Gordon & Yu-ching Anderson

The widespread practice of female circumcision in Iraq's North highlights the plight of women in a region often seen as more socially progressive.

By Amit R. Paley

Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor's house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.

There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air. "I do this in the name of Allah!" she intoned.

As the midwife sliced off part of Sheelan's genitals, the girl let out a high-pitched wail heard throughout the neighborhood. As she carried the sobbing child back home, Sheelan's mother smiled with pride.

"This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember," said the mother, Aisha Hameed, 30, a housewife in this ethnically mixed town about 100 miles north of Baghdad. "We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it."

Kurdistan is the only known part of Iraq --and one of the few places in the world--where female circumcision is widespread. More than 60 percent of women in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq have been circumcised, according to a study conducted this year. In at least one Kurdish territory, 95 percent of women have undergone the practice, which human rights groups call female genital mutilation.

The practice, and the Kurdish parliament's refusal to outlaw it, highlight the plight of women in a region with a reputation for having a more progressive society than the rest of Iraq. Advocates for women point to the increasing frequency of honor killings against women and female self-immolations in Kurdistan this year as further evidence that women in the area still face significant obstacles, despite efforts to raise public awareness of circumcision and violence against women.

"When the Kurdish people were fighting for our independence, women participated as full members in the underground resistance," said Pakshan Zangana, who heads the women's committee in the Kurdish parliament. "But now that we have won our freedom, the position of women has been pushed backwards and crimes against us are minimized."

Zangana has been lobbying for a law in Kurdistan, a semiautonomous region with its own government, that would impose jail terms of up to 10 years on those who carry out or facilitate female circumcision. But the legislation has been stalled in parliament for nearly a year, because of what women's advocates believe is reluctance by senior Kurdish leaders to draw international public attention to the little-noticed tradition.

The Kurdish region's minister of human rights, Yousif Mohammad Aziz, said he didn't think the issue required action by parliament. "Not every small problem in the community has to have a law dealing with it," he said.

The practice of female circumcision is extremely rare in the Arab parts of Iraq, according to women's groups. They say it is not clear why the practice -- common in some parts of Africa and the Middle East -- became popular with Iraqi Kurds but not Iraqi Arabs.

Supporters of female circumcision said the practice, which has been a ritual in their culture for countless generations, is rooted in sayings they attribute to the prophet Muhammad, though the accuracy of those sayings is disputed by other Muslim scholars. The circumcision is performed by women on women, and men are usually not involved in the procedure. In the case of Sheelan, her mother informed her father that she was going to have the circumcision performed, but otherwise, he played no role.

Kurds who support circumcising girls say the practice has two goals: It controls a woman's sexual desires, and it makes her spiritually clean so that others can eat the meals she prepares.

"I would not eat food from the hands of someone who did not have the procedure," said Hurmet Kitab, a housewife who said she was 91 years old.

Kitab, who lives in the village of Kalar in Kurdistan's eastern Germian area, where female circumcision is prevalent, has had the procedure done on herself and all her daughters. When asked if she would have her 10-month-old granddaughter Saya circumcised, Kitab said "Of course" and explained that the procedure is painless.

"They just cut off a little bit," she said, flicking her finger at the top part of a key, which she then dropped on the floor.

Women's rights groups in Kurdistan are working eagerly to change the perception that the procedure is harmless and that it is required under Islam. They go to villages in rural areas where the practice is most ingrained and tell women and religious leaders of the physical and psychological damage the circumcision can cause. Health experts say the procedure can result in adverse medical consequences for women, including infections, chronic pain and increased risks during childbirth.

Ghamjeen Shaker, a 13-year-old from the Kurdish capital of Erbil, said she is still traumatized from the day she was circumcised. She sits with her legs clenched together and her hands clasped tightly on her lap, as if protecting herself from another operation. Indeed, Shaker says she sometimes dreams that the midwife who circumcised her is coming back to perform the procedure again.

She was 5 when her mother sent her out to buy parsley and then locked her in the front yard of their home with six other girls. "I knew something bad was going to happen, but I didn't know exactly where they were going to cut," she recalled. "My family just kept saying, don't worry, this is a social custom we have been doing forever."

"They pinned me to the ground, and I just cried and cried," said Shaker, who spoke barely above a whisper. "I was just so astonished. But now I realize that they want to prevent women from living their lives normally."

Her mother, Shukria Ismaeel Jarjees, a 38-year-old housewife, said she was forced by her relatives and elderly women in the community to have her daughter circumcised. "I made a huge mistake, and now my daughter is always complaining of pain in her pelvis," Jarjees said. Her eyes began to fill with tears. "I now advise my daughters to never circumcise their children."

Shaker hopes to become a social worker focusing on women's issues, in particular other girls traumatized by female circumcision.

"I want to make sure the world understands they cannot silence girls like this," she said.

Susan Faqi Rasheed, president of the Irbil branch of the Kurdistan Women's Union, said that even in the cosmopolitan capital, as many as a third of young girls are circumcised. "When the Kurds hold on to something, they hold on to it strongly," she said. "So now they hold to Islam more than the Arabs."

One of the religious leaders who have been less vocal in demanding female circumcisions is Hama Ameen Abdul Kader Hussein, preacher at the Grand Mosque of Kalar and head of the clergymen's union in Germian. Previously, he preached that female circumcision was required. Now he says it is optional, which Hussein believes has caused the area's rate of female circumcision to drop from 100 percent to about 50 percent.

"If there is any harm in this exercise," he said, "we should not do it."

Despite the outreach efforts, a study of women in more than 300 Kurdish villages by WADI, a German nongovernmental group that advocates against female circumcision, found that 62 percent underwent the procedure.

In Tuz Khurmatu, the most famous practitioner of female circumcision is Maharoub Juwad Nawchas, a 40-year-old midwife with traditional Kurdish tattoos covering her chin. She learned from her mother, who used to perform the procedure for free, though Nawchas now charges 4,000 Iraqi dinars, or just under $3.50, because her husband is disabled and can't work. She has circumcised about 30 girls a year for the past two decades.

On the day she circumcised Sheelan, the midwife began the ritual by laying down an empty white potato sack to serve as her working area. AK-47 assault rifles hung from the wall of the dingy concrete house, and watermelons rested below.

When Sheelan entered the room, her mother, Nawchas and a local woman placed the girl on a tiny wooden stool the size of a brick. The midwife applied yellow antiseptic to her pelvic area and injected her with lignocaine, an anesthetic. Little children peeked through the window to see what the noise was about.

"It's all right, it's all right," Sheelan's mother whispered, as the girl screamed so loudly her face turned red. She tried to bunch up her skirt over her pelvis and shield the area with her hand, but the women jerked her arms back.

Then Nawchas uttered the prayer, made a swift cut, and immediately moved the girl over a pile of ashes to control the bleeding.

The entire ritual took less then 10 minutes.

Back home, Sheelan lay on the floor, unable to move or talk much. She clutched a bag filled with orange soda and candy and barely said anything except that she was in pain.

But she became more animated when asked whether it was worth it to have the operation so her friends and neighbors would be comfortable eating food she prepared. "I would do anything not to have this pain, even if meant they would not eat from my hands," she rasped slowly.

"I just wish that I could be the way I was before the procedure," she said

Two hours into my first tour of Erbil, my guide for the day taught me to feel lucky. "If we were doing this in Baghdad, we would be dead by now," he said.

Our driver nodded vigorously.

"It's that dangerous?" I asked.

"With your face," my guide replied, "and with our Kurdish license plates on the car, we could not last two hours."

So goes the capital of Iraq. But I was touring the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the war is already over.

There are no insurgents in Kurdistan. Nor are there any kidnappings. A hard internal border between the Kurds' territory and the Arab-dominated center and south has been in place since the Kurdish uprising at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Cars on the road heading north are stopped at a series of checkpoints. Questions are asked. ID cards are checked. Vehicles are searched and sometimes taken apart on the side of the road. Smugglers, insurgents, and terrorists who attempt to sneak into Kurdistan by crossing Iraq's wilderness areas are ambushed by border patrols.

The second line of defense is the Kurds themselves. Out of desperate necessity, they have forged one of the most vigilant anti-terrorist communities in the world. Anyone who doesn't speak Kurdish as their native language-and Iraq's troublemakers overwhelmingly fall into this category-stands out among the general population. There is no friendly sea of the people, to borrow Mao's formulation, that insurgents can freely swim in. Al Qaeda members who do manage to infiltrate the area are hunted down like rats. This conservative Muslim society does a better job rooting out and keeping out Islamist killers than the U.S. military can manage in the kinda sorta halfway "safe" Green Zone in Baghdad.

In a region where rule by reactionary clerics, gangster elites, and calcified military dictatorships is the norm, Iraqi Kurdistan is, by local standards, an open, liberal, and peaceful society. Its government is elected by a popular vote, competing political parties run their own newspapers, and the press is (mostly) free. Religion and the state are separate, and women can and do vote. The citizens here are tired of war, and they're doing everything in their power to make their corner of the Middle East a normal, stable place where it's safe to live, and to invest and build.

But to carve out their breathing space, the Kurds have adopted discriminatory policies that would make any liberal-minded Westerner squirm. It remains to be seen how the contradictions will sort themselves out in the long run. But the outcome is important, especially if Kurdistan reaches the day-and it seems increasingly likely that it will-that it breaks entirely free of Baghdad and declares independence.

The Kurdish Autonomous Zone

Only 200 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Even those are mere tokens. The Kurdish armed forces, the Peshmerga ("those who face death"), are in charge of security. They do a remarkable job. Since Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime was toppled, only a handful of violent attacks have taken place in their part of the country.

Granted: In 2004 a suicide bomber killed Sami Abdul Rahman, the deputy vice president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, along with more than 100 other people. Last year another suicide bomber self-detonated just outside the perimeter of the fake knock-off "Sheraton" hotel. Bits of flesh splattered the flowers near the front door.

Those were major attacks. But not much else has happened. Meanwhile, the rest of the Kurds' country-if we can still think of Iraq as their country-is the most terrorized place in the world.

For that reason, among many others, Iraq might not survive in one piece. The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurdistan's people are packing their bags for independence. Most have already said goodbye.

Not one Iraqi flag flies in Erbil. The national flag does appear above government buildings in the eastern city of Suleimaniya. But it's the old flag, the pre-Saddam flag, the one that doesn't have Allahu Akbar ("God is Great") scrawled across the middle of it. The only reason it's flown in Suleimaniya at all is that the city is headquarters to Jalal Talabani's political party, the left-wing Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Talabani is the president of Iraq. (Note: The prime minister, not the president, is head of the government.)

In January 2005 the Iraqi Kurds held an informal referendum on independence. More than 80 percent turned out to vote, and 98.7 percent of those voted to secede. The Kurds have long dreamed of self-determination; today, when they look south, they see only Islamism, Ba'athism, blood, fire, and mayhem. To them, Baghdad is the capital of a deranged foreign country. The only people I met who thought of Kurdistan as "Iraq" were the foreigners. When a Palestinian-American aid worker warned me about security, he told me, "Never forget that you're in Iraq." But the Kurds kept saying, "This isn't Iraq."

The Push for Independence

If Middle Easterners had drawn the borders themselves, Iraq wouldn't even exist. Blame the British for shackling Kurds and Arabs together when they created the post-colonial, post-Ottoman map. The Kurds do. Like the English, they refer to a toilet as "a W.C."-but they insist that stands for "Winston Churchill."

Arab Iraqis who want to "keep" Kurdistan should thank the heavens for Talabani, Iraq's president. He belongs to the 1.3 percent of Iraqi Kurds who at least say they want to remain tied to Baghdad. Meanwhile, Masoud Barzani, president of Kurdistan and chief of the conservative Kurdistan Democratic Party, is playing bad cop. While Talabani is in Baghdad trying to forge a federal Iraq with official Kurdish autonomy, Barzani broods in his mountain palace and openly threatens secession. "Self-determination is the natural right of our people," he said early last year. "When the right time comes, it will become a reality."

It's hard to overstate just how long and how badly the Kurds have wanted out. Barzani's father, the guerilla leader Moula Mustafa, once told Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post, "We can become your 51st state and provide you with oil." That was back in 1973.

Indeed, the dream of an independent Kurdistan dates back to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. The League of Nations promised the Kurds a homeland of their own. Instead their homeland was broken into shards and parceled out to Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Only in Iran, where the local Kurds call the Persians "cousins," do they feel much kinship with their nominal countrymen.

Nowhere do Kurds feel more distant from their fellow citizens than in Iraq. They have had their own de facto independent state here for the last 15 years. Most of Kurdistan north of Suleimaniya was protected by the U.S. and U.K. "no fly" zones during the interim between the first and second Gulf Wars. Young Iraqi Kurds have no memory of living under Saddam, no memory of ties to Baghdad, no memory of associating with Arabs, no memory of the oppression, the genocide, or the war. They see no point in creating ties with Baghdad that haven't existed in living memory-especially when Baghdad is burning.

Sidqi Khan Bradosti, whose family owns the Zozik Trading Company, put it more mildly than anyone else. "We have nothing to do with Baghdad," he said. "And I don't want to have anything to do with Baghdad if it can't be part of a federal rule-of-law democracy." The comments of English teacher Birzo Abdulkadir were more typical: "We have nothing to do with the rest of Iraq. It was inflicted on us. What do we have to do with Arabism?"

Most Kurds are moderately conservative Sunni Muslims. But their religious tradition is historically more liberal and lenient than many others in the Middle East. "I speak and read Arabic fluently," Abdulkadir told me. "I have read the Koran in its original language. I know it's more flexible than most Arab imams admit."

Kurds have "no friends but the mountains," or so an old saying goes. It's hard for Westerners to grasp just how isolated these people feel. That partly explains their fanatical pro-Americanism: A friend, at last!

Their isolation has also produced a you-leave-us-alone-and-we'll-leave-you-alone mentality. The mayor of Halabja, the city where Saddam used chemical weapons to massacre thousands in one day, wanted to make sure I understood this. "We never terrorized anyone in any country," he said. "We occupied no one's land. We defended ourselves with humble military force against a powerful enemy. We consider our nation a protector of human rights."

The mayor conveniently left out the terror campaign waged by the Marxist-Leninist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey from the 1970s to the 1990s. The PKK was, after all, occasionally supported by some Kurdish groups in Iraq. Even so, several Kurds I spoke to thought the PKK was a strategic and moral disaster. "Abdullah Öcalan was our own Yasser Arafat," one person told me, referring to the PKK's former leader. "The difference between us and the Palestinians is that we learn from our mistakes."

The president of Dohok University, Asmat M. Khalid, whose office is in that city's old Ba'ath Party headquarters, told me the Kurds intend to build a new country with this idea as its foundation: "We have a different way of thinking here. We believe the key is to be civilized.?We don't want our new generation to be aggressive. We don't want them to have to fight. It is not our habit to kill." The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) does what it can to broadcast this message to Arab Iraqis on its Arabic-language satellite station Il Takhi. Il takhi means brothers. There is no Arabic equivalent of such a channel in Kurdish.

I did sometimes hear Kurds expressing racist comments. Iqbal Ali Muhammad of the Kurdistan Islamic Union, a moderate Islamist organization that is the third largest party in Iraqi Kurdistan, bluntly said, "The Arab, he is wild. He is not a civilized person."

Funny place, Kurdistan. I have defended Arabs before. But I never expected to do so in front of a Middle Easterner who described himself as an Islamist. Iqbal patiently listened to what I had to say in defense of Arabs generally, if not in defense of Saddam Hussein's campaign of Black Arabism and genocide. I could tell I didn't convince him.

Arab Iraqis might not mind Kurdish independence as much as some expect. The Baghdad-based blogger Omar Fadhil wasn't allowed to meet me in Erbil because he's an Arab (more on that later), so he told me in an e-mail that maybe he could meet me someday when I "visit Iraq." It isn't just the Kurds who have come to internalize the border between this region and the rest of the country.

Schoolteacher Raz Rasool lived for a while in Baghdad before returning to Suleimaniya. She thinks that if the Kurds decide to secede most Arab Iraqis will shrug and say, "Fine then, get out"-at least as long as they don't try to take Kirkuk's oil fields with them. (Granted, that's a big if.)

"Arab Iraqis don't care about any of our problems in Kurdistan," Rasool said. "They think of our problems as our problems, not theirs. They don't care that the Turkish military has soldiers stationed in parts of northern Iraq. That's because they don't think about Kurdistan as part of Iraq. They only care about Kirkuk, and they only care about Kirkuk because of the oil."

Many Arab Iraqis aren't even aware that Saddam's regime committed genocide against Kurds. "A gum-smacking teenage Arab girl from Baghdad recently visited the genocide museum here," Rasool told me, referring to an old Ba'ath Party dungeon that has since been converted into a monument to the tortured and the dead. The girl had no idea hundreds of thousands were murdered. She had no idea 5,000 villages were completely annihilated. She didn't know that thousands, including children, were tortured to death in the prison blocks.

"She broke down in tears," Rasool said. "She only knew that Kurds were supposedly troublemakers. She said she was so sorry, that she was ashamed to be an Arab."

A Tightly Guarded Utah

Some Middle Eastern countries-Egypt, for instance-are grim, depressing places that feel like they're circling the drain. Iraqi Kurdistan is optimistic, full of hope, infused top to bottom with a go-go, build-build attitude. Vast tracts of lovely new housing developments are under construction all over the major cities. Suleimaniya, the region's cultural capital, has doubled in population in the last three years. It's up to around 800,000 now, although no one is sure how many people actually live there. Like all cities that undergo rapid urban migration, most of the newcomers live on the outskirts. Unlike most Third World cities that explode in population, the outskirts of Suleimaniya are more prosperous than the old inner city.

Urban beautification campaigns are under way everywhere. Freshly cut bricks are being laid into sidewalks. Enormous new parks, some so large you might need a car to get from one end to the other, can be found in both Erbil and Suleimaniya. Highways are well-signed and in perfect condition. Advertisements for DSL Internet connections line the road from Erbil to the resort town of Salahhadin. There are no statues of tyrants, dead or alive. Most of the statues I saw were of poets. It's a different world from the shattered country below. It's easy to imagine the place as a reasonably well-functioning conservative democracy, a moderately prosperous Utah of the Middle East.

The longer central Iraq burns, the more distant the Kurds feel from Baghdad. But while the Kurds may not feel like they belong to Iraq, they don't pretend they aren't still shackled to it.

Erbil's faux Sheraton is surrounded on four sides by six-inch thick concrete bomb blast walls. It isn't physically possible to drive anywhere near the front entrance, let alone park there. Well-armed soldiers at the far end of the driveway search every inch inside, outside, and underneath each car before manually lowering the saw-toothed tire-busting blockade. Security agents in a squat concrete building scrutinize everyone who walks toward the front door from behind one-way glass windows.

Erbil's international airport likewise is built with one-way glass. Step outside, turn around, and you'll find that you can't see a thing inside the terminal.

Every time I walked into a government office in Suleimaniya, security guards asked if I had any guns. I didn't, but there was always a pile of them on a table that others had dropped off before they were let inside.

I expected the Peshmerga to let me blow through the checkpoints with minimal hassle because I'm American. Instead, they scrutinized me just like everyone else. A couple of times I got pulled out of the line for even closer inspection. The soldiers were cold, serious professionals. The only people who have an easy time at these checkpoints are those who perfectly speak Kurdish with a local accent. That's the one trait that can't easily be faked, and it's the only trait that can be trusted.

Kurds love freedom, but they love checkpoints too; in general, they see them as the barrier that holds back the horrors from the south. People don't merely trust and appreciate the security. They feel it. A detached garden restaurant on the grounds of the "Sheraton" has all-glass walls on three sides. The only wall made of metal and stone is the one behind the well-stocked bar. Suburban Suleimaniya is a wonderland of brand-new modern shiny glass buildings. No one in their right mind in Baghdad would build brand-new structures like these.

During Beirut's civil war the profits of window and glass companies perfectly tracked the rise and fall of the level of violence. When people felt safe from the chaos of war, they replaced the windows blown out from bullets, rockets, and car bombs. When they felt under siege and pessimistic, they didn't bother. Iraqi Kurds are so optimistic they're putting up new glass buildings for the first time in their history.

There is some disgruntlement. I met a university professor who got so wound up in his opposition to both major parties I thought he might have a heart attack. "They are all corrupt!" he said as he flailed about in his chair. "All of them!" There is, indeed, an enormous amount of corruption. Leaders and functionaries in both parties take a cut from almost every business that matters. "And they want everyone to become a Peshmerga!" the professor exclaimed. "We have more generals than the Red Army!"

Perhaps the security apparatus is a bit overdone. Few Kurds are in the mood to take any chances, though. The Peshmerga are in charge of security here; the Iraqi army has been infiltrated by Ba'athists and isn't allowed anywhere inside the autonomous zone. Like most people, the Kurds believe a modern civilized country needs a state with a monopoly on the use of force. But they don't think the state in Baghdad is civilized yet.

The Peshmerga offered to patrol the roads in and out of Kirkuk, which is just outside Kurdish government territory. But the U.S. authority on the ground wouldn't have it. Arab tribes in the area might get twitchy about being policed by the Kurds.

The Kurds took the pushback in stride. The minister of the interior in Suleimaniya laughed out loud when I asked him how well they get along with the American military. "Ha ha ha, our relationship is very good," he said.

Racial Profiling, Kurdish-Style

It's certainly better than their relationship with Arabs. The Kurds may be the most liberal of Iraq's three dominant ethnicities, but they're the quickest to impose illiberal laws on everyone else. I learned that when Omar and Mohammad Fadhil, the bloggers behind Iraq the Model, drove up to Kurdistan from Baghdad to meet me at my hotel. They never made it. The Peshmerga told them Arabs were not allowed to enter the region without a Kurdish escort.

It was racial profiling at its worst. The Fadhils did nothing at all to deserve that kind of treatment. Two upstanding citizens were not allowed to visit a region in their own country for no reason except that they're Arabs. The Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Political Freedom ranks Iraq the third freest Arab-majority country, after Lebanon and Morocco. Yet freedom of movement, one of the most basic freedoms, still doesn't exist. It's a one-way limitation too: Kurds can visit the north, center, and south of Iraq whenever they feel like it.

Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Regional Government actually provides money and housing for Arab Christians who want to pick up and resettle in the north. The overwhelming majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims. Yet they discriminate against their fellow Sunnis in favor of "infidels."

Arab Muslims aren't barred from the region. They can visit as tourists, and they can buy new homes there. But they must have connections if they want to settle in Kurdistan, and they must prove they aren't a security threat before they can even show up.

And then there's Kirkuk. Perhaps nothing in all Iraq poses a bigger challenge to Western liberal principles than this city.

Kirkuk sits atop one of Iraq's biggest oil fields. It has always been an ethnically mixed city on the southernmost fringe of Iraqi Kurdistan. Today it lies just beyond the Kurdistan Regional Government's autonomous zone. From 1986 to 1989 Saddam Hussein ethnically cleansed a good portion of the Kurds who refused to change their ethnicity to "Arab," then moved more Arabs, Stalin-style, into the Kurds' former homes.

No ethnic group dominates the city today. Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Turkmen (Iraqi Turks who speak their own dialect of Turkish), and Assyrian and Chaldean Christians live cheek by jowl. It's a little Lebanon where everyone is a minority. And it's one of the worst tinderboxes in all of Iraq. Two violent incidents, from terrorism to kidnapping to sniping, occur every day in that city.

The Kurds want it back. They don't want to leave Iraq without the city they call "Our Jerusalem." Nor will they tolerate a federal Iraq that doesn't include Kirkuk in their autonomous zone.

I asked KDP Minister Falah Bakir what "Our Jerusalem" was all about. Is Kirkuk some kind of cultural capital? Is there a historic significance to the city that Westerners aren't aware of?

"No," he replied. "Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan. But it isn't 'Jerusalem.' Kirkuk is Kirkuk, just as Erbil is Erbil and Mosul is Mosul." It's just another Kurdish city, in other words. It was dubbed "Our Jerusalem" by Jalal Talabani as part of a P.R. campaign.

The Peshmerga could take Kirkuk militarily any time the order is given. But they're holding back. The Kurdistan Regional Government says it wants to take the city peacefully and with honor.

Trouble is, first they want to kick out the Arabs moved there by Saddam. Not all the Arabs. Those who lived there before the Arabization campaign, those who are actually from there, are welcome to stay. The Kurds swear they have no interest in creating an ethnic-identity state. They merely want, they insist, to make the city as safe and secure as Erbil, Suleimaniya, and Dohok.

South of the Peshmerga line, some towns with Sunni Arab majorities are forcibly evicting Shia Arabs at gunpoint, with rocket launchers, and without compensation. The Kurdistan Regional Government, by contrast, says it will financially compensate everyone asked to leave. Even so, reversing one population transfer with another isn't right. The Kurds seem to understand this, given that they're offering to pay damages to the evicted. They might not even care about the city's ethnic composition if Kirkuk weren't wracked with violence. But the city is a dangerous place, and the aftershocks of Saddam's divide-and-rule strategy are still explosive.

I didn't get to visit Kirkuk, but Guardian reporter Michael Howard knows the city well. "Many of the Arabs I've spoken to in Kirkuk are aware that they are in someone else's territory," he told me. The overwhelming majority of Kirkuk's residents eschew violence no matter what their politics might be. But there are just enough people who don't to turn the city into a looming mini-Yugoslavia.

Waiting to Jump

It's hard to say what will come next. The Kurds seem to know what they want, but even they have no idea what their next move is. If they declare independence today, Turkey very well may invade; the Turks dread nothing more than Turkish Kurdistan attaching itself to Iraqi Kurdistan. Or open war could break out between Kurdistan and what's left of Iraq. No one wants to lose the black gold mine in the earth beneath Kirkuk. Even the U.S. might not recognize an independent Kurdish state for the trouble it may cause if Ankara and Baghdad aren't persuaded to go along first.

The Kurds are patiently biding their time. But make no mistake: They aren't waiting to decide if they want to remain part of Iraq. They're waiting for just the right moment to jump.

Racial profiling may or may not outlast the war. Iraqi Kurds want to be protected from predominantly Arab terrorists. More than anything, though, they want self-determination for Kurds. How they treat their own ethnic minorities if they ever achieve independence will be a crucial first test. Are they really the kind of people they think they are?

On February 1, I had lunch in a restaurant in Dohok with my driver and translator. A music video played silently on a TV in the corner: a beautiful woman with flowing black hair singing what seemed to be a slow, quiet song.

"Is she a Kurdish singer?" I asked my translator.

"Look," he said. "She is at the oil fields of Kirkuk."

He was right. A flame shot out the top of a well.

"What's she singing about?" I asked.

I expected a heavy dose of Kurdish nationalism, but he surprised me. "A long time ago," he said, "before the Kurds knew Islam or science, when we still worshipped fire, Kirkuk was a mystical place. We did not know then what oil was. Flames came out of the earth."

On screen, the singer swayed slowly and sadly. "People used to go there and pray when they hoped to give birth to a son," my translator said. "She is there now asking for peace."

Kurds are divided over a security pact between Iraq and the US, approved by a large majority in the Iraqi Parliament on Thursday, in what appears to be a potential heavy blow to their major gains since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

Despite the international media's portrayal of unequivocal unified Kurdish support for the deal, there is an increasing realization within formal and informal Kurdish circles that the Kurds are dooming themselves by approving the deal.

During a meeting with US President George W. Bush last month, Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani described the pact as being "in the interests of the Iraqi government - it's in the interests of this country, and we have been and will continue to support it and support its ratification.

"Kurdish leaders have very fervently talked about approving the agreement and have appeared to be like the number one attorneys for this deal," Nawshirwan Mustafa, a former deputy to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, wrote in Sbeiy, a Kurdish news website he founded.

Mustafa resigned from Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan after disagreements over the party management style.

"They [Kurdish leaders] have thought they should unconditionally support whatever America does and consider it as good," he wrote.

The pact, officially termed a withdrawal agreement, requires the US to pull out all its forces from Iraq's land, waters and air by the end of 2011. That will bring to an end eight years of US occupation of Iraq.

Now, the extent of fears are such that senior Kurdish MPs broke their silence in the past few days demanding amendments to the deal in a way that would curb the central government's hand in using the country's military to "settle scores" with its political opponents. What makes it even more worrying for Kurds is that the deal commits the US military to back the Iraqi Army in its operations.

But Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has firmly rejected any changes, saying that parliamentarians should either accept the deal in its entirety or reject it altogether.

Kurdish leaders' support for the deal emanates from an assumption that the presence of US forces in the country for a longer time will be in their interests. But ironically, there are provisions in the deal that can ensnare Kurds and jeopardize their political future.

One such provision about preserving Iraq's "territorial integrity" - through US assistance - is believed by many Kurds to be clearly aimed at their independence-seeking tendencies.

Preserving "territorial integrity" has been the classic code-phrase various governments in the region have used to crush Kurdish secessionist movements, such as in Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria, where sizeable restive Kurdish populations live. No other force has ever been deemed as strong a threat to Iraq's territorial integrity as Kurds since the establishment of the country in early 1920s.

Some Kurdish MPs demanded that an "honor pact" be signed among all Iraqi factions that would prevent the central government or any faction from using force to determine the outcome of political disagreements.

Sirwan Zahawi, a Kurdish lawmaker, told Kurdish Peyamner news agency that among priorities for Kurds are that central government should not send its army to Kurdistan or any of the disputed territories between Kurds and Arabs. Disputed territories are large swaths of land rich with natural resources like oil that the Iraqi central and semi-autonomous Kurdish governments disagree over who should control them.

Kurds control only the three northern provinces of Irbil, Dohuk and Suleimaniyya known as Kurdistan, but have a strong presence in the disputed territories.

The security deal, officially termed the agreement of the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, also contains several references to the US and Iraqi troops jointly combating "outlawed" armed groups.

Such phrases have raised alarms among Kurds as to how they might be interpreted in the future. While tensions between Shiite and Sunni sects have considerably eased over the past year, those between Kurds and Baghdad have dramatically increased. There are several thorny unsettled issues between Baghdad and Kurds such as territory and oil disputes that at any time might erupt in violence.

Last August, Kurdish armed forces known as Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army were on the brink of a conflict in areas north of volatile Diyala Province. During those tensions, Sami al-Askari, a close aide to Maliki, termed Kurdish Peshmargas present in Diyala "outlawed militias."

Tensions were defused then through US mediation. But if the SOFA takes effect, Kurds will find themselves not only on the opposite side of the trench against the Iraqi Army, but US troops as well. That means Kurds will risk antagonizing their major ally in the country.

The deal requires the US to help bring Iraq out of "Chapter Seven" status at the United Nations, which recognized Iraq as a threat to international peace and security in 1991 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. That will allow Iraq to more easily procure advanced weaponry for its army, something over which Kurdish officials have publicly expressed concern.

Last September, Kurdish parliamentary Speaker Adnan Mufti asked the Iraqi government to give guarantees that it will not use such weapons against Kurds. Today, the major military challenge to the country's army is no longer the Mehdi Army or Al-Qaeda, but Kurds. Amid increasing fears among Kurds about the stakes of this agreement, some have called for an alternative by reviving a UN resolution that committed the international community to protecting Kurds in Iraq. However, the mainstream Kurdish leadership has not agreed to that.

The UN Security Council passed Resolution 688 in 1991 when the Iraqi Army targeted Kurdish civilians during their uprising against Saddam Hussein. The resolution provided international protection for Kurds by setting up a safe haven in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

Experts say it is still legally effective. Saadi Barzinji, a senior Kurdish lawmaker in Baghdad, believes Kurds can try to resort to Resolution 688, but not as long as the security deal has any chances of passing.

"If the situation in Iraq got disrupted, then Kurds can ask the same forces who protected them before under Resolution 688 to do the same," Barzinji told IPS in a phone interview from Baghdad. "This means we might even have to ask for the establishment of a US military base in Kurdistan."

Diala, 26 November 2008 ( Voices of Iraq )

Rania Ibrahim, a 20-year-old dark-skinned woman, has always dreamed of becoming a physician, but instead she ended up as the first female suicide bomber in Diala.

A dropout, Rania married Mohammed, who is 10 years her senior.

She had put on an explosive belt ready for detonation but she was arrested before the attack that could have left dozens of people killed or maimed.

“I never thought I would don an explosive belt. It was one day when my husband, Mohammed, a blacksmith, asked me to accompany him to Baaquba for an important matter,” Rania told Aswat al-Iraq.

Baaquba, the capital city of Diala province, lies 57 km northeast of Baghdad.

Diala province, a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian borders.

In January 2008, Operation Phantom Phoenix was launched in an attempt to eradicate the remnants of al-Qaeda network following the Diala province campaign between 2006 and 2007.

Later on, Iraqi security forces launched a wide-scale security campaign in Diala province. The operation, codenamed Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good), is aimed at tracking down members of al-Qaeda network in Diala, Iraq’s most restive city, after the armed group lost its strongholds in the western Iraq predominantly Sunni province of al-Anbar, where tribesmen fought its members and flushed them out of the city.

“We headed for the city of al-Katoun, (3 km western Baaquba), at an abandoned house where we met a 40-ish woman of the name Umm Fatima. She talked to me about issues I was in the dark about, mostly jihad and revenge,” Rania said.

“Mohammed also spoke about the shihada (martyrdom) and paradise. One hour after I drank peach juice my husband served me, I felt a terrible headache. He and Umm Fatima then put wrapped an explosive vest around my body. I didn’t object much then, maybe because I was not fully aware of what they were doing.”

“My husband planted a kiss on my forehead and said ‘we’ll meet in paradise enshallah (God willing)’. I did understand what he meant then or where I was going or what I was to do. I boarded a taxi cab with Umm Fatima and headed to Baaquba, where we roamed the local souk (market). After nearly 30 minutes, we parted in the crowded place. I went to al-Amin neighborhood near the souk, where I was arrested before I reached a joint checkpoint of policemen and Popular Committees.”

Rania said her marriage to Mohammed was like a “coup” in her life.

“I hated death so much and valued life so dearly. One of the things I greatly enjoyed was old Iraqi singing,” Rania said with a smile on her lips as she started to hum a love song by Iraqi singer Yass Khidr.

“On the very first day of my marriage, Mohammed recited a long list of No’s, including the TV and listening to songs on the radio. He said that these could lead us to hell and perdition. Mohammed was sometimes absent for four days weekly on the pretext of work pressures. I did not have a child although I was married three years ago,” she said.

“Above all, Mohammed reneged on his promise that I should be meeting him in paradise. I met him a few days later, but in prison,” she quipped.

She said if her father had been alive, all of that would not have happened.

“I was my father’s pampered daughter but all this has changed when death snatched him and my brother away as armed groups murdered them in a very heinous manner,” she said.

Saja Qaddouri, the official in charge of the security committee in the Diala local council, told Aswat al-Iraq that all indications and figures prove that Diala ranks on top of Iraqi provinces with explosive attacks waged by female suicide bombers.

“Most of these female suicide bombers are either mentally-disabled or bereaved women who have lost their loved ones in armed confrontations that gripped the province during the past five years between armed groups and security forces,” Qaddouri said.

Despite the bad security conditions in some Iraqi provinces, Diala is strangely unique in terms of suicide blasts carried out by female bombers.

“The total number of these suicide bombing attacks exceeds 22, most of them took place inside the district of Baaquba,” she said.

She attributed the matter to the control wielded by al-Qaeda network in most areas in Diala during the years 2005 and 2006, the establishment of strongholds for the so-called Islamic State of Iraq group, mainly the key one in al-Katoun neighborhood, and the absence of the power of law all that time.

By Rauf Naqishbendi

The Iraqi government and U.S. officials recently signed a pact regarding American troops withdrawal, that may well prove to be one of the most costly diplomatic blunders in U.S. history. It will compromise Iraq’s future and the fate of all Iraqis, subjecting them to the vices of Iranian Mullahs. The balance of power in the Middle East will shift in favor of Iran, posing a grave threat to U.S. interests and the security of its allies in the region. Moreover, America's only real friends in the Islam world, the Kurds, will suffer another genocide at the hands of Arabs who are known for their brutality toward Kurds, assisted by the Turks who are notorious for practicing genocide against defenseless people.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraq's foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari signed a broad document(17 November 2008) setting the American troop pullout from Iraq by December 2011. Mr. Zebari, a Kurd has just endorsed genocide against his people and placed his signature on a document assenting to mass Kurdish slaughter by Turks, Iranians, and Arabs. In the meantime, Secretary Rice signed a document welcoming Iranian domination in a volatile Middle East and accepting America’s defeat. In a nutshell, this hairball agreement has been a victory for the Iranians and Al-Qaeda, and a death certificate for a federated Iraq with an autonomous Kurdistan region, let alone a sovereign Kurdish state.

President George Bush’s legacy would have been enhanced if his Iraqi invasion succeeded in establishing a democratic Iraq which would have isolated and weakened the Iranian regime and resulted in regime change in Iran. That was a realistic assumption were America to win the peace in Iraq. But failure to secure peace has derailed every attempt to deflate Iran. Instead, it dealt Iran an upper hand in the region and elevated its political influences. As long as Iranians are in contention with American interests in the Middle East, this situation will be detrimental to the interest of the U.S. and its allies in the region. Economically, a combined Iran and Iraq would constitute a petroleum powerhouse that could disrupt the world economy by driving oil prices up and controlling its flow to the world market.

Pursuing the troop pullout from Iraq has been Iran’s goal since the ousting of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Iranian Mullahs have been fearful of the U.S. military presence in their neighboring country, knowing that an ultimate goal would be to render regime change in Iran. In this context the consensus for U.S. military withdrawals from Iraq has been more in line with Iranian demands rather than demands from the Iraqi people. Remarkably Iran hasn’t used much of their monetary or military resources in this pursuit, preferring instead to let loyalists from the Iraqi government act on their behalf. Iraqi Shiite leaders are all granted asylum from Iran. They are indoctrinated, sponsored and supported by Iran, and while they pay lip service to America, they are solemn Iranian loyalists. The perception of seasoned observers confirms that they have been acting as agents of Iranian influence. In essence, it is the Iranians rather than the Americans who are exercising political power and influence over Iraq. Essentially when U.S. steps out of Iraq, the Iranians will step in. The Iraqi government will become a franchise of the Iranian regime. This will broaden Iranian influence in the Middle East. Iran already enjoys solidarity with the Syrian government, leverages enormous influence over Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has the ability to sway power over terrorist organization in Palestine. This leaves Israel and other U.S. allies at a grave disadvantage.

Kurds, who have been pro-American and battled Saddam’s regime along with the Americans, face annihilation with the absence of American troops in Iraq. The Kurds are a minority locked between three anti-American countries - Syria, Turkey and Iran - with all three opposed to Kurdish freedom and united in crushing their demand for freedom. Surely the Kurds will not be able to defend themselves. The Kurds realize how ominous is the situation that faces them. Every single Iraqi government since the inception of Iraq has engaged in mass slaughter of the Kurdish population. The last Iraqi Arab leader in this line was Saddam, who committed genocide against Kurds. Kurdish consternation is well founded. Arabs, Turks, and Persians never had a shortage of tyrannical leaders toward Kurds. History bears witness to the tragedies inflicted upon Kurds at the hands of Turks, Arabs and Persians from the birth of Islam and uninterrupted to the present time.

The biggest loser in this ordeal will be Kurds who enjoyed great power in the Iraqi government during the early years of U.S. occupation. Foolishly, Kurdish leaders used their military and political clout to advance peace and security in Iraqi Arabia. While this was a benefit to both Arabs and American-Iraq policy, it left their Kurdish constituents dreams for independence with neither foundation nor political leverage. Kurds know full well that the bulwark necessary to shield them from the brutality of their neighboring nations is a sovereign Kurdish state, yet their leaders irresponsibly have done little toward this end.

Regardless of who will prevail after the U.S. military withdrawal in Iraq, Kurdish achievements under U.S. occupation will be erased much faster than it was earned. Kurds need American protection and without U.S. protection they will be consumed by anti-American forces in the region. In fact, Kurds in the Arab world are detested as much as Israel, and many Arab Mullahs have declared Jihad against Kurds, labeling them as “infidel” for their friendship with America. Kurds are an easy target for their fanatic belligerent neighboring nations for they are defenseless. To make the matter worse, the U.S. has been an ally and supporter of every nation abusive toward the Kurds in the past and present. Kurdish call for justice perhaps will be answered by President-Elect Barack Obama should he decide to return sanity to U.S. foreign policy and reassert America's perception of human rights.

The pact for US troop withdrawal may not hold true for decades to come. But if it does, December 31, 2011 will bring an end to American military forces in Iraq. If appropriate measures are not set in place before then, January 1st 2012 may well see the commencement of another round of genocide against defenseless Kurds.

Kurds in Iraq get weapons from Bulgaria

Baghdad officials worry after 3 planeloads of arms arrive in north of country

BAGHDAD - Kurdish officials this fall took delivery of three planeloads of small arms and ammunition imported from Bulgaria, three U.S. military officials said, an acquisition that occurred outside the weapons procurement procedures of Iraq's central government.

The large quantity of weapons and the timing of the shipment alarmed U.S. officials, who have grown concerned about the prospect of an armed confrontation between Iraqi Kurds and the government at a time when the Kurds are attempting to expand their control over parts of northern Iraq.

The weapons arrived in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah in September on three C-130 cargo planes, according to the three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Kurdish officials declined to answer questions about the shipments but released the following statement: "The Kurdistan Regional Government continues to be on the forefront of the war on terrorism in Iraq. With that continued threat, nothing in the constitution prevents the KRG from obtaining defense materials for its regional defense."

Oil-rich area
Iraq's ethnic Kurds maintain an autonomous region that comprises three of the country's 18 provinces. In recent months, the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad, which includes some Kurds in prominent positions, has accused Kurdish leaders of attempting to expand their territory by deploying their militia, known as pesh merga, to areas south of the autonomous region. Among other things, the Kurds and Iraq's government are at odds over control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the autonomous region, and over how Iraq's oil revenue ought to be distributed.

The Kurds of northern Iraq have run their affairs with increasing autonomy since 1991, when U.S. and British forces began enforcing a no-fly zone in northern Iraq to protect the region from President Saddam Hussein's military. The U.S.-led invasion in 2003 sparked concern that Iraqi Kurds would seek independence, but the Kurds have insisted that they wish to remain part of a federal Iraq.

Neighboring countries with large Kurdish minorities, including Turkey and Iran, have said they would oppose the emergence of an independent Kurdistan, as the autonomous region is known.

Iraq's interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, said in an interview that central government officials did not authorize the purchase of weapons from Bulgaria. He said such an acquisition would constitute a "violation" of Iraqi law because only the Ministries of Interior and Defense are authorized to import weapons.

Experts on Iraq's constitution said the document does not clearly say whether provincial officials have the authority to import weapons. However, Iraqi and U.S. officials said the Ministries of Interior and Defense are the only entities authorized to import weapons. The Defense Ministry provides weapons to the Iraqi army, and the Interior Ministry procures arms for the country's police forces.

The Iraqi government has acquired the vast majority of its weapons through the Foreign Military Sales program, a U.S.-run procurement system, Brig. Gen. Charles D. Luckey, who assists the Iraqi government with weapons purchases, said Saturday. He said he knew of no instances in which provincial authorities had independently purchased weapons from abroad.

With thousands of American military officials involved in the training of Iraq's security forces, there is little the U.S. government does not know about weapons that are legally imported to Iraq. The shipments from Bulgaria in September caught the American military off guard, the three officials said. They first learned of the shipments from a source in Bulgaria, the officials said.

The three said they did not know whether U.S. officials had confronted Kurdish leaders about the shipments or alerted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.

"Yes, the Kurds have this autonomous region and they're authorized to keep the pesh," one of the officials said, referring to the militia. "But arming themselves and bringing in weapons stealthily like that -- if I were the Iraqi government, I'd be pretty concerned."

While violence in Iraq has decreased markedly in recent months, political tension is rising as Iraqi leaders gear up for provincial and national elections scheduled to take place next year, and as they prepare for an era in which the U.S. military will have a smaller presence there.

Of the primary fault lines -- which include tension between Sunnis and Shiites and rivalry among Shiite political parties -- the rift between Kurds and the Arab-dominated Iraqi government has become a top concern in recent months. Senior government officials have engaged in a war of words, and Iraqi army and pesh merga units have come close to clashing.

"You could easily have a huge eruption of violence in the north," said Kenneth B. Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. "Nothing having to do with the Kurds is resolved."

Because Arab Sunnis largely boycotted the 2005 election, Kurds obtained disproportionate political power in key provinces such as Tamim, which includes Kirkuk, and Nineveh. Both abut the Kurdish autonomous region. Kurds also control 75 of the 275 seats in parliament.

This year, violence broke out in Kirkuk amid political squabbling over an Arab proposal that seats on the Tamim provincial council should be divided evenly among ethnic Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. In the end, Iraqi lawmakers had to shelve plans to hold provincial elections in Tamim because the sides were unable to reach a deal.

In August, U.S. officials narrowly averted an armed confrontation between an Iraqi army unit and pesh merga fighters in the town of Khanaqin, in Diyala province.

Maliki 'playing with fire'
In recent weeks, Maliki and Kurdish leaders have exchanged sharp words over Maliki's creation of so-called support councils. Maliki has said the councils, which are made up of pro-government tribal leaders, are the central government's eyes and ears in provinces. But Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani and other Iraqi leaders have accused the prime minister of using the councils to bolster Maliki's influence in areas where he has little political support. In a recent news conference, Barzani said Maliki was "playing with fire."

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, recently sent Maliki a letter saying the money being spent on councils should go to the country's armed forces.

The Peshmerga, which began as a militia controlled by powerful Kurdish families, fought Iraqi troops when Hussein was in power. Since the 2003 invasion, its primary role has been to patrol predominantly Kurdish areas in the north. However, Peshmerga units were deployed to the northern city of Mosul in 2004 to help quell an insurgent uprising, and others were dispatched to Baghdad as part of the 2007 buildup of U.S. troops.

President Barzani in Wall Street Journal: Kurdistan is a Model for Iraq

Source: KRG

Iraq's Kurds have consistently been America's closest allies in Iraq. Our Peshmerga forces fought alongside the US military to liberate the country, suffering more casualties than any other US ally.

And while some Iraqi politicians have challenged the US-Iraq security agreement, Iraq's Kurdish leaders have endorsed the pact as essential for US combat troops to continue fighting terrorists in Iraq.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is committed to a federal, democratic Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors.

We have benefited enormously from the service and sacrifices of America's armed forces and their families, and we are deeply grateful. We are also proud to have shared in such sacrifices; my brother was among those severely wounded during the liberation of Iraq.

Last year, following a US request, we deployed Kurdish troops to Baghdad. These troops played a decisive role in the success of the surge. Last month I once again visited Baghdad to meet with the leadership of the federal government. We stressed our commitment to developing an Iraqi state that abides by its constitution and that is based upon a federal model with clearly delineated powers for its regions.

In spite of all this, some commentators now suggest that the Kurds are causing problems by insisting on territorial demands and proceeding with the development of Kurdistan's oil resources. These allegations are troubling. We are proceeding entirely in accord with the Iraqi constitution, implementing provisions that were brokered by the US.

In the constitutional negotiations that took place in the summer of 2005, two issues were critical to us: first, that the Kurdistan Region has the right to develop the oil on its territory, and second, that there be a fair process to determine the administrative borders of Iraq's Kurdistan Region - thus resolving once and for all the issue of "disputed" territories.

Unfortunately, ever since the discovery of oil in Iraq in the 1920s, successive Iraqi governments have sought to keep oil out of Kurdish hands, blocking exploration and development of fields in Kurdistan. Saddam Hussein's government went even further, using Iraqi oil revenues to finance the military campaigns that destroyed more than 4,500 Kurdish villages and to pay for the poison gas used to kill thousands of Kurdish civilians.

The Kurdish leadership agreed to a US-sponsored compromise in 2005 in which the central government would have the authority to manage existing oil fields, but new fields would fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the regions. Since then, the KRG has taken the lead with Baghdad in negotiations on a hydrocarbon law that is faithful to Iraq's constitution and is conducive to modernizing Iraq's oil infrastructure and substantially increasing its oil production.

We have awarded contracts for foreign oil companies (including some American ones) to explore our territory. In so doing, Kurdistan is not threatening the unity of Iraq. It is simply implementing the constitution.

The "disputed territories" have a tragic history. Since the 1950s, Iraqi regimes encouraged Arabs to settle in Kirkuk and other predominantly Kurdish and Turkmen areas. Saddam Hussein accelerated this process by engaging in ethnic cleansing, expelling or killing Kurds and Turkmen, or by requiring nationality corrections (in which non-Arabs are forced to declare themselves to be Arabs) and by moving Arabs into Kurdish homes.

The dispute between Baghdad and the Kurds over Kirkuk has lasted more than 80 years and has often been violent. All sides have now agreed to a formula to resolve the problem, to bring justice to Kirkuk, and to correct the crimes against Kurds committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. Iraq's constitution requires that a referendum be held in disputed territories to determine if their populations want to join the Kurdistan Region. Conducting a plebiscite is not easy, but it is preferable to another 80 years of conflict.

If the pro-Kurdistan side should lose the referendum in Kirkuk, I promise that Kurdistan will respect that result. And if they win, I promise that we will do everything in our power to ensure outsized representation of Kirkuk's Turkmen, Arabs and Christians both on the local level and in the parliament and government of the Kurdistan Region.

Regional stability cannot come from resolving internal disputes alone. That is why expanding and deepening our ties with Turkey is my top priority.

My meeting last month in Baghdad with the Turkish special envoy to Iraq was a historic and positive development. There should be further direct contacts between the KRG and Turkey, as well as multilateral contacts that involve the US. We are eager to work with Turkey to seek increased peace and prosperity in the region.

I am proud that the Kurdistan Region is both a model and gateway for the rest of Iraq. Our difficult path to a secular, federal democracy is very much inspired by the US. And so we look forward to working with the Obama-Biden administration to support and defend our hard-fought successes in Iraq, and to remain proud of what the Kurdistan region is today: a thriving civil society in the heart of the Middle East. When we insist on strict compliance with our country's constitution, we are only following America's great example.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's Cabinet overwhelmingly approved a security pact with the United States on Sunday, ending prolonged negotiations to allow American forces to remain for three more years in the country they first occupied in 2003.

The deal detailing the conditions of the U.S. presence still needs parliamentary approval, and lawmakers could vote as soon as Nov. 24. For Iraqis, the breakthrough was bittersweet because they won concessions from the Americans but must accept the presence of U.S. troops until 2012.

''It's the best possible, available option,'' said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. He was referring to the conflict between Iraq's desire for full sovereignty and control over security and its need for American support and cooperation to achieve that goal.

Al-Dabbagh described the pact -- intended to supplant the U.N. mandate expiring Dec. 31 -- as an ''agreement on the withdrawal of U.S. troops,'' and Washington welcomed the Cabinet's approval.

''While the process is not yet complete, we remain hopeful and confident we'll soon have an agreement that serves both the people of Iraq and the United States well and sends a signal to the region and the world that both our governments are committed to a stable, secure and democratic Iraq,'' said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council.

There is a good chance parliament will pass the agreement with a large majority, since the parties that make up Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government dominate the legislature.

The pact was due to be completed by the end of July, but negotiations stumbled over parts pertaining to Iraqi sovereignty and judicial oversight.

Al-Dabbagh said Iraq's government has received U.S. assurances that the President-elect Barack Obama would honor the agreement, and pointed out that each side has the right to repeal it after giving one year's notice. Obama, who takes office in January, has said he would pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of moving into the White House -- or May 2010.

Iraq's neighbors and U.S. adversaries, Iran and Syria, oppose the pact, arguing that the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces offered the best option for Iraq.

The Iraqi government sought to allay their fears, amending the document to prohibit the Americans from using Iraqi territory to attack neighboring nations.

The Cabinet's decision was made amid violence, despite a dramatic improvement in security over the past year. Fresh attacks underlined doubts about whether Iraq's nascent security forces can stand without U.S. military support and training.

Hours after the Cabinet vote, seven people died and seven were wounded in a suicide car bombing at a police checkpoint in Diyala, a turbulent province northeast of Baghdad, according to police Col. Ahmed Khalifa, chief of Jalula police station.

The U.S. military said the attack in Jalula occurred at a police station and that four police and six civilians died. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy in the reports.

Earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb killed three people and wounded seven in northern Baghdad, Iraqi authorities said.

Al-Dabbagh said all but one of 28 Cabinet ministers present in Sunday's meeting, in addition to al-Maliki, voted for the pact. The sole vote of dissent came from Minister of Women's Affairs Nawal al-Samaraie, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni Arab party.

She said she voted against the pact because she preferred that it be put to a nationwide referendum. She also wanted the U.S. military to free Sunni security detainees not charged with specific crimes, rather than hand them to Iraqi authorities as provided by the agreement.

The Cabinet vote followed Washington's decision last week to grant a request by al-Maliki for final amendments.

Khalid al-Attiyah, parliament's deputy speaker, said the changes removed ambiguous language that could have allowed U.S. forces to ignore a timeline for their withdrawal from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 and from the country by Jan. 1, 2012. The changes also tightened Iraq's control over security raids and the arrest of Iraqis.

The agreement is believed to have met Iraqi concerns over its sovereignty and its security needs as it continues to grapple with a diminished but persistent insurgency. It gives Iraq the right to try U.S. soldiers and defense contractors in the case of serious crimes committed off-duty and off-base.

Al-Attiyah said he expected parliament to vote on the agreement by Nov. 24. If parliament approves the deal, President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies must ratify it.

Iraq's parliament is due to go into recess at the end of the month or in early December because of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, when many lawmakers travel to Saudi Arabia on the annual pilgrimage.

Parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani canceled all leave for lawmakers and suspended foreign and out-of-town visits to ensure a quorum for the security pact vote, al-Attiyah said.

''I'm optimistic that this agreement will be passed through the Council of Representatives (parliament),'' spokesman al-Dabbagh told Associated Press Television News. But he added: ''You cannot guarantee 100 percent approval of anything.''

Barring unforeseen developments, the document should receive the support of the 85 lawmakers of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, the 54 Kurdish lawmakers and most of the 44 lawmakers in the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who commands the loyalty of 30 lawmakers, urged parliament in a statement Sunday to reject the agreement ''without the least hesitation.'' The statement was read by a top al-Sadr aide on Iraq's al-Sharqiya Television.

Al-Sadr, whose militiamen battled U.S. forces in the past, has threatened to resume attacks on U.S. forces if they don't immediately withdraw from Iraq. He called for a mass prayer and protest in a central Baghdad square on Friday.

The Cabinet vote came a day after Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, indicated he would not object to the pact if it passes by a comfortable majority in parliament.

American University takes root in northern Iraq

By YAHYA BARZANJI and RYAN LUCAS, Associated Press Writers Yahya Barzanji And Ryan Lucas, Associated Press Writers – Fri Nov 14, 3:09 am ET

AP – A professor supervises her students' work at the American University in Iraq in Sulaimaniyah, 260 kilometers north of Bagdad.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – Tucked away in the heart of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, a U.S. style university with bold plans to attract the country's top talent has quickly found a following among young Iraqis.

The American University in Iraq, which threw open its doors to students last January, has seen its enrollment, soar almost six fold in its second academic year.

"There is incredible demand for this kind of thing," said Joshua Mitchell, the school's chancellor. "Frankly, our limitation right now is space."

The jump in enrollment — from 48 last year to 256 this year — left the university scrambling to hire extra teachers, throw up temporary buildings to house more classrooms and find dormitories to accommodate the influx of students.

The university has already started construction on a sprawling new campus with five quads containing dormitories and classrooms near the Sulaimaniyah airport.

Work began last January on the site's administrative building and Mitchell said the university hopes to push forward with the rest of the construction as funds allow.

The U.S. government has pledged $10 million to build a power plant to provide electricity to the university's new campus but another $500 million is needed to complete the full project, Mitchell said.

That would allow the school to reach its goal of boosting enrollment to some 10,000 students in 10 to 15 years.

"There's no reason we can't do it," Mitchell said. "If they (Iraqis) can get back on track, they can again be one of the shining lights of the Middle East and higher education is going to be key to this."

The school's concentration on American-style liberal arts education and future job skills already has lured talented young Iraqis tired of the country's state-funded universities with their rote learning.

"The students at state university have to memorize the curriculum but here it is different. We study some subjects outside the curriculum. These are really interesting studies that push you to work hard," said Deaa Delawar, a 19-year-old studying business.

Arean Delshad wanted to study abroad but opted for Sulaimaniyah instead.

"Studies at the American University are what I expected — serious and advanced," said Delshad, also 19. "My father has many contracting companies and I want to study business administration because this university gives me a chance to learn more and build my future."

The school was founded in late 2007 with the blessing of Iraq's new political elite — including President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite Muslim — and offered its first classes in January.

All the classes are taught in English by Western professors and students can earn a four-year bachelor's degrees in business, computer science or international studies. A degree in petroleum engineering is planned.

The curriculum reflects the school's goal of providing young Iraqis with skills that aim to help the country rebuild from the destruction of the 2003 U.S.-led war and the ensuing sectarian violence.

"We're deliberately setting about to help develop the private sector, and that's why business and (information technology) are among our primary offerings," Mitchell said. "Iraq is going to need a private sector and entrepreneurial class."

Such an education, however, comes at a price. Annual tuition runs around $10,000 a year — a huge amount for average Iraqis — although the school has set up a generous financial aid system to help students in need.

Beirut and Cairo are also home to institutions called the American University, but none of the three universities in the Middle East with that name are related.

Baghdad — with its rich history as an intellectual hub in the Arab world — would seem to have been the most obvious choice for such a school in Iraq. But Sulaimaniyah, a city of 730,000 in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains some 160 miles northeast of Baghdad, has something the Iraqi capital has not provided for years — security.

"The reason Kurdistan was chosen is because it's safe," said Gordon Anderson, the school's rector. "It would not be possible to have started the university in Baghdad."

However, the university hopes to eventually establish campuses in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra.

"We want to grow, but there's the old saying 'you've got to learn to walk before you run,' and that's what we're trying to do," Anderson said. "We want to establish a good solid foundation, develop a reputation not only in Kurdistan and Iraq, but in the Middle East. And then we can begin to explore these other venues for campuses."

Barzanji reported from Sulaimaniyah, Lucas from Baghdad

Kurd-Arab tensions may threaten Iraq calm

Reuters

Published: November 13, 2008

By Missy Ryan

In battle-scarred Mosul, Kurds and Arabs trade accusations rooted in ethnic rivalry and a battle for oil and power that many fear threaten security in Iraq.

Kurds make up about a quarter of Mosul's residents and represent a powerful minority in this northern Iraqi city still shaken by car bombs and assassinations.

The army in Mosul is mainly Kurdish, which angers Sunni Arabs who make up about 60 percent of the 2.8 million population of the province of which Mosul is the capital.

Mosul, a strategic city where cultures, religions and ethnicities collide, saw an exodus of thousands of Christians last month following a campaign of threats and violence against them, although some have since returned.

U.S. military officials blamed Sunni Muslim al Qaeda or similar Islamist groups in Mosul, which they say is the last big city in Iraq still with a large al Qaeda presence.

Kurds control the provincial governing council after most Sunnis boycotted local polls in 2005, but the balance of power in Mosul could change in elections due by late January.

Christians, who are believed to number around 250,000 to 300,000 in the province, could be a swing vote, wooed by Kurds or Arabs in a fight for power.

Local Iraqi Army units in Mosul are mainly made up of Kurds. Arabs in the area scornfully refer to them as "Peshmerga," the name for former guerrilla fighters that make up the security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region further north.

Bashar Fahdil, a shopkeeper in Mosul, like other Arabs says Kurdish soldiers share blame for ongoing violence. When civilians are attacked, he said, "Kurdish soldiers just watch."

Kurds bristle at such insinuations.

"The Arab families in our neighbourhood know we have no fault in any sectarian or ethnic treason," Um Reezan, a Kurdish housewife in eastern Mosul said. "But there are people who think only superficial thoughts, and sometimes they hint at us."

Colonel Dildar Jamel Mohammed, a Kurd who commands an Iraqi Army battalion in western Mosul, said insurgents were stoking ethnic tension and trying to sabotage security.

"Al Qaeda uses this as a tool," he said, referring to the Sunni Islamists who, in Iraq, are almost all Arabs.

Ambassador Thomas Krajeski, a senior U.S. official in Baghdad, described the ancient city on the Tigris River as "where all the fault lines that exist in Iraq come together.

"It is a place where Kurd and Arab officials can solve some of these key issues: what does it mean to be a federal Iraq?"

'SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE'

That question takes on a new urgency as Kurds, who make up a fifth of Iraq's mainly Arab population, vie for control of disputed cities, towns and villages along the "green line" that divides Kurdistan from the rest of Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds, who have long dreamed of their own state, hoped to strengthen their hand within Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, who killed tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s.

Their economic and territorial ambitions appear more at risk as the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Arab, grows more assertive and Washington charts a course for withdrawing its 150,000 troops in Iraq.

Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, described the gathering resentment some Kurds feel towards Baghdad.

"We seem to still be under the influence of a totalitarian regime. The one that takes over power thinks he has the last word in everything ... He forgets coalitions, commitments and the constitution," he said in a recent newspaper interview.

Kurdish and central government officials set up a special commission this summer to try to defuse such tensions.

Gareth Stansfield, a Kurdistan expert at the University of Exeter, said the standoff is really about defining what the Kurdish position will be, politically and geographically.

"It can't be put off any longer. The pressure has become so intense that something has to give," he said.

U.S. diplomats and senior military officials have been sitting down with Kurdish and Arab officials to encourage them to mend differences over explosive issues like Khanaqin, a largely Kurdish town in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

Conflict nearly broke out in late summer when Iraqi troops tried to replace Peshmerga in Khanaqin. The standoff was defused, but left Kurdish leaders even more suspicious.

Brigadier General Tony Thomas, the top U.S. commander in Mosul, said Maliki increasingly "sees the Kurds, specifically the Peshmerga, as a militia, unauthorised, shouldn't be there."

What many forget, he says, is that Peshmerga were invited to help keep the peace in some of Iraq's most troublesome areas.

Thomas said Kurds are more nervous about what they see as Baghdad's growing unilateralism as U.S. troops prepare to leave.

"They literally said, 'We must be armed because as soon as you leave, we see this coming ... (Maliki) is going to attack us as soon as you turn away,'" Thomas said.

LAND, OIL, POWER AT STAKE

Behind the quarrels is oil. Many of the disputed areas along the "green line" have promising reserves, especially Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city that accounts for a quarter of Iraq's oil exports. Kurds consider Kirkuk their historic capital.

Iraq's constitution provides for a referendum on control of the city. That vote has been postponed indefinitely, but Kurds think they would win it, undoing Saddam's "Arabisation" of one of Iraq's main oil-producing areas.

Arab-Kurdish disputes have so far held up legislation on how to share oil wealth. Meanwhile, Kurdistan has signed oil deals of its own, which Baghdad considers void. Companies pumping in Kurdistan cannot export oil without Baghdad's permission.

The impasse affects not just Iraq's oil sector, but all investment, casting a shadow on the U.S. project in Iraq.

"The United States cannot afford a conflict to break out between Kurds and Arabs if they want to withdraw their forces and claim success," Stansfield said.

The only place unaffected by financial turmoil: Iraq

Fear and uncertainty were hot commodities in global markets Monday.

By David Goldstein

07 October 2008 (McClatchy Newspapers)

Stocks plummeted and currencies fell as shock waves from the Wall Street meltdown continued to reverberate across financial capitals.

The Mexican peso plunged to its lowest level in years. Its stock market dropped 5.4 percent.

Brazil and Russia temporarily halted trading after a series of steep drops on their exchanges.

Meanwhile, Sweden, Denmark and Austria joined Ireland and Germany on a growing list of European countries that have pledged to guarantee bank deposits to tamp down consumer worries.

"This is a stampede," said Valerie Plagnol, chief strategist at CM-CIC Securities in Paris.

On the very day that Washington began to unfold the $700 billion economic rescue mission, foreign governments and investors seemed resigned to a long period of tight credit and turmoil.

Russia suspended its benchmark RTS stock index twice on Monday, as it fell 19.1 percent, its worst ever one-day drop. It had already halted trading three times last Friday, hoping to slow sliding shares and capping the market's worst week in nearly a decade.

Russia on Monday also shut down its second major market, the Micex, three times. It had fallen nearly 19 percent.

The global credit crunch has compounded Russia's financial woes. It's already reeling from the one-two punch of falling oil prices and the loss of billions in foreign investment after the August war with Georgia.

In Latin America, the U.S. financial crisis caused trading on Brazil's stock exchange to be halted twice on a day when the value dropped by 8 percent.

In Argentina, stocks fell 10 percent, and currencies across the region tumbled against the dollar.

"The turmoil is really starting to hit Latin America," Jane Eddy, a senior regional specialist for ratings agency Standard & Poor's. "You have stock market drops, currencies weakening and credit really drying up. Everyone is on hold waiting to see what will happen over the next two weeks."

The uncertainty comes at a time when Latin America has been enjoying its strongest sustained economic growth in 25 years. The region grew by 5.7 percent in 2007 and was projected to grow by about 4.5 percent in 2008.

Thomaz Teixeira, a stock analyst at Socopa Corretora in Sao Paulo, said investors were not necessarily in a "panic."

"But they're selling for the sake of selling at whatever price," he said. "In time, though, we believe that the market will heal."

In South Africa, the stock market hit its lowest mark in more than eight years. Banks in Zimbabwe ran out of cash after depositors tried to pull out their money.

In Pakistan, already embattled on the political front, the rupee hit a new low against the dollar. With its currency having lost 21 percent of its value already this year, Standard & Poor's warned that the country was close to bankruptcy.

Next door, in India, stocks fell nearly 5.8 percent, the lowest close in two years. The index has shed more than 42 percent of its value this year, with foreign investors leading the retreat.

In response, the capital market regulator lifted curbs Monday on overseas investors to halt record sales by offshore funds.

In the Middle East, Kuwait pumped $374.3 million into the banking systems Monday and Saudi Arabia injected more $26 million into its stock market, local newspapers reported.

Apparently immune to all the turbulence was Iraq. The government has little if any investments in the institutions affected by the crisis and a barely functioning stock market. Most Iraqis keep their money in their homes rather than trust banks.

"We don't believe it will affect our bank balance," said Minister of Industry Fawzi Hariri. "In the short term we'll be one of the least affected nations."

The Iraqi government has more than $25 billion in cash reserves. Even with oil prices dropping below $90 a barrel, the Iraqis forecast oil revenues to be in the neighborhood of $80 billion.

1,215 U.S. servicemembers from all over Iraq re-enlisted during a ceremony in the Al Faw Palace rotunda at Camp Victory in Baghdad, July 4, 2008. Multinational Force-Iraq Commander Army Gen. David Petraeus led the ceremony. Photo by MNF-I Public Affairs

SEE PHOTOS

I’ll bet that you didn’t see this on CNN or any of the Network shows or hear that a pizza restaurant in Chicago sent 2,000 pizzas to our service men and women for the 4^th of July/re-enlistment celebration.

Before you pull the lever in November, take a minute to stop and think about whom these brave men and women will be voting for.  They and others who are liberating Iraq and helping it on its path to becoming a democracy need your support.

You can find out more about the ceremony at: http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/reenlist.asp

By Charles Levinson, USA TODAY

BAGHDAD — Iraq is poised to receive a flood of foreign investment, thanks to improved security. More than $74 billion in projects have been submitted for government approval in just the past five months, according to Iraq's state investment regulator.

The investors include companies from the U.S., Europe, and Gulf Arab states. Their proposals all involve sectors other than oil, including a $13 billion new port for the southern city of Basra, several hotels and thousands of housing units nationwide, says Ahmed Ridha, the chairman of Iraq's National Investment Commission.

THE NEW IRAQ: Leaders have vision of burgeoning Baghdad

The biggest project, submitted by investors from Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, calls for an entirely new city to be built just outside the holy Shiite city of Najaf at a cost of $38 billion.

Only one of the projects has broken ground, while most others are still awaiting government approval, which has been difficult to obtain. The scale of the proposals — which, combined, equal almost as much foreign investment as China receives in a year — has drawn skeptics who say the final amount spent will be much smaller.

However, companies say they are eager to plow money into a country that has not received significant foreign investment for decades due to Saddam Hussein's economic mismanagement, U.N. sanctions and war.

"The political direction of Iraq is going the right way," said Najah al-Balaghi, the Iraq chairman for The Aqeela Company, the consortium behind the project in Najaf. "Our company is ready to play."

The projects seek to address long-standing needs in Iraq, such as a severe housing shortage and under-investment in public utilities. Najaf is visited by millions of Shiite tourists a year but infrastructure there is poor.

"This is an extraordinarily undercapitalized society," said Todd Schwartz, an economic counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. "There's no question that Iraq can absorb $74 billion and hundreds of billions more."

There is plenty of money available as well, added Schwartz, in Gulf monarchies awash in petrodollars.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's crackdown on Shiite militias this Spring led to a thaw in relations with Sunni governments in the Gulf. That has encouraged investors such as Aqeela to turn to Iraq without fear of falling out of favor with their own governments, says Majed Michel, vice president of the Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce.

Most of the projects could remain on hold until al-Maliki signs off on regulations that streamline the government approval process, Michel says.

The Najaf project, for example, is currently held up due to ambiguous laws determining which government body has the right to sell the land.

Michel remains skeptical of ambitious plans such as Aqeela's: "You can't find anything solid or real yet, just shadows," he said. "But six months ago, we didn't have even shadows."

09-08-2008

Last Friday evening Yu-ching cooked a dinner for 12 people to welcome 3 new members of our staff.  Rosalind Warfield-Brown, the Director of our English Language program.  Roger Geyer, Assistant Professor of Computer Science. And, Lara Dizeyee, Director of Human Relations.

We hope to have more dinners to welcome others who will be joining us later this month, but will probably wait until we all move into the new villas we have rented to house our Expat staff.

I have posted some pictures that Roger took during the evening.

Don't Forget 'the Other Iraq'

Why the US and UK should do more to support Iraqi Kurdistan.

By Julia Pettengill

20 August 2008 (Kurdish Globe)

1. Iraqi Kurdistan is the unheralded success of Iraq, and stands as a beacon of Iraq's democratic potential

2 Although it has made tremendous strides towards democratization and economic growth, Iraqi Kurdistan remains a transitional society in need of logistical and financial assistance from Coalition allies

3. Britain and the US should not treat Iraqi Kurdistan as the 'victim of its own success,' but should instead see the region as an integral part of a successful federal state and a potential model for political and economic progress elsewhere in Iraq Investment conjoined with transparent governance are the critical components of a successful Iraqi state.

4. The US and UK should learn from their mistakes and eschew short-term fixes in favor of a long-term strategy of governmental cooperation, assistance and the promotion of Kurdistan's untapped investment opportunities.

It goes without saying that the media coverage of the Iraq War between 2004 up until the first signs of success in the 2007 'Surge' was almost entirely pessimistic. To a certain extent this was quite correct: pivotal errors in the plan to keep the peace had inadvertently enabled the worst elements of this traumatized society to come to the fore. In this dark time, even the most steadfast proponents of a stable, democratic Iraq were hard-pressed for encouraging news.

Yet every so often a small news item would appear reporting on Iraqi Kurdistan, the fertile and picturesque Kurdish-majority region in Northern Iraq which, to this day, has not had a single Coalition soldier killed in its territory. Despite the presence of Sunni Arab, Shia, Turkmen and other minorities, the Kurdish region has not experienced sectarian violence and has endured very few terrorist attacks. Such a story would often appear as the interesting postscript to what was assumed to be an irretrievable catastrophe, and would leave one with the impression that Iraqi Kurdistan was an isolated curiosity with very little to do with Iraq's past, present and future.

In fact, Iraqi Kurdistan's transition from a society decimated by autocracy and genocide to a self-administering democratic government is crucial to our understanding of the challenges and opportunities of Iraq as a whole. Since the imposition of the no-fly zone in 1991, Iraqi Kurdistan has been quietly building a democratic society of its own-electing its first National Assembly in 1992 and, in the aftermath of the 1995-96 civil wars, working towards political compromise and stability. Despite years of America's broken promises to the Iraqi Kurds, in 2003 the Kurdish Peshmarga fought with Coalition troops to overthrow the Ba'athist regime, and have not altered their position of support for a united, federal Iraq.

Although peaceful and functional relative to the rest of Iraq, the fact remains that the Kurdish region remains in transition, a process that would benefit considerably from increased international recognition of its accomplishments and challenges. Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government's High Representative to the UK, is working to publicize the great progress made in Iraqi Kurdistan and the vital importance of British and international support to both the Kurdish region and Iraq as a whole.

People talk about the Iraq War as a mistake, but Iraq has had a bloody history from Day One,' Ms. Rahman explains. 'Coup after coup, revolution after revolution, violence against its own people and violence against its neighbors-this is our history. The difference is that with the liberation of Iraq, even with the mistakes that followed the liberation, we have an opportunity to build a democracy...and for all our difficulties, Kurdistan is progressing towards that.'

Ms. Rahman's historical assessment is curiously at odds with the conventional wisdom of most foreign policy circles. International relations experts of various stripes have argued that the 'artificiality' of Iraq's formation in 1918 precludes the development of a viable democratic state which can reconcile its multitude of competing religious, ethnic and political groups. The Kurds in particular have been singled out as the group most likely to initiate the breakup of Iraq: the underlying assumption is that their shared national identity, history of oppression by the Iraqi state, years of de facto autonomy, and the influx of revenue from oil contracts will leave Iraqi Kurds with little incentive to remain part of Iraq.

Yet as Ms. Rahman points out, independence is simply not a viable option for the Iraqi Kurds: 'Even though every Kurd in his heart wants an independent Kurdish state, the reality is that this could destabilize the region, and potentially lead to hostility with our neighbors. It's true, there is no single Iraqi identity, but this is exactly why it is federalism which will ensure stability and democracy...for example, there are already signs of compromise and political participation by the Sunni Arab community, who many people thought would never cooperate after losing their monopoly of power. By being part of Iraq, [Iraqi Kurds] can help the country to prosper and allow our people to recover from decades of war and genocide...it's the best option for securing our future.'

The Kurdish leadership is clearly committed to human rights and particularly to women's' rights, as evidenced in a provision requiring a minimum 25% female members of the Kurdish National Assembly. However, recent assessments by the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) have noted deficiencies in the implementation of human rights measures, and even perceive a decline in women's rights on the ground. Rachel Bernu, Deputy Director of the KHRP, attributes this to a lack of 'the fundamental mechanisms to implement necessary reforms,' and worries that the region instead 'relies on a collection of more ad hoc measures and on the promise of progress through investment.' Ms. Bernu singles out the 'lack of public and professional education as well as implementing mechanisms as a central impediment to progress in the Kurdistan region, extending to the difficulties in implementing a coherent legal code.' For instance, in some areas of Kurdistan,

Sharia law may be accepted as overriding the laws of the National Assembly, and can thus be used to justify practices such as honor killings that are inconsistent with the region's human rights laws.
Ms. Rahman accepts these criticisms as a crucial component of the 'positive role that NGOs are playing in the Kurdish region,' although she is keen to highlight the progress that has been made in these area. The KRG has convened a commission to specifically address the problem of honor crimes, and has sought the advice of the British police in devising a strategy to counter crimes justified by tradition. 'You have to look at your neighborhood,' Ms. Rahman reasons. 'The Middle East is not a great area for women's rights, and there's no reason to believe we'll be able to get rid of these attitudes immediately...but we have opened the debate, we are making a real effort, and over time I think we will develop a holistic approach to counter these problems.'

Has the international community-and the Anglo-American alliance in particular-done enough to assist Iraqi Kurdistan's democratization? 'No, and I would say that in this sense we have been a victim of our own success,' Ms. Rahman argues. Iraqi Kurdistan's allies would do well to remember that although the region had a 'head-start' in its political development, the sanctions imposed on Iraq during the Ba'athist regime affected the Kurdish region with twice as much force due to the embargo imposed on Kurdistan by Saddam Hussein. While the KRG considers Great Britain and the United States to be allies and liberators, 'very little money from international donor funds, from the US aid programs, and from funds in the UK such as DFID, has been allotted to Iraqi Kurdistan. We have developed our own NGOs as much as we can, and we have paid for assistance when we've needed it-for example, the Kurdistan Regional Government has a contract with the British National School of Government to train our civil servants to the British standard.'

Yet given the challenges of nation-building, the Kurdistan Regional Government does not have unlimited resources with which to contract such services. Ms. Bernu cites the need not simply for financial assistance, but for technical expertise to build a fully-functioning democratic legal system in Iraqi Kurdistan, and cites 'anxieties about offending Iraq's neighbors' as the main reason for the deficit in international assistance.

But surely this relative lack of financial aid is understandable given the dire circumstances of the rest of the country? Ms. Rahman agrees that central and southern Iraq lag behind Kurdistan in the pace of democratic development, but maintains that financial support has been withheld needlessly from Iraqi Kurdistan, that the US and UK could do more to promote investment opportunities in Kurdistan, and that these omissions are symptomatic of a general failure to embrace and promote the greatest success story of Iraq thus far: 'A group of British MPs visited Kurdistan in February and in their report to the UK parliament, they said the Kurdistan Region deserves a far higher degree of international attention and support. They pointed out that Kurdistan's success is in the interests of all those who want a peaceful and stable Middle East, and we hope these encouraging developments will help to publicize the opportunities in Iraqi Kurdistan.'

A journalist for seventeen years for newspapers including the financial Times, Ms. Rahman has used her way with words and media savvy to raise awareness about the investment opportunities in the Kurdistan region. As the former Chairman of the Kurdistan Development Corporation, she was instrumental in the 'Kurdistan: the Other Iraq,' advertising campaign first launched in 2005 with the assistance of the public relations firm Russo, Marsh & Rogers. Despite the reported skepticism of the international community, Kurdistan has now begun to receive Western tourist groups, high level trade delegations from the US and the UK and other leading developed countries, and recently signed an investment deal with the UAE-based Damac Properties worth $4.5 billion USD. There is reason to be encouraged that this is improving already-Foreign Secretary David Miliband has visited Iraqi Kurdistan twice in the past year, and trade and parliamentary delegations have made increasingly frequent visits. Despite the largely negative impression fostered by the Turkish incursions into Kurdistan against the PKK, Turkey is actually Iraqi Kurdistan's most active trading partner, with most trade entering through the Kurdish region. 'This is positive for Kurdistan, for Iraq, and for Turkey,' Ms. Rahman declares. 'After all, the world revolves around trade.'
The relative paucity to date of international assistance, both monetary and consultative, has increased the sense of urgency in developing Kurdistan's largely untapped oil industry. The paradox of course is that the oil revenues, which are essential to the Kurdish region's future economic security and political stability, requires a civil and legal infrastructure which may need more time to develop in the opinion of some human rights activists. An article by Greg Muttit in the KHRP's 2008 Legal Review of the Kurdish-majority territories suggests that the pace of oil contracts awarded by the KRG may proceed more quickly than the current legal framework-still in its formative stage-can handle. The report singles out the 'stabilization clauses' of the oil contracts awarded by the KRG in the autumn of 2007 as having a potentially chilling effect on further human rights legislation, as they require the KRG to compensate investors for any costs which may be incurred in future due to changes in human rights or environmental legislation.

Yet with a particularly acute history of suffering as a result of the Hussein regime's abuse of its oil wealth, Ms. Rahman contends that 'the KRG and the Kurdish leadership are committed to upholding and protecting human rights and to protecting and reviving the environment...The signing of oil or other investment contracts will not hinder or slow that commitment and companies that come to Kurdistan are well aware of that. In fact, the revenues from these investments will bring benefits to the people of Kurdistan and should improve their welfare.'

However this debate is settled, it is axiomatic that oil is central to Iraq's future prosperity and regional power. While due consideration must be given to strengthening the transparency and cohesiveness of the legal system if Iraq is to responsibly manage its oil wealth, accessing these resources has the potential to contribute enormously to the country's reconstruction, economic development and political reconciliation. Yet lingering cynicism over the US-UK and Coalition members' motives for the 2003 invasion seems to have extended to questioning the legality of the KRG's management of the region's all-important resources. Indeed, insinuations of Kurdistan's supposedly cozy relationship with the United States may have biased some media outlets against its oil and gas law as a whole. Since the first contracts were awarded by the KRG in 2007, leading publications have criticized them as being legally dubious, and have implied that the federal government and the KRG are in dispute over this issue.

Yet the present arrangements for oil and gas contracts in Iraq is mandated by a combination of regional, federal and constitutional rights, which lawmakers are attempting to balance in the best interests of political stability. To this point, Ms. Rahman argues that these criticisms either misunderstand or misrepresent the nature of Iraqi Kurdistan's oil and gas law: 'The law is quite clear. Under Article 108 of the Iraqi Constitution, the Kurdistan National Assembly has the power to pass its own laws and to sign contracts. We have therefore passed our own oil and gas law, while we wait for the federal hydrocarbons law to be finalized. Also, under the current political agreement between the KRG and Baghdad, the KRG receives 17 per cent of Iraq's budget. Therefore, only 17 per cent of the revenues from the oil contracts signed by the KRG will go to Kurdistan. We will ensure the remainder goes to the Federal coffers.' Moreover, 'two independent legal reviews [by Professor James Crawford and Dr. Pedro van Meurs] have confirmed the legality of the KRG's actions. As for a supposed conflict between the federal and regional governments, it's important to note that accusations of illegal practices by the KRG have come from individuals within the federal government, but not from the federal government itself.'
The KRG has repeatedly expressed confidence that the Kurdistan region will stand as a beacon for the rest of Iraq, and for the Middle Eastern region. Certainly, it would be irresponsible to conflate the particular circumstances of the Kurdish region with that of the rest of Iraq, whose continued control by the Ba'athist regime until 2003 made its post-invasion breakdown far more prone to violence and social atomization. Yet the failure of the US and the UK to adequately publicize the success story that is Iraqi Kurdistan whether out of deference to war-weary electorates, or out of fear of harassment by regional powers with substantial Kurdish minorities-it is disservice to the efforts of NGOs, Iraqis and the Iraqi-Kurdish people, not to mention those of their own Armed Forces.

While central and southern Iraq's security situation continues to improve, it is arguably at least 10-to-20 years behind Iraqi Kurdistan's development of the legal and social infrastructure necessary for a stable civil society. Iraqi Kurdistan can provide a vital gateway to the international community and to the global market, and through increased trade links could increase Iraq's regional security and potentially neutralize the influence of regional neighbors such as Iran and Syria. With the 2003 liberation, Great Britain and the US have made this possible, but can and should do more by authorizing increased assistance via legal advisory commissions, by offering aid and exchange programs in such fields as government and health services, and by encouraging the already promising influx of British and American investment in the region. The EU can be another powerful tool to assist Kurdistan both directly and indirectly-for instance, the 'carrot' of EU membership can be used to secure a more equitable financial and diplomatic relationship between Turkey and Iraq.

The Federal Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government should continue to work towards a political compromise on the federal hydrocarbons law, and continue to cooperate to ensure that the development of the oil industry is carried out with transparency and in accordance with the Constitution. The fact that the federal and regional governments are demonstrating the capacity for political compromise should be extremely encouraging to the US and UK, and should remind us of the importance of securing our alliance with and investment in a stable, democratic Iraq. In order to move Iraq forward, the Coalition Powers need to both rectify their mistakes and to understand and bring attention to their successes. It is time to spotlight 'The Other Iraq'-Iraqi Kurdistan-as a beacon of the entire country's promise, and to offer assistance in fulfilling that potential.

We apologize for our long delay in posting anything to our Blog.  I traveled to the states in early July to attend a conference and to have a little break.  Yu-ching and I flew back last week and are now settled in and slowly recovering from jet lag.

Below is an article that should quell some concerns about how safe it is in Iraq.

Baghdad, 06 August 2008 (Voices of Iraq)

Spokesperson for the Multi National Forces (MNF) in Iraq on Wednesday said that intelligence reports show a reduction in violence and organized crime to the lowest level in four years, due to the performance of Iraqi security forces.

"Reports show reduction in violent operations conducted by al-Qaeda organization and the special groups supported by al-Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and assassinations and robberies conducted by organized crime gangs to the lowest level since four years," General David Perkins said in a press conference in Baghdad.

"Successes achieved by Iraqi security forces with fewer casualties are due to relying on intelligence tips," he added.

"Information show that al-Qaeda organization's leaders fled Iraq, after Iraqi security forces conducted operations where al-Qaeda functions," he noted.

"Al-Qaeda organization and the special groups in areas north of Baghdad are still able to carry out attacks against civilians and combined forces, but they are unable to confront them," he asserted.

Hollywood to Make a Movie about The Halabja Catastrophe

Major Kurdish newspapers reported that a delegation from Hollywood visited Halabja to examine the possibility of making a movie about the 1988 poison gas attack on Halabja.  The head of the delegation, George Brinsty from the Miramax Company, told Rojname newspaper that the aim of the movie is to make the world aware of why the United States liberated Iraq.

I just returned from spending the weekend in Erbil.  Several of us received invitations from the Kurdish-American Friendship Association to attend their 4^th of July Celebration.  We had a great time.  It felt like a real 4^th of July; hamburgers, hotdogs, corn of the cob, cold Miller beer, games for the kids and best of all, a truly magnificent fireworks display.

The next day the President of the University of Salahaddin, Dr. Mohammad Sadik, took on a tour of his university and the town, including its Citadel.  The locals claim that Erbil is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.  Given its location and what we saw at the Citadel it is hard to argue with them.

In one of the local squares, the town has erected a monument with an American eagle to thank the American Soldiers who liberated Iraq.  It was very heartwarming to visit the monument, especially on the 4^th of July weekend.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but April 9^th (the day the stature of Saddam Hussein was pulled down) is a national holiday.  The Iraqis and especially the Kurds really appreciate what we have done and are doing for them.   

This may just be the most meaningful 4^th of July I’ve ever spent.  I’m very proud of my country and what we are doing to help the people of Iraq achieve the kind of freedom we all have and sometimes take for granted.

18 June 2008 (Voice Of America)

A group of American tourists just wrapped up a two-week trip to Iraqi Kurdistan. Local tourism officials say they are the first American tour group, and only the second tour group ever, to travel through northern Iraq's Kurdish region. Suzanne Presto joined the tourists in the region's capital, Erbil, on the last evening of the trip and has this report.

Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan are not the first places that comes to mind as vacation destinations.

Although much of Iraq is mired in war and violence, the largely autonomous Kurdish region in the north has enjoyed relative safety and prosperity. In 1991, allied forces that battled Iraq when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait instituted a safety zone in the north, providing some security for the Kurds, who were brutally oppressed by Saddam.

But the US State Department, as well as other nations' foreign ministries, still advise citizens to avoid travelling to the region.

So US-resident Marge Busch's friends were surprised when she told them that she and her husband Len were headed to Iraqi Kurdistan on vacation.

"Everyone of them - 'Oh, why would you go there?" said Marge Busch.

The Buschs and 17 other well-travelled Americans became the first US tour group to ever travel through Kurdistan.

Among the trailblazing tourists was retired US Army officer Bill Beauchamp. Two years ago, the 87-year-old published a book on world history that included chapters on Mesopotamia and the Silk Road.

So Beauchamp was thrilled when he learned that a California-based touring company, Distant Horizons, was organising a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan for the first two weeks of June.

"Distant Horizons came out with a little squib in one of their newsletters that they tell what is going to happen in the future," said Bill Beauchamp "and as soon as I got it, I ran to the telephone and called them up and I said 'Give me a seat,' you know?"

Gouhar Shemdin is the advisor of heritage to Kurdistan's tourism minister. She met with the 19 tourists in the regional capital, Erbil, and told them that their visit is a historic event.

"It has been really an honour and a pleasure to have the first touristic group here, who is here not for anything else but tourism," said Gouhar Shemdin. "We have had many, many, many people coming for trade or politics. But you were the first ones, pioneers, and we very much appreciate that and we hope to have many other groups like you here."

A local travel operator says a significantly smaller tour group, comprised of several Brits, toured through Kurdistan last year. But they did not garner the same attention as the large group of mostly retired Americans.

During their two-week adventure, the 19 tourists visited the Citadel, a walled-in city that rises above central Erbil's shops and homes, where people have continuously lived for at least the past six-thousand years. The tour group travelled long stretches by bus through the Kurdish countryside, picnicking in the mountains, exploring caves and listening to lectures about Alexander the Great's historic battles.

Minnesota-resident Busch says she particularly enjoyed visiting a shepherds' encampment.

"They had like 800 sheep and I forget how many people, but we drove into it and they of course welcomed us totally fully," she said. "And they were so friendly. I would not want to live that life, but it was very, very wonderful to see that, you know, that that still goes on in this world."

Beauchamp was excited to visit Amedi, an ancient walled-in city that sits upon a mountain a few hours' drive from Erbil. While Beauchamp says he enjoyed the trip, his time in Amedi did not exactly live up to his expectations.

"Not terrific, but I was interested in this so-called marble gate there," he said. "That was attractive. There was no other trace of the Silk Road."

The sweeping natural landscape of jagged mountains, deep ravines, and rolling hills made an impression on Busch. The woman who says she has travelled most of the globe said she was fascinated by the juxtaposition of old and new in Kurdistan.

"I love seeing everything from the shepherds in the field to the highly developed buildings and things that are going on here," said Busch. "It is such a combination of two worlds."

That said, Kurdistan feels a world away from the violence that flares only 80 kilometres outside Erbil in Mosul, and 300 kilometres away in Baghdad.

Members of this tour group said they felt very safe in Kurdistan - a sentiment that will likely surprise friends back in the United States.

Beauchamp can relate to that. When asked what is the first thing he will tell people when he gets back to Hawaii, he responded.

"I am going to tell them where I was," said Beauchamp. "I did not tell them where I was going because I did not want it to leak back to my wife. I told her I was going to western Turkey."

The California-based company that organised the trip, Distant Horizons, says it is currently planning at least two other trips to Kurdistan.

I made several references over the past week to the Peshmerga; the Kurdish military that helped provide security during our trip to Kurdistan. The competence of this group is one of the reasons that Kurdistan is more secure than the rest of Iraq. The term "Peshmerga" literally means "those who face death," but the implied meaning is "those who are ready to die." This sense of duty runs deep. It grows from a determination to avoid the kind of persecution the Kurds suffered in the past as well as a deep love for their ancestral homeland.

Although the Peshmerga is a modern military force, the traditions upon which it is built are thousands of years old. The first mention of the people of the mountains was made by the ancient Babylonians (circa 650 BC). They labeled them the Qutil, which some scholars believe was derived from the Semetic Akkadim word "qard" or the related Indo-European word "gurd," both of which can mean warrior or hero. In other words, the Kurds have always seen themselves as an ethnic group willing to defend their homes and their land. The Peshmerga see themselves as elite members of a heroic people.

The Peshmerga welcomed U.S. forces and fought side-by-side with them in the effort to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It is estimated that there are between 80,000 and 100,000 active Peshmerga in Kurdistan. As the attached picture of a Peshmerga soldier taken near Dohuk shows, the Peshmerga are a modern and well-equipped fighting force. The Peshmerga also allow women to serve. This tradition began when the Peshmerga were a guerilla force fighting to make the Kurdish area of Iraq a safe haven. Women also fought alongside coalition forces at the beginning of the current conflict. The attached picture shows female Peshmerga celebrating the fall of Kirkuk.

The reason I've written this rather lengthy description of the Peshmerga is that I want to underscore how important security is if an area wants to foster economic development. As my previous posts have pointed out, Kurdistan is booming economically. Kurdistan is stable and safe. As a result, you can see building going on everywhere. A lot of rebuilding was necessary, of course, because Saddam Hussein destroyed a lot of Kurdish infrastructure when his forces were forced to withdraw from the area following Desert Storm. But there is building going on, not just rebuilding. Building takes material and some of that material is coming across the Turkish border. Much of that material, however, is being produced indigenously.

I copied the article below from the Lonely Planet web site.  I’m posting it for those of you who have expressed concern for our safety.  The Peshmerga are the ones who provide security for our Administration/Classroom Building as well as the hotel where we live.

FACT SHEET - TRAVELLING IN THE KURDISTAN REGION IN IRAQ

This advice refers only to the three Governorates under the administration of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Duhok, Erbil and Sulaimani.

THE KURDISTAN REGION IN IRAQ

With a population of nearly 5 million, the three governorates of Duhok, Erbil and Sulaimani cover approximately 80,000 square kilometers, the same area as Switzerland or twice the size of the State of New Jersey. The capital of the Region is Erbil and is often referred to as Hawler. The next largest cities are Sulaimani and Duhok.

Since the establishment of the no-fly zone in 1991, the Kurdistan region has undergone tremendous development. Over 65% of the villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein’s regime have been rebuilt, two new airports have been opened and new highways, schools and hospitals are being constructed.  Many of the Kurdish Diaspora have returned to live in the Region which enjoys a level of peace and prosperity not seen in the rest of Iraq. Among the growing number of visitors are international press and business people who realize the potential of the Kurdistan Region. Foreign visitors are warmly welcomed and the Kurdistan Regional Government is encouraging the participation of foreign investors in the development of the Region.

Kurdistan is progressive, pluralistic and is relatively open; however Middle Eastern etiquettes of business, dress and behavior are still adhered to.

SECURITY IN THE REGION
The security situation in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq is very different from the rest of Iraq. At present, there are fewer than 1,000 US soldiers stationed in Kurdistan and not a single coalition soldier has lost their life in the Region since the start of the conflict. Kurdish Security forces, the Peshmerga, are highly trained and experienced in providing security for official visits.

In order to maintain the level of peace in Kurdistan, there are checkpoints on the borders and city perimeters.  Separate advice must be sought for travel outside of the Kurdistan Region. We also recommend that visitors consult travel advice issued by their country of domicile.

TRAVELLING TO THE KURDISTAN REGION IN IRAQ
With the opening of two new international airports in Erbil and Sulaimani, travelling to the Kurdistan Region in Iraq has never been easier. Most flights operating from Europe and the Middle East fly directly to Kurdistan without going via Baghdad.

The article appeared in the Washington Post/Newsweek.  It describes, better than anything I could have written, why we are in Iraq.  

SULAIMANI, IRAQ – In a compound guarded by gun-swinging, camo-clad Kurdish police, a small group of Iraqi students is trying to recreate the American college experience.

I’m sitting in on classes at the American University of Iraq, which just this academic year opened its doors in a relatively calm corner of southeastern Iraqi Kurdistan, in the city of Sulaimani. For the first wave of undergrads, today is test day. The most advanced group at the university faces its first exam in introductory political science.

I glance at the test.

Question #3: Do you agree or disagree that Iraq in 2003 was a good candidate for successful democratic transition? Why or why not?

You get the sense the stakes here are higher than who makes honor roll.

The university, which students and staff know as AUI-Sulaimani or AUI-S, is the brainchild of Iraq’s deputy prime minister, Barham Salih. Funding flows primarily from the Kurdish regional government. The purpose of the place, the teachers say, isn’t to teach any specific ideology, but to expose Iraqis to Western teachers and a Western classroom environment focused on critical thinking and academic inquiry. The word relativism pops up a lot. Often the teachers pose questions without clear answers.

This differs sharply with the existing academic model in Iraq, which focuses on rote memorization, particularly in English classes. “They only teach you some rules, grammar rules, and you use it in the exam just to pass, not to learn English,” says Bayad Jamal, one of the students taking the political science exam. By contrast, Jamal says, the teachers at AUI-S “make you think.”

The emergence of AUI-S and other like-minded schools in the Middle East presents a compelling policy opportunity the United States has yet to fully seize upon as it works to improve its image in the region. That’s a missed opportunity. A variety of factors, from the comparative weakness of local academic institutions, to a swelling Middle Eastern youth population, to the increasing difficulty of obtaining visas to study in the United States or Europe, make the moment particularly ripe for Washington to embrace pedagogical diplomacy.

A shift toward institutions styled after the U.S. liberal arts model is already afoot across the Middle East. The longtime standard-bearers, the American Universities of Beirut and Cairo, have recently been joined by newer institutions Jordan, Morocco, and two in the United Arab Emirates, in Sharjah and Dubai. A third UAE school is on the way: a joint venture in which New York University will essentially duplicate itself in the Abu Dhabi desert, with Emirates funding. Saudi Arabia recently took on a massive project to build a university fashioned after MIT, a little outside Jeddah. The school’s planners say Saudi religious police will be banned from the premises and that men and women will be permitted to study side by side. (Achieving this apparently required seeking direct funding from the national oil company, Aramco, and convincing King Abdullah himself to overrule the Saudi education ministry.)

The United States should embrace these projects—and, in some instances, help support them financially—not out of charity so much as self-interest. To its credit, Congress apportioned a loan of a little more than $10 million to AUI-S, but it is notoriously hard to convince policymakers to invest more sizeable sums in soft-power initiatives like overseas education. Yet the arguments in favor of such funding are compelling, even in purely economic terms.

A more liberal educational model might not sway hard-line radicals, but it presents a way to connect with the broader Middle Eastern population, many parts of which resent Washington and express mixed feelings about militant Islam. Unlike the radicals, this group holds a stake in their region’s economic future. And whatever else they think about the United States, for the most part they still equate American universities with opportunity.

If, by emulating a liberal arts model, Middle Eastern institutions can produce capable graduates ready for integration into the international workforce, they will help alleviate poverty, isolation, and other factors that lead young people into militancy. This in turn will facilitate increased oil production, particularly in Iraq, and will lower geopolitical risk assessments across the region, lifting a major anchor on Middle Eastern equity markets. The economic benefits of such a blossoming would reach well beyond the region itself, and certainly would be felt in the United States.

The private sector can also capitalize on the popularity of U.S.-styled academic institutions. Energy companies in the United States bemoan a dearth of qualified petrochemical engineers. By recognizing the mutual gains to be had from building academic institutions, particularly in Arabic-speaking countries, they can help solve this problem. One of the primary long-term goals of the Saudi and Iraq universities is to help fill the engineering gap. Saudi Aramco has taken notice. Will Exxon?

Finally, on the most basic level, the presence of western faculty in the Middle East provides an aspect of human interaction that should not be discounted. On my flight out of Sulaimani, I sat next to a British engineering contractor who told me about the “bubble formation” in which he and his security detail drive around Iraq. They never stop for checkpoints, he says, because they don’t know whom to trust. If an Iraqi officer tries to stop the convoy with force, they will open fire and drive straight through. Being hesitant to stop at a strange checkpoint is perfectly understandable. But so, too, is the kind of bitter sentiment that such a “bubble” mentality can spawn.

Education alone can’t pop that bubble; AUI-S is still tiny, and prohibitively expense for most students. Nor will educational diplomacy succeed, period, unless it comes alongside material improvements in infrastructure and security. Yet for all the caveats, it’s still well worth noticing the efforts currently underway in these classrooms in northern Iraq.

Lee Hudson Teslik is assistant editor for CFR.org at the Council on Foreign Relations.