a great deal in the last several weeks after an invasion and occupation in 2003, Iraq has faced many challenges, stemming from regime change, sectarianism and political division. Today Iraq reels from the emergence and advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, which has entered and controlled large swaths of Iraqi territory leaving death and destruction in its wake.

Obviously the challenges facing Iraq today and the ramifications of those challenges on the region are very significant and we’re happy to have with us today a panel to discuss what’s going on in Iraq, what possible strategies there are to addressing some of these challenges and so on. Seated immediately next to me is Raed Jarrar. He’s the Policy Impact coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee and Office of Public Policy and Advocacy in Washington, DC. Since his emigration to the United States in 2005, he’s worked on political and cultural issues pertaining to U.S. engagement in the Arab and Muslim world and is widely recognized as an expert on political, social and economic developments in the Middle East and particularly in Iraq. Seated next to him is Adil Shamoo. He’s a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is an Institute for Policy Studies Associate Fellow and a Foreign Policy Focus Senior Analyst. He’s written and edited sixteen books on science and bioethics and his op-eds have run in many newspapers including the Christian Science Monitor and The Baltimore Sun. Next to him is Sami Albanna who is President and Managing Consultant of Albanna Business and Systems Consulting and he is an Iraq analyst and commentator and has written extensively on this issue and many others throughout the Middle East, as well. And so at this point I will turn it over to the panel and will turn to moderate Q&A afterwards and we will begin with our presentation so please, welcome our panel.

Adil Shamoo: Thank you, thank you very much. With agreement, I’m going to start because of age. Dealing with the Middle East requires more than just dealing with ISIS. I’m going to interchange and use ISIS, ISIL. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Middle East is a symptom of an oppressive, corrupt and undemocratic regime supported and manipulated by the U.S., Europe and Iraq’s neighbors. ISIS is in part the result of the U.S. invasion in Iraq in 2003. The U.S. through their actions and form of governance, they created and brought forth the sectarian divide in Iraq. A few weeks ago, the West was shocked when ISIS advanced from Syria to occupy a third of Iraq. ISIS occupied Iraq’s second largest city on the north, Mosul, without any fight. ISIS fighters were nearly knocking on the door of Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous region. Tens of thousands of Christians, Yazidis, Turkmen and other minorities became hostages at the mercy of ISIS. Thousands of Christians and Sunnis were murdered. Nearly 100,000 Chaldeans the largest Christian community in Iraq, residing mostly in Northern Iraq, fled and became refugees. Pope Francis has appealed to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for help.

And to me, what’s interesting to someone who comes from that area is that the media does not cover the Christians suffering in Iraq and with large numbers and tens of thousands are leaving Iraq. For the West and especially the U.S. this was either a colossal failure of intelligence or death in political leadership despite the warnings. The situation is further exacerbated by the meddling of nearly ten countries in the affairs of Iraq to serve their own interests. These countries are the U.S., the EU, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Israel. It is disturbing that we are about to embark on a disastrous path of chasing members of ISIS from Iraq, following them to Syria. And what will be our strategy if and when we defeat the Islamic State and/or ISIS from military means only?

The horrific act of killing James Foley, a journalist and yesterday, Steven Sotloff, another journalist, has mobilized the U.S. military and White House. This was even before the second beheading, there was a ratcheting up of fear by the government and the media. There was inflammatory language to describe ISIS such as “imminent threat,” “unique organization,” “unlike others,” and “they are organized with a strategic vision.” Since I come from Iraq, I remember the days when they called Saddam Hussein’s army the second largest and powerful army, and I used to tell my friends it’s like fighting our fighters vs. fighting Iraqi forces was like an IBM supercomputer versus a slideroll and will not take more than a week to defeat Saddam’s army. Yes, ISIS is a threat to our interests in the Middle East but not as yet an imminent threat to homeland security, consistent with the most recent statements and multiple statements from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. We should be able to handle a few hundred potential terrorists, you would think with all of our capacity.

I applaud President Obama’s action to rescue a few thousand Yazidis fleeing for their lives and were stranded on the top of a mountain in Northern Iraq. My view is that it is commendable for the U.S. to conduct rescue missions. Preferably, ones sanctioned by the United Nations. However, just bombing ISIS members and decapitating their leadership are not the solution to the problem of ISIS in Iraq or in the Middle East. Bombing and droning would enhance ISIS’s support, rather than diminish it and would provide new recruits. The exercise of the military option alone will fail in the long run and the people of the Middle East will suffer further. ISIS is a genocidal organization. It is brutal that even Al-Qaeda central, as all of you know just about them, now, they are silent. That is Al-Qaeda central. They must be enjoying the job ISIS is doing.

The current version of ISIS consists of former Al-Qaeda organization members, volunteers from Arab and Muslim countries and the West, former military officers of Saddam Hussein, remnants who benefitted from Saddam’s regime and have been rejected from the Shi’a government in Iraq and the Sunni tribes. The reason for ISIS’s ability to form alliances is that Iraq and Syria are fertile grounds for opponents of the two regimes for different reasons. Assad is a tyrant and the government of Iraq is sectarian. The U.S. from day one, saw an opportunity in Syria to topple Bashar al-Assad and join in through heavy Turkish involvement on the border of Syria. The true revolution in Syria in less than a year was hijacked by different forces, each with their own agenda. The U.S. Special Operation and Intelligence Operative funneled money and intelligence to the U.S. side of the battle. Private funds in the billions from the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Qataris landed in the pockets of Islamist jihadists, especially ISIS with the silence of the government. A long time ago I suggested the onion-skin model to describe any grassroots organization, revolutionary or terrorists and there is an overlap between these two. What holds the layers of support is ideological. The core of the onion consists of those who are willing to use weapons to obtain their goal. The layers surrounding the core are those who provide weapons, finance and safe houses. The subsequent layers consist of lesser support such as ideological, acquiescence, tolerance and indifference.

The result of bombing is killing and wounding civilians and children. Even if bombing is successful in crippling the organization, the organization rebounds with more recruitment. The true battle against ISIS in Iraq is ideological and may require changing U.S. policies toward the region in order to address grievances of the people towards their government, foreign forces or occupiers. For example, the U.S.-professed ideology of freedom and justice rings hollow to many Arabs and Muslims when we supply Israel with weapons and ammunition to slaughter Palestinians, which in the world of possible recruits to ISIS indicates neither freedom nor justice. An additional example is our continued support of corrupt and dictatorial Middle Eastern governments. When Arabs exercise democracy, they elect government against our oil interests and they are anti-Israel, then we oppose it and in certain cases we tackle it like we did when Hamas won.

So where do we go from here? For us, the Iraqis need to form a government that demonstrates its willingness to combat corruption; corruption is a disease in the Middle East and it’s the worst form of it. It should provide inclusive opportunity that many Middle Eastern politicians give lip service to but never actually create. Finally, it should provide security to its citizens. Iraq must peel off from ISIS the support of the Sunnis, Sunni tribe leaders and former Ba’athists. The U.S. needs the support of several of our strong allies, such as the Saudis in opposing rather than supporting ISIS directly or indirectly. It’s really rather puzzling why our strongest allies give billions of dollars to ISIS-like or ISIS themselves directly while we were silent. The U.S. in concept with the UN if possible should bring all parties to the conflict to help to defeat ISIS. Syria and Iran should be included. Iran must reduce its meddling with Iraq and allow Iraqis to govern. Each of these countries has an interest in defeating ISIS. The Saudis and the Gulf states may be finally realizing that the monster they helped create is a threat to them now. We must build consensus to defeat ISIS but recognize that Iran has a role and the sooner we come to turns with them on major issues such as sanctions and nuclear energy, the better. In Syria, we need to recognize that there is no military solution. Everybody agrees on that. And help all sides come to turn with a political solution but we still refuse. No one really wants a political solution, among those outside it. President Obama is wisely resisting the conservative and neo-cons rush to war with Syria. Bombing Syria would eventually lead to boots on the ground. We already have 1,100 as of today. Then what? We will have more destruction of Syria as we saw in Iraq and greater hatred of people in the Middle East to us. These are complex and tough issues to resolve. There are no easy solutions and I thank you for your time.

Raed Jarrar: Well thank you, thank you, Yousef, for introductions and The Palestine Center for hosting this. Thank you all for coming to attend the event. Our focus will be on three areas pertaining to the current escalation in Iraq, and I hope I will be able to answer some of your questions in the question and answer period, our focus will now be on the pretenses or justifications of the U.S. military intervention now and a little bit I will talk about the landscape inside Iraq, the political and military landscape and end with a comment or two regarding the region and dynamics that are in Iraq.

Unlike what you would conclude on if you watched U.S. media in the last few weeks, you know the U.S. has been involved militarily in Iraq since 1991. And since the 1991 bombing which the U.S. led, the U.S. has not ended its military involvement in the country. It came in the shape of bombarding Iraq directly and imposing military and economic sanctions on the country during the nineties until 2003 and as you all know, there was a period of U.S. military occupation in the country between 2003 and 2011 and since the end of the occupation, the U.S. continued to be very involved politically and militarily at least through supporting Iraqi allies , sending weapons to the Iraqi government and putting some political pressure on main Iraqi players to support some sort of a political agenda.

So the claims that the U.S. just found this event happening as if the U.S. is a bystander are not accurate. You can trace most of Iraq’s problems today to direct U.S. military involvement. So the destruction of Iraq’s national identity, the destruction of Iraq’s military capability, the destruction of Iraq’s overlapping demographics and tearing apart the country, all these things happened either directly by the United States involvement or under U.S. watch during the years of military occupation. So the last couple of weeks, you know when the U.S. really engaged militarily, the first reason that was given by President Obama to justify the re-engagement was humanitarian intervention and we saw that this is one of the themes that is recurrent in Iraq and our part of the world: that the U.S. uses militarized intervention for humanitarian reasons. It’s highly problematic because on the one hand it militarizes humanitarian intervention and makes it unilateral as if the U.S. is a charity organization that can go rescue babies and teach children around the world. On the other hand, it uses that as pretext for war or for other sorts of intervention.

President Obama gave a very strong statement saying that the U.S. has to act immediately because there was an impending genocide that’s going on in Iraq. I thought that was a huge accusation using the “g” word. Genocide, it’s a big, huge, accusation. I think it’s irresponsible to use these words without having to process and do investigation through the appropriate international bodies, whether it’s the United Nations or other bodies that can actually investigate these claims. So, the President just drops the word very casually and says that there is an impending genocide and we need to go in to drop bombs. A week after that, the Pentagon puts an official report for an assessment based on 20 military personnel who actually landed on Mount Sinjar to assess the situation. The Pentagon said, “Actually, there isn’t that much of a humanitarian crisis, we don’t need to evacuate people and everyone has access to food and water, and the numbers are way less than what we first reported.” Now, it’s shocking that the President of the United States can use a word like genocide that lightly and then not correct the information that comes behind it.  I think it’s damaging for future acts of actual genocide because it’s like the boy who cried wolf. Once we have actual situations of genocide which happen around the world, then people will take it lightly because they will think, “Oh, we can solve that with five air strikes overnight.” No one knew that it wasn’t really an active genocide.

More importantly, acts of genocide, in addition to the need of investigating them through proper channels, there are proper channels in addressing them, as well. And those channels don’t include U.S. unilateral military action. So now, the shift of the mission and what is usually referred to as “Mission Creep” in three weeks the U.S. has changed the goals of the mission, four or five times. It went from ending an impending genocide to protecting U.S. interests in Erbil to regaining territory around the Mosul Dam to now defeating a terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria. Let me talk a little bit about where ISIS falls within the Iraqi landscape because that’s another talking point for the U.S. government. I think the way the conflict in Iraq and Syria is portrayed, there is an image that ISIS is this crazy terrorist organization, they’re going around committing gross human rights violations and the U.S. and its allies will step in, save the day, and kill the bad guys.

The situation on the ground is much more complicated because other players in Iraq, including the Iraqi government itself and militias backed by the Iraqi government have been also accused of human rights violations that reach to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity. For example, Human Rights Watch put a couple of reports in the last few months – one of them is regarding the Iraqi government’s abuses of human rights. The Iraqi government has a notorious record of human rights abuses, torture, extra judicial killings at checkpoints, and ethnic cleansing. And in the last few months, Human Rights Watch has added the indiscriminate bombing of residential areas. The Iraqi air force, apparently, which is mostly made up of Cessna airplanes (one- engine airplanes) – usually used for training in the U.S. – they fly over Sunni cities like Fallujah or Al-Ramadi, open the door, and drop explosive barrels. It’s not that they are trying to aim at something and missing. No. They are actually trying to kill as many civilians as they could. So it’s a war crime that they are committing. And some of the weapons that are used in these occasions are sent by the U.S. Militias backed and trained by the Iraqi government, so indirectly backed, trained, and equipped by the United States with U.S. taxpayer money.

Including, Al-Asa’ib and Al Hashd Al Sha’bi – this is a new militia that was created after Ayatollah Sistani gave a fatwa that Iraqis should join the military and the armed forces to fight ISIS. These militias have been committing gross violations of human rights, as well; including a massacre that happened last week when they attacked a mosque in Diyala – killing 70 Iraqi Sunnis while they were praying. Another massacre happened two weeks before that when the same militias rounded up a few dozen Sunni men from a nearby town in Diyala – executed them in the town center and then hung their dead bodies on the light posts in the streets. These are huge, huge crimes. Even other groups including the Peshmerga, have been accused of ethnic cleansing, committing human rights violations against non-Kurdish Iraqis in areas surrounding Kurdistan. All of this is to say: the image of the U.S. going there to “save the day” from the bad guys – there are no good guys left when it comes to the ruling parties in Iraq. We are in practice taking part in a messy, extremely bloody, civilian conflict – we are supporting some of these criminal militias against other criminal militias. Supporting criminal militias is actually illegal under U.S. law. The U.S. is not supposed to give weapons or training to foreign militias or armed groups who have been committing human rights abuses. This is under the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, or the Leahy Law, or other laws that govern these issues.

I want to end by addressing a couple of misconceptions regarding the regional dynamics surrounding Iraq. The first one I want to mention is the Obama administration’s policy in Iraq and Syria – which seems to have a huge contradiction. In Iraq, the Obama Administration has requested $500 million to support the Iraqi government – the central government in Iraq – while in Syria the Obama administration requested another $500 million to support armed opposition groups. There are some convincing sound bites on why the Obama administration is doing this in Iraq or why there are doing it in Syria. In Iraq, they say, “We realize that the Iraqi government has some stakes and problems, but by supporting them we can have some leverage on them to create a more inclusive government system to fight extremism.” In Syria, they say, “We understand that the armed opposition groups have some problems, but by supporting some of them we’ll have some leverage over them and try to eliminate the extremist opposition groups.”

Now, the fact of the matter is that the U.S. is supporting opposing sides of the same conflict when you look across the border, because the Iraqi central government is a strong ally of the Syrian central government – of the Assad regime. They are very strong allies economically, even militarily. The Iraqi government has been requesting air strikes to come from Syria – by the Assad regime – to support them in areas controlled by ISIS and other Sunni militants in central Iraq. Iraqi armed opposition groups, including ISIS, have very strong ties to others in Syria – who are funded by the U.S. government. So once you contrast these two policies, I think it shows that there is not only an apparent contradiction, but there is an actual contradiction with the U.S. policy regarding this.

The last point I want to raise is the situation with Iran. There have been a few calls for collaborating with Iran. I think the conventional wisdom is that the U.S. and Iran have been engaged in a proxy war in the region and this is one moment that we can work with Iran to defeat some extremist groups. The fact of the matter is that, although the U.S. and Iran have indeed been in a case of proxy war in Lebanon and Syria and in other parts of the Middle East, they have never had a proxy war in Iraq. In Iraq, actually, Iran and the United States have been supporting, more or less, the same sides of the conflict since 2003. They supported the same militias, they funded the same government, and they protected the same political system. This continues to happen until now. Iran has a couple thousand military advisors fighting alongside the Iraqi government. Iran has been sending weapons to the Iraqi government and directly to sectarian and ethnic militias such as, the Peshmerga and the Shiite militias supported by the Iraqi government. And the U.S. is doing exactly the same.

The U.S. and Iran have been all along fighting against the same line. In Iraq, for geopolitical reasons – not because of ideological or like, attempts to create peace and justice, but just because they happen to have similar interests in Iraq. So, I would be very careful in dealing with these calls. I am all for peace between the U.S. and Iran and Iraq, but thinking about building alliances with Iran is different than thinking about building alliances with Iran on someone else’s expense. So, that – the theme of shared security and the focus on a win-win situation with Iran – is a good idea. But we shouldn’t forget that that concept shouldn’t happen on the expense of the destruction of another state and the killing of its people – like what’s going on with Iraq now.

Sami Albanna: Thank you very much and thank you for inviting me to address this esteemed group.

I want to start by first clarifying a few things and then talk about the situation in Iraq. The first thing is that it is clearly a humanitarian crisis when people are beheaded in front of cameras and, so on. And it is not a humanitarian crisis when 2590 people – civilians – were killed in Gaza just about the same week and the same period of time. They were bombed deliberately using a strategy, called the Dahiya Strategy, to really subdue the Palestinian population.

So, let’s start with that point because – I mean, I agree with my colleagues – the United States has been classifying and declassifying who is moral and who is not in Iraq – as well as in the whole Middle East, as a matter of fact. Not based on really their behavior or the performance they have in terms of governance, but based on what is convenient, temporarily, for its policies. And yes, the United States today is working with Iran, is working with Kataeb Al-Salam (Peace Brigades); they are a Sadrist Kataeb Al-Salam. They just fought a war together in Amerli in Northeast Iraq. In that coalition, there was Asa’ib Al-Haq, there was Kataeb Al-Salam, there were Iranian volunteers, and there was the Iraqi army and the Peshmerga – all fighting to break the siege on Amerli. Now.

The point about it is that if we continue with that kind of a policy in the Middle East we will get more Da’ish (ISIS). Da’ish, actually, will become just like Al-Qaeda today – a very reasonable group compared to Da’ish. And that is the first remark and that’s really quite a bit of our policy today. It has not changed. None of the administration has changed.

The last point I make before really moving to Iraq: because this is context to what is going on in Iraq, the United States is not ignorant about Iraq. Not because it only went there in the 1991 or whenever you want to date it. I recall, from a book by the Secretary General of Al-Ba’ath in the early 1960s when he wrote a book after he was thrown out. He wrote a book about 1963. And in that book he said, look, the coup d’état in 1963 – against Abd al-Karim Qasim and then later, the second coup d’état by the Baathists themselves, which brought the Ba’ath to power. He said, “It was a train driven by the CIA and we were all passengers in it.” That’s a direct quote from his book. Now, the United States is extremely knowledgeable about Iraq, more knowledgeable than any of us in this room. They have machinery, they have bureaus, and the CIA, and NSA, and so on. They have information, they have analysis, and they have, of course, sources, and so on, on the ground. So, that is really important to keep in context. We’re not taking to ignorant people who are making a sort of, a simple-minded mistake.

The next point that is shaping up today. I mean, it is clear. For example, two days ago the head of the Yazidis in Iraq published a statement – it’s a very interesting statement, actually – in which he said, “There is absolutely no doubt in our mind ( I am quoting from Arabic. I am trying to translate) that it was the Peshmerga, not Da’ish that caused the situation for the Yazidis. The reason for that is that when we went to the Peshmerga (who control that area incidentally – you know, they were the defending forces) and told them that Da’ish seems to be making movements around this area, they said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ In 24 hours, we woke up and all of the Peshmerga had been withdrawn. They didn’t fight a single bullet.”

From Alqosh? The same thing.  You know. So, most of Sahel, or most of the area near Al-Mosul, was actually, handed over to Da’ish. Just like Mosul was handed over to Da’ish. So that gives you a context. Yes, there was a humanitarian crisis, you know, in Sinjar, and so on. The real reason, of course, the United States’ resumed bombing was not for Yazidis on Jabal Sinjar. The real, fundamental reason, which you read in Arabic papers, day in and day out, is that Da’ish forces penetrated Erbil. The battle was within Erbil – not 30 kilometers or so on from that. So, the United States had to rush to bomb the supply lines of Da’ish to give the Peshmerga a chance to fight back. Put that in context because if they have the capability, we’ve been supplying weapons, training and money, you name it, to the Peshmerga since 1991, incidentally. Peshmerga is an American invention – a great, American invention. They could not withstand an attack. And of course, the only battle that took place aside from the battle of Irbil, was on Sad Al Mosul (Mosul Dam). They were defeated squarely. Da’ish took over the dam in 48 hours. The whole area. The whole villages around the dam.

And you may wonder, of course, is, “Why is it that Da’ish is killing the Yazidis, is making the Christians run away, but is doing nothing to the Kurds?” Well… it is ideologically consistent on all fronts. Da’ish believes the Christians are Ahl Al-Kitab (People of the Book). Therefore, they wanted to impose in Mosul jizyah you know, you have to pay an additional tax for protection. The Christian community refused to pay the additional tax. So, they said, “Okay, you either become a Sunni Muslim or run away.” And they did the same thing in all the Christian villages. There are close to about 50 hours of Youtube videos of different people giving testimony on this point.

While, Yazidis are considered Murtadeen (Apostates) – just like Al-Rawafidh (Shi’a) – so therefore, they have to be either killed or submit. Kurds are Sunnite. At least, most Kurds in Iraq are Sunnite. All right? Therefore, these villages that Da’ish entered they only called people… okay? You give allegiance to the Khalifah (Caliphate) and you were all set. Now. In this logic, okay? In this twisted logic: you live and die by what you believe in. And as simple as that.

Let me talk a little bit about: What’s next? You know? I am eating up my time. I can go more and more on this. An Iraqi government will be formed within the next seven to ten days. Maybe even earlier. You know… according to the news today, at least. All right? As I understand it, the only holding point is the Ministry of Finance because the Kurds said, “We want to control that.” Okay? They are bargaining on this. The reason why the U.S. started resuming weapons to Iraq is when they got word from their embassy in Baghdad that it is going to be formed. And it is a political form.

There is no doubt that Iran and the United States – not now, incidentally but, since the invasion in 2003 – have been collaborating in terms of Iraq. There is no doubt that their collaboration rests from one national interest of Iran. Iran has a very consistent policy: “We want to expand our sphere of influence, but we do not want to use our armed forces to do so.” And that’s the fallacy they don’t talk about here. You want to have volunteers? Take volunteers. You want to have weapons? Maliki, you want money? Take money. Same thing they did with Assad. But, nowhere would they put their official forces on the ground – because they know from the region that will be the trigger point for a regional war. And the United States knows this. Because, you know, when they first said, “We are going to have to cooperate with Iran,” Iran said, “Of course! We are going to cooperate with you!” All right? And today… they are fighting together.

The second point: What’s going to happen after that? Okay? What will happen after a government is formed? We are going to see more fighting. The U.S. is scratching its head on what to do about Syria. All right? The main problem in Syria is the same main problem in Syria before is that A) The Syrian army remains a cohesive fighting force. And that is really the main problem throughout. B) Al-Assad regime. We’ve said he has to go and therefore, he has to go. But the point is now there is a new situation and many are saying well, “Maybe we should cooperate with them”. The U.S. wants to receive a price for that. And the price is Assad’s relationship with Russia. It has nothing to do with morality and democracy and everything else you hear about in terms of Syria. The majority of the fighting forces in Syria today, as we speak – people fighting, not people objecting – are close to 80 percent Da’ish (Da’ish being ISIS). Which means that: the whole other 535 groups that are fighting the regime don’t amount to more than 20 percent of the fighting.  That is the Mo’aradah Al-Mo’tadeelah – that is the “neutral” thing. Incidentally, an American report that was published in Arabic – I’ll quote it in Arabic. I couldn’t find it in English – estimated the size of Daesh in Syria alone, not Iraq, between 50 to 60 thousand fighting forces. And I assure you: It is larger in Iraq.

The point is: what is going to happen after that? There are only three forces in the region that are intact and that can fight Da’ish: Syria, Hezbollah, Iran. Now. What do you do? Iran doesn’t want to fight. They want to send volunteers – anything, but no fighting. So what do you do? That is the reality on the ground.

Unless they radically modify their policy, there is no other option except, we are going to see slow but increased escalation. Yesterday, they announced 350 more people sent to protect the American embassy in Baghdad. Of course, with a footnote that says they are not really fighting forces – they are just protecting. We are already close to two to three thousand officially there – between the north and with the armies and so on.

So, the conclusion: we have a very, very bumpy road ahead. Misleading the population of the United States and the Middle East with all kinds of things we are hearing in the press is not going to work. We have to really stand up as a country and say, “Okay. Here is what we can do.” And we have to acknowledge the fact of our moral and ethical responsibility in what has happened in Iraq and what has happened in Syria.