By John DeSio

In America, the public opinion on Iraq is clear: It’s time to go. Aside from polls, the Democratic sweep in November’s midterm elections sent a clear message to Washington’s power players that the Iraq war weighs heavily on the minds of voters, and that they are not happy with the direction of the conflict. Right now, Congress is debating a motion that would call for a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq by 2008, putting a definite timetable on American involvement in the war.

Americans were not the only ones who got the message that the midterm elections sent. “These kinds of things help our enemies. Because if I were a terrorist, I would lay low until 2008. Time is not an issue for [the terrorists]. Unfortunately, it is an issue for us.”

These words from Qubad Talabany, deputy representative of Iraq’s Kurdish population to Washington and the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, elicited a slight gasp from the packed lecture hall of Fordham University students in the Bronx last Thursday. In the United States, the idea that timetables will aid the terrorists is generally a Republican notion. In Iraq, Talabany assured the crowd, it is the consensus of all who are interested in his country’s future success.

If a dynastic system of government existed in Iraq, Talabany would be the next in line for the presidency. A sharp, handsome man with an English accent, Talabany is head of a new office in Washington, advocating for the Kurdish people in Iraq and their interests abroad. To hear him tell it, the Kurds are acting against their own interests by cooperating with Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite populations to create a healthy Iraq. But even though Kurds desire their own country, Talabany said his countrymen are working hard to make Iraq work, maybe even more so than the Sunnis and the Shiites.

Timetables are fine, said Talabany, but military timetables would be a disaster. If Americans want to exert pressure on the Iraqi government to get its act together, it should wield its influence in other areas, such as economic development and energy policy. Besides, things in Iraq are not as bad as they seem, said Talabany, who chastised the media in this country for their focus on the negative. Violence is always in the news, but the hammering out of a new government is apparently not that interesting. “These things, unfortunately, don’t make the headlines. The bombings, the kidnappings and the attacks make the headlines,” said Talabany.

Most Iraqis want the new government to work, said Talabany, noting that 11 million of his countrymen made this clear back in 2005 when they participated in ratifying a new constitution. It began the process of developing federalism in Iraq, a foreign concept in the Middle East, which is mostly ruled by a variety of dictators and strongmen. The process has admittedly been slow, said Talabany.

Self-reliance is the goal of Iraq, but such a movement cannot be handed down from the Americans, said Talabany, who believes the Iraqis have to do this themselves. Part of that movement requires standing up to the insurgency, which has made things hard for the Iraqi people since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. That insurgency is a mix of domestic and foreign fighters, all with different agendas, said Talabany. But a major problem is the Iraqis themselves, who Talabany says need to play a greater role in controlling their own country and fighting back against the extremists.

The American reputation may be in the gutter around the world but, according to Talabany, that is not the case in Iraq.
The insurgency does not wear a uniform, making identification rather tricky. In fact, insurgents often don the uniforms of legitimate fighters as camouflage, engaging in kidnappings and executions while appearing to be part of a trusted military force. Because of this, Talabany claims that Americans have become even more respected in Iraq, because the Iraqi people know that only a true military force can walk side by side with the United States. “The Americans now, believe it or not, are considered the honest broker,” said Talabany. “You have one security service in Iraq dominated by one sect, you have another security service in Iraq dominated by another, when they start going into these different neighborhoods there is mistrust, when there is an American involved, it’s neutralized.”

It’s far too early to discuss whether or not the recent surge of 21,000 new American troops is working, said Talabany, though there are positive signs. Violence has decreased within Baghdad, but other parts of the country have seen an increase as insurgent fighters are gradually pushed out of the capitol. In many ways, Baghdad is a devastated city, he said, though that is not necessarily due to the war. Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, the upkeep of the city’s infrastructure had already begun a slow disintegration. American bombs did not destroy Iraq, said Talabany, but government corruption and mismanagement did. “Every section of the city is destroyed. Not by the war, but by neglect, by bad government,” said Talabany. “To build this country up is going to take a very long time.”

The same can be said for the insurgency, which is often portrayed as a byproduct of the American invasion. But Talabany disagrees with this assertion. Roving squads of independent fighters occupied Iraq for years before the war, but the lack of outgoing information and Hussein’s stranglehold on the media kept that news from ever escaping to the outside world. The most famous example being CNN’s self-imposed censorship of news from Iraq, a move made in order to keep the network’s Baghdad bureau open, as admitted by former CNN network chief Eason Jordan in 2003. The insurgency is not a new story, said Talabany, it’s just that most are only hearing about it now.

America cannot single-handedly fix Iraq, and Talabany knows it. In fact, he is quick to place much of the blame for the chaos in Iraq on the Iraqi government itself, who he says is not doing enough to combat the insurgency and needs to make tough decisions to fix the new nation, without concern for who might have their feelings hurt in the process. “The leadership in Iraq needs to make unpopular decisions,” said Talabany. “The results of those decisions are not going to be known for years, which we’ve seen throughout history. They need to move beyond their own constituencies and make decisions that will be unpopular to their constituents. But making those decisions will give them credibility with other constituencies, and will eventually begin the process of healing.” And not just in Iraq. Talabany also noted that although public opinion may be against President George W. Bush now, history may be kinder to him for going to Iraq in the first place.

Talabany understands that Americans are dying in Iraq. And he understands that the American public has grown tired of the war and wants to bring its soldiers home. But he asks for patience: “If Iraq fails as a state, and pressure by the American public to pull out your forces prematurely, will turn that … into a disaster. A disaster for the region, and more and more of a disaster for ourselves. It’s hard for me to ask you, Americans, for patience. It is your parents, your brothers and sisters that are out there fighting for our country. Many are getting killed in our country,” said Talabany. “This is the most difficult thing to say: please be patient.”