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An interview with Howar Ziad, Iraq's
ambassador to Canada
5.2.2008
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Howar
Ziad: 'I prefer messy democracy to the stability of
tyrants'
February 5, 2008
Howar Ziad, the Iraqi ambassador to Canada, has seen
the best and the worst of humanity in his homeland.
The courage of the Iraqi people, and in particular
the emergence of the Kurdistan region from decades
of genocide and devastation, represents the highest
aspirations of the human spirit. The brutality of
the previous 35 years, meanwhile -- torture, mass
killings, disappearances and chemical attacks -- is
a legacy of man's inhumanity to man. Western
politicians, journalists and intellectuals inveigh
against the American campaign in Iraq but, having
seen the changes in his country, ambassador Ziad
shares none of their doubts. |
Howar Ziad, a Kurd. Iraq's ambassador to Canada |
In conversations with me last week, ambassador Ziad
spoke of the progress Iraq is making, the yawning
indifference this has aroused in the mainstream
press and the gratitude of his people for the
intervention of the United States and its allies.
When asked if, despite the absence of weapons of
mass destruction, the persistence of the terrorist
insurgency and the resulting death and instability,www.ekurd.net
the campaign to topple
Saddam Hussein was justified, Ziad's answer is
categorical and emphatic: "Absolutely. To put this
question to the average Iraqi is ridiculous and
probably insulting. That regime enslaved people and
caused genocide, wars and breached every single
human right."
It is this history that makes the nascent success of
a free Iraq so remarkable. "We have a democratically
elected government," Ziad reports with pride. "We
had three elections and, for the first time in the
Islamic Middle East, we didn't know the result of
the election beforehand."
With a federal budget of $48-billion, declining
inflation rates and a newly merged currency that is
steadily increasing in value, the economic picture
of the new Iraq is brightening, too. Iraq's
Kurdistan region, spared major terrorist attacks in
recent years, is booming. Its annual development
budget is a remarkable $5-billion, and in its
capital of Erbil people are buying Western-style
apartments in gated communities built around
swimming pools. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have
begun returning to their homes, thanks to the
improved security situation.
Despite constant attempts by terrorists to disrupt
production, Iraq's oil output is approaching three
million barrels per day. With oil prices at historic
highs, this upward trend is good news for Iraqi
citizens. "In the past," Ziad points out, "oil
revenue has gone to dictators like Saddam, with none
of the benefit going to the people." As Christopher
Hitchens noted during a trip to the region:
"Everybody knows how to snigger when you mention
Jeffersonian democracy and Iraq in the same breath;
try sniggering when you meet someone who is trying
to express these ideas in an atmosphere that only a
few years ago was heavy with miasmic decay and the
reek of poison gas."
To be sure, the terrorist threat within the country
remains, although al-Qaeda haunts the nation as a
ghost of its former self. Sectarian divides among
Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish populations pose a
challenge, but ambassador Ziad likes to point to
Canada's example of devolved federalism to
demonstrate how people of different cultures and
regions can share a nation.
The analogy may seem far-fetched, since Canada's
cultural fissures are nowhere near so recent and
deadly as those in Iraq. Even so, Canadians can be
grateful and proud that Iraqis see our system as an
object of supreme aspiration.
Ambassador Ziad shares the belief held by many
supporters of the Iraq campaign that, as the
counterinsurgency strategy of U.S. General David
Petraeus has yielded positive results, the elite
news outlets that condemned the American invasion
from the beginning have turned a blind eye.
According to the Media Research Center,www.ekurd.net
which has been tracking
news coverage for over 20 years, the major American
networks carried 178 news stories about the Iraq war
in September, 2007. By November, by which time the
situation had improved, that number had plummeted to
68. In a news culture where The New York Times put
Abu Ghraib on its front page 32 days in a row, such
a precipitous drop in concern for Iraq speaks
volumes.
At times, reporters' obsession with finding bad news
about Iraq can lead them beyond satire. Presumably
with straight faces, the McClatchy news service
lamented in October of 2007 that, "As violence falls
in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch."
But ambassador Ziad's ideals are higher than what
one reads in the morning paper, and he knows that
words are only that. "Regardless of what the media
do," he says, "if we genuinely make progress, it
really doesn't matter. We have faced many
challenges: the terrorists, obviously, and many
others who have vested interests -- they didn't want
us to succeed. It's not easy to overcome the legacy
of a genocidal, fascist regime, but so far we have
made it. Economically, the average person is much
better off than they used to be, and freedom has
strength. It's not perfect. But step by step, we are
moving forward, with the help of our friends, the
United States."
Reflecting on the vicissitudes of Iraq's young
liberty, he adds, "I prefer messy democracy to the
stability of tyrants."
It is fashionable to dismiss the U.S.-led campaign
in Iraq as a mistake, a failure or even a crime, and
with such scorn comes easy agreement and approbation
from sophisticates. But, for the people of Iraq, the
unpopular truth is more compelling.
* Howar Ziad is the ambassador of Iraq to
Canada. He is also a senior advisor to Mr. Jalal
Talabani, the current president of Iraq. Prior to
his diplomatic career, Mr. Ziad and his family had a
long history of participation in the Kurdish freedom
movement. His Father Kaka Ziad was Vice President of
the KDP in the 1950's and also a famous Kurdish
leader of his time.
As a young man, Howar Ziad was active in the Kurdish
student movement while studying in Europe. He went
on to represent Kurdish interests abroad for many
years, including a five-year stint as representative
of the Kurdistan Regional Government at the United
Nations (1999-2004).
Ambassador Ziad studied at Baghdad College and has a
BSc in Economics from the London School of
Economics.
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