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Why the U.S. should support Mithal Alusi
and Kurdistan: Good friends are hard to find
15.9.2012
By John Hannah - Foreign Policy |
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Mithal Alusi is the leader of Iraq's Democratic
Nation Party.
September 15, 2012
I know. Foreign policy has been largely an
afterthought in the presidential campaign. Iraq, for
all intents and purposes, is off the radar screen
entirely -- except as a Democratic talking point,
Bush's misbegotten war that Obama allegedly "ended."
So a post on the plight of a rather obscure Iraqi
politician -- and the merits of the Kurdish region
he now calls home -- amounts to so much spitting in
the wind, right?
Probably. On the other hand, this week's news --
rampaging anti-American mobs across the Arab world,
skyrocketing U.S.-Israeli tensions -- has brought
into sharp relief one of the main critiques of the
administration's foreign policy. Its sustained
efforts to mollify enemies at the expense of
longtime friends has fomented a dangerous perception
of American weakness, irresolution, and retreat in
the Middle East -- the slow-motion breakdown of a
U.S.-led order that, unless reversed, will
inexorably invite far more destabilizing and costly
challenges down the road.
From that perspective, perhaps an appeal for greater
solidarity with some true Iraqi friends will not
fall totally on deaf ears.
Mithal Alusi is the leader of Iraq's Democratic
Nation Party. Since his return to Iraq in late 2003,
Mithal has been without question the country's most
outspoken and courageous champion of liberal values,
unwavering in his defense of free speech, free
press, free markets, religious tolerance, and human
rights -- especially full equality for women.
Mithal's foreign policy prescriptions have been no
less bold. The enemy is clear: Fascists in all their
guises -- Islamic or secular, Shiite or Sunni --
that systematically deploy terror, violence, and
brutality against innocents at home and abroad in
service to their own power, ambition, and
ideologically-driven delusions of grandeur. Iran, Al
Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Bashar al Assad, and the
miscreants that murdered Chris Stevens and his
colleagues in Benghazi all fit the bill. Clear, too,
is Mithal's prescription: an anti-fascist alliance
dedicated to defending civilization against its
enemies, led by those countries most victimized by
totalitarian terror, the United States, Israel, and
. . . Iraq.
And Mithal has walked the walk, at great personal
sacrifice. In 2004, he attended a counter-terrorism
conference in Israel. When he returned to Baghdad,
Islamists called for his head. One-time political
allies ran for cover, disavowing and abandoning him.
In early 2005, Sunni extremists targeted him for
assassination, in the process murdering his two sons
-- Mithal's only children.
Alusi refused to bow. Instead, he started his own
grass-roots political movement dedicated to building
an independent, liberal, and unabashedly pro-Western
Iraq. If anything, Mithal's denunciations of
Saddamists, Al Qaeda, and the Iranian mullahs grew
louder. Starved of cash, advertising, and foreign
support, facing an electoral system heavily rigged
in favor of large Islamist parties, and equipped
solely with his own compelling message, Mithal
defied overwhelming odds to win a seat in Iraq's
December 2005 parliamentary elections.
From his legislative perch, Mithal ignored advice to
trim his sails. In 2008, he repeated the heresy of
visiting Israel. Again, he called for a U.S.-led
alliance to combat terrorism. He mocked the Islamic
world's boycott of Israel, asking why the likes of
Abu Mazen or Ali Khamenei should be allowed to
dictate the foreign policy of an independent Iraq,
denying it the chance to serve as a bridge for
Middle Eastern peace and benefit from relations with
a prosperous and technologically advanced Israel.
Mithal's enemies responded with a vengeance.
Islamists in Iraq's Council of Representatives moved
to strip Mithal of his parliamentary immunity,
demanding his arrest under a Saddam-era law that
made travel to Israel a hanging offense. His
government-funded security detail was withdrawn --
even as the threats against his life escalated
exponentially.
True to form, Mithal didn't run. He fought back. He
went on the offensive against his political
opponents, branding them tools of Iran. He took his
case to Iraq's Supreme Court, arguing that the law
forbidding his travel to Israel violated Iraq's
constitution. To people's amazement, the court
agreed. Mithal returned to parliament, triumphant,
but with his enemies more determined than ever to
see him gone.
Their chance came in 2010 when Mithal lost his bid
for re-election. Beset by all the same obstacles he
faced four years earlier and more, Mithal insisted
that his vote count had been suppressed through a
combination of fraud, intimidation, and dirty
tricks. Iraq's electoral authorities denied his
claim.
Bereft of any official position, the
state-sanctioned squeeze against Mithal intensified.
His official security detail was again withdrawn.
Then his personal bodyguards, comprised of
supporters who often worked for no pay, were denied
permits to carry weapons. Pretexts were found to
shutter his party's headquarters in Baghdad. When
badges expired that authorized Mithal and his wife
to enter the heavily fortified Green Zone where
their home was located, the Iraqi government refused
to renew them. And just last month, on orders from
the office of Prime Minister Maliki, Mithal received
an eviction notice, informing him that his home --
assigned in the wake of the 2004 terrorist attack
that took his sons -- was being re-claimed by the
government.
Exposed and vulnerable, under constant threat of
assassination by Iranian-backed militias and Al
Qaeda terrorists, Mithal was forced to leave Baghdad
in 2011. At the invitation of Massoud Barzani,
President of the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG), Mithal took up residence in northern Iraq,
where his party had long maintained an active
presence.
It wasn't the first time Barzani had come to
Mithal's defense. In the middle of the furor over
his 2008 trip to Israel, when Iraq's other political
leaders were running for the hills, Barzani offered
to dispatch Kurdish security guards to ensure
Mithal's protection. Nor was Mithal the first Iraqi
to seek internal exile in Kurdistan. Indeed,
thousands have found refuge there, seeking to take
advantage of the region's greater sense of security,
prosperity, and personal freedom.
To my mind, standing up for Mithal Alusi and the
Kurds should be an easy call for the United States.
In a Middle East caught in transition between an
autocratic past and a rising tide of Islamist
fanaticism, true friends are hard to find. Mithal
and the Kurds are the real deal -- unapologetically
pro-American, determined to resist the Iranian
threat, and aware that Iraq's fate ultimately
depends on its ability to forge a genuinely civil
state that fairly reflects the country's diversity
and assures the rights of all its citizens.
Alusi, for sure, is but one individual, a solitary
politician now deep in the political wilderness.
Ignoring him might be the path of least resistance,
but it would be a shortsighted calculation. Keeping
faith with those in distant lands who -- against all
odds and at great personal sacrifice -- have
tirelessly stood vigil on behalf of our common
values has almost always redounded to America's
long-term benefit. Maintaining a sustained strategy
toward democratic dissidents is no mere
sentimentality, but an essential element of the
ground game for building the kind of soft power that
can help fell empires -- see Sakharov, Andrei;
Sharansky, Natan; Walesa, Lech; or Havel, Vaclav.
And the costs of doing so are relatively trivial.
U.S. officials that travel to Kurdistan should call
on Alusi. Vice President Biden could phone him. And
when President Obama next speaks with Prime Minister
Maliki, he might mention America's concern for the
wellbeing of Alusi and others who have been forced
to flee Baghdad on account of their beliefs.
Of course, the strategic case for bolstering
relations with the KRG is much more straightforward.
Even a casual observer of world affairs might have
noticed that there is something of a Kurdish
Awakening afoot across the region, one that has real
potential over the next several years to transform
not just the politics,www.ekurd.net
but in some cases even the geography, of southwest
Asia. And the epicenter for this movement is in
Iraqi Kurdistan. The KRG is now without question an
emerging power of substantial influence, whose
policy decisions could have far-reaching
consequences for the future of not only Iraq, but
Syria, Turkey, and Iran as well -- all key regional
powers where Kurdish minorities are large and U.S.
interests run deep.
What else? The KRG is on the cusp of becoming a
major producer of oil and gas, and has recently
inked deals to partner with the world's most
powerful energy companies, including Exxon, Chevron,
Total, and Gazprom. It possesses hardened security
and intelligence forces that have worked
hand-in-glove with their U.S. counterparts for
almost a decade to fight Al Qaeda and other
terrorist groups, while keeping tabs on the
nefarious activities of the Iranian IRGC. The Kurds
are building a strategic relationship with our NATO
ally, Turkey, grounded in economics, but rapidly
expanding to include coordinated efforts to address
the crisis in Syria, deal with PKK terrorism, and
contain the growing threat that Iran poses, not just
to Iraq's independence, but across the broader
region.
Building as much U.S. leverage and influence as
possible with the KRG, as the centerpiece of what
should be a broader strategy toward the overall
Kurdish Awakening, seems like a no-brainer --
especially if done in close consultation with
Turkey. All the more so since we are pushing on an
open door, with the Kurds still hungry to knit as
close a relationship with the United States as
possible.
Some have argued that we should keep our distance
from the KRG for fear of alienating Prime Minister
Maliki. Others complain that the KRG itself is too
marred by corruption, nepotism, and human rights
shortcomings to warrant close relations with the
U.S. In this debate, however, I'll take my counsel
from Alusi. Mithal takes a back seat to no one in
recognizing the need for continued KRG reform. He
believes that it must be an essential part of the
overall U.S. agenda with Erbil. But he -- perhaps
better than most -- also understands the vital
distinction between friends and enemies, and the
imperative of dealing with the former much
differently than you do the latter -- on the basis
of trust, respect, appropriate humility, and quiet,
but firm, pressure applied over time.
With a strong frame of comparison from his years in
Baghdad, Mithal puts an enormous premium on what
President Barzani, Masrour Barzani (the KRG's
intelligence chief and recently-appointed director
of national security), and other Kurdish officials
have achieved in maintaining a sustained sense of
stability and safety in the north. The contrast with
the rest of Iraq could not be greater. One
remarkable statistic: Since 2003, Iraq on average
has experienced more terrorist attacks per day than
Kurdistan has suffered in two decades.
That's not an accident. It's not luck. It's a huge
accomplishment that no one should take for granted.
Terrorists of every stripe, including ones backed by
Iran, are hard at work attempting to disrupt the
region's tranquility. And they have consistently
failed because of the success, competence, and
professionalism of Kurdish forces in neutralizing
them -- in strong cooperation with the United
States.
And that achievement on security, of course, has
underwritten every other positive development that
the region has experienced: a rapidly growing
economy, tens of billions of dollars in foreign
investment, expanding interactions with the outside
world, and a degree of normalcy and freedom in the
personal lives of its inhabitants that is the envy
of the rest of Iraq. There clearly remains much to
do to address the legitimate political, economic,
and social needs of the Kurdish people, but -- as
Alusi strongly advises -- that task will be pursued
most successfully in a spirit of deepening
friendship, not animosity, that fully appreciates
and jealously protects the enormous gains that have
already been made.
As for Maliki's reaction, Alusi -- a staunch
opponent of Kurdish separatism -- is convinced that
the stronger the partnership between the U.S. and
the KRG, the greater the leverage America will have
in Baghdad. "Maliki currently pays no price for
ignoring U.S. interests and catering to Iran,"
Mithal notes. "If he feels the United States can
affect his political position by supporting parties
in Baghdad that are resisting the most troublesome
parts of his agenda, he will finally be forced to
take American concerns seriously." Mithal is also
certain that the stronger the KRG's position in
Baghdad, the stronger the voice will be of all
those, like himself, pushing on behalf of a unified,
democratic, federal Iraq, with a government
constrained by meaningful checks and balances.
As President Obama watches his much-trumpeted Muslim
outreach literally crash and burn on streets across
the Arab world this week, one hopes he's capable of
adjusting an approach that many have long feared
will eventually reap a bitter harvest of escalating
contempt, instability, and chaos. Just as charity
begins at home, diplomacy begins with reliable
friends -- making them, keeping them, and standing
by them when times get tough. A storm is surely
brewing in the Middle East and the U.S. will need to
rally all the allies it can get, and fast, to
navigate the rough waters ahead. In Iraq, at least,
Mithal Al-Alusi and the KRG are standing by, just
waiting for America to call.
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