The Iraq Expert | Amatzia Baram | Talks at Google

Hi, good afternoon, everybody. I'm Eric Stein on the local markets team over in Oso. I have the distinct pleasure of introducing Professor Amatya Bahram today. Many of you may know some of his bio. I can give you some of it. He's held a. Oh, you know what else I wanted to do was. Maybe start with a clip. Did anybody see no End in Sight? The movie about our endeavor in Iraq? These are some three clips shown together with no volume.

There were people who were kicked out of their jobs even though they were just professionals, engineers, directors. Democracy cannot provide for the Iraqi people. People will say, to help this democracy, we need a strong man. And I can see the strong man already in the office. There were people who were kicked out of their jobs even though they just professionals, engineers, directors. Democracy cannot provide for the Iraqi people. People will say, to help this democracy, we need a strong man. And I can see the strong man already in the offing. His name is Muqtad Al Sadr. And I would say this is not a good choice for the future leader of Iraq. If Iraq disintegrates and becomes an arena of civil war, much of it will become like little Afghanistan. It's where terrorists all over the world will find refuge.

Amitabh has been studying Iraq since 1978, when he started his PhD work at the university at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He told me that he started this work because in 1978, in spite of the fact that the Ba'ath Party had been in power for 10 years in Iraq, there were only two people studying it at that time. And he thought he could make a difference in the study of Iraq, a difference he surely has made. His list of fellowships is long, from the Brookings Institution to Georgetown University, Rockefeller Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Institute at Oxford and the United States Institute of Peace and in dc. He has certainly made a difference in our understanding of Iraq and the United States, having consulted with every administration since the Reagan administration and testified in front of the House Committee on Government Reform as well. And so, without any further ado, let me introduce Amatya Bram.

This is rather complicated. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Eric. It's great to be here. Well, you all hear, see and feel Google, but to actually be in Google, it's like being in the pupil of the eye of modern technology, which is really wonderful. I wonder what it takes to be a Google type. But I'll do another study about it one day. What I would like to try and do, with your permission, is, and tell me if that's okay by you, do you think you can survive about 40 minutes of a frontal presentation? You think you'll survive it? If anybody falls asleep, not to worry, I won't wake you up. No, I will. As soon as my students in my university are falling asleep, I am cracking a joke and they wake up immediately. Keeps them 10 minutes awake. Let me start with giving you very, very skeletal statistics about the changes in Iraq during the last few months. And they're basically positive ones. Then I will discuss with you very briefly again the limitations of these statistics, which looks very, very glowing, very optimistic. But of course there are limitations, and still the statistics is not bad. Then I'll try to explain how we reach that stage in which there is an improvement. Then I will discuss briefly how this improvement on security, and I emphasize security, is influencing the political arena in Iraq, what is happening in Baghdad, what is happening elsewhere on the purely political level. And finally, I'll try to delineate to you the dangers. And the situation in Iraq is still absolutely fraught with dangers. Now, I have two specialties within the whole realm of Iraqi history. The last 200 years, basically, of Iraqi history. My main focus is on the BAS regime and on the post BAS era, which is 2003, all the way to today, of course. And within that, my main emphasis is on tribes in Iraq. Tribal units, tribal group groupings, tribal sheikhs or chiefs, Sunni and shi, but mostly Sunni. I'm now working with the Shia as well. And on Shia political leadership in Iraq today, mostly the more radical ones. I spent 1978 to 2003. You are good mathematicians. You calculated how many years that is, many years on Saddam Hussein, studying him because he was the regime. It's like Louis Quatorze, Les Tasz Moi. And really, since he became number two in Iraq, he was a strong man even before he became president in 1979. But he was a very un. I almost say he is, because I still find it difficult to accept. Actually, he's dead. I studied him for so many years. So for him to be dead for me is, oh, what do I do now? Okay. Anyway. But my wife, I have a very nice wife. She was born and bred in San Diego, which I believe seems to be a part of California, which seems to be a part of America. And she always told me, amadsia, why do you have to study such a nasty guy? Well, he was a nasty guy. There's no question about it. Why do you have to study such a nasty guy? He's horrible. He's killing people. He's burning them. It's terrible. Why don't you go and study a nice Jewish rabbi? And my answer was that Jewish rabbis are lovely people and I'd love to have many of them as friends, but they are boring. While Saddam is such a vicious guy, but he's so interesting and he's so creative. He's fantastic in terms of creativity, also evil creativity. So that's what I did until he was toppled. And in a way I helped topple him. But after that, I said to myself, what have you done? I've killed the goose that lays golden eggs for me because I was the world authority on Saddam Hussein. I suppose I was. And now everybody knows everything and okay, nothing new to say. So anyway, it's an interesting personal aspect of a historian of Iraq that all of a sudden everything changes and you need to start learning about new people, new policies, new political groups and parties. But this is very, very interesting. This is fascinating. I'm learning all the time, as we all do. So I'll try to first tell you where I see the main improvement in terms of simply security. And the improvement is meaningful. I caught some bug on the airplane from Washington D.C. here. So you must excuse me if I cough from time to time. Look, civilian casualties. I would say that based on statistics I'm taking from Dr. Anthony Codesman of the Washington, D.C. based Center for Strategic Studies. And these are good. This is good statistics because he's doing all sorts of median. Median statistics and so on. Eventually. I think this is quite good. In November 2006, around 3,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in one month, which means about 100 a day. In November of 2007, it went down from 3,000 to 700. Now, don't get me wrong, 700 people killed every day in Iraq, every month. I'm sorry, every month in Iraq is still a disaster. But the improvement is obvious. Ethno sectarian clashes In December of 2006, you had about 1100 in the whole month. In November 2007, a year later, more or less from 1100, it went down to 100. So again, don't get me wrong. 100 Sunni, Shia or Kurdish, Turkoman, mainly Sunni Shi clashes every month, three, four, every day. That's a major problem. But if you Compare it to 1100amonth, that makes a difference when it comes to overall weekly attacks throughout Iraq. On the whole, we reached in November 2007 the level of 2005, which you might tell me is no great achievement. But there is a very interesting Iraqi Baathi saying, according to which, when we have two rifle bullets, we Observe them exactly at the same geographical position, exactly the same, say one above the other, whatever. This looks like they're at the same place and they are at the same place for a split second. But what is most important is the direction. And I'll borrow from the bath of Iraq, this I think they borrowed from Vladimirich Lenin as far as I know. But I'll borrow it from them and the direction is quite clear. I can also go into Baghdad. In Baghdad, just in 2007, in May3, the whole month of May, 344 people were killed and 999 people were wounded in clashes, in violent clashes, basically mostly on political background. That was in May and in November. From 344dead we got down to 98dead. And from 999 wounded we got down to 287 wounded. Again. It's city of Baghdad. It's a central city, it's an important city. And if people are dying in one month, almost 100 people are dying, it's a major problem. But if you compare it to a few months earlier, it's about one third of what you had a few months before, which means we do see an important change for the better. I won't go too much into the limitations of these statistics. I'll just say that this statistic doesn't include at all, not before, not after Sunni, Sunni clashes which you have in Iraq, Shi. Shi clashes which you have in Iraq, and hardly touch upon Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen violence in Kirkuk, which is a mixed area. Kirkuk. Oh, that's my God. Can I have your rock for. For a second? Thank you. Well, this area called Tamim is really Kirkuk. This is the city of Kikuk. Saddam changed the name for Tamim, which is nationalization of oil, but in 1972, but it doesn't really matter. So in this area you have a mixed population of Shia, Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Kurds mostly are Sunni, but the main definition is people define language. The Kurdish language is essentially not like Arab and not like Hebrew. It's a non Semitic language. It's actually Aryan, Indo, European, very close to Farsi and Farsi is very close to German and French. So this is a mixed area. And there is a battle who is going to have Kirkuku. This area is very rich in oil. Since the 1920s, have been digging for oil. And of course there is a clash of ethno, sectarian clash and very little information about that. But okay, maybe no big changes there. But also the reason why so little information is that the clashes there are far, far less problematic, less violent than they are in Baghdad. One more issue which you have to bear in mind about Iraq today. Even though there is this marked improvement in security you have in Iraq. Does anybody here know roughly, very roughly, how many people live in Iraq today? How many Iraqis are there today? Yes, more. More. You had 50 million in 1979. Today you have about 27, maybe even 28 million. Okay, out of. Let's say 28 million. 4 million. 4 million are refugees. Now. There are refugees in various ways. Some of them are domestic refugees. They have been kicked out of their home, say Shia. Kicked out. Kicked out of his home or their home by a Sunni militia or vice versa. And they are going. He's going to an area where he has security, but he doesn't have home and doesn't have a job that is in a Shia control area. Okay, so he's a domestic or an internal refugee. That's about half. And the other half just left for Jordan and Syria. Well, Jordan is here, as you can see. They left their border to Jordan. Jordan received them very well. And Syria actually received them very well too. Sorry. Bashar Al Assad treats them well. He doesn't have the money. The Jordanians don't have the money. So these people are really desolate. But they are alive altogether, 4 million. These 4 million are starting because the purely security situation is on the improvement. They start going back home. But when they go back home, very slowly, only a trickle, but it will become much more. I would say six months from now, you'll have a huge influx of returning refugees, both from Syria and Jordan and from the Shi area back into the Sunni area. I am a Shi whose home originally was in a Sunni area, but I was kicked out because of ethnic cleansing, which is going on even until now. So you'll have a major problem of a different kind. People will go home, but their homes are taken by somebody else from the other faction, from the other denomination. So what do you do? Yes, you might get legal support. Sorry, legal and police support. And they will evict the. How do you call somebody who. Just to the squatters. Yes, and they'll evict the squatters and you'll have your home. That's great. But what will the poor squatters do? They didn't go there because they wanted to. They were kicked out from their home, you see? So they'll go there to their home. But this is a problem which is not yet being treated. So here is another issue. Statistics is good, but it doesn't include that problem. It doesn't deal, almost hardly deals with ordinary crime. And there is a lot of that in Iraq today. This needs a very strong law enforcement system, but it's not yet there. I won't even go into other issues. But you see. So what I'm giving you is only a report about the last six months in Iraq. It's a very positive report. But you have to realize that Iraq still is facing huge problems, really huge. I haven't even touched upon rampant corruption and about, as I said, Sunni, Sunni problem, Shi Xi problem. Didn't even talk about it. About the problems. I say a few words about that later between the central government and the provinces. I also didn't touch with an interesting phenomenon. Look, the main improvement, the main improvement is here in Anbar. This is the largest area. It's of course a Sunni area, as I'm sure most of you know, almost purely Sunni area. And in Baghdad, of course, it's a very small area, but in this area you have about five and a half million people living much more than here. Here you have about 1.5 million, and here you have five and a half million. But there is a major improvement in Baghdad. But in Baghdad as a whole, there are parts of Baghdad, if I have time, I'll go back to it. Parts of Baghdad where in fact, violence is almost as before, only a very slight decline. Other parts, the decline is huge, almost to zero, of violence and murder and mayhem and so on. So, okay, Baghdad itself is not made of the same skin, so to say. Then I didn't tell you, but I'm telling you now, that in this area, in this area which is called. No, sorry, my mistake, my mistake, my mistake. Nineveh. I'm sorry, sorry, I'm confusing you. This area, Nineveh, Nineveh, with the major city of Mosul, which is mostly Sunni, but also very few Shiites and quite a few Kurds. This area now, all the people who are driving, all the terrorists, Al Qaeda and their supporters who were kicked out of Baghdad and Ovenbauer by the people of Anbar themselves, by the way, mostly found refuge in this area in Nineveh, which is really Mosul. And you have a lot of violence, not more than before, but the same as before in Nineveh, some of them left for Diyala, this area east of Baghdad on the Iranian border. And you have the same amount of violence as you had before. No change. So on the all Iraqi level, there was a major change, but in certain areas, not really, not yet. How did we arrive at this improvement, and let's just say again, this is a major improvement. I would say that you have here a synergy between two components, two developments that happened to occur at the same time parallelically. One was a famous surge. Now I am aware that in America, many, many people objected to the surgeon. They had good reasons why throw good money after bad. I understand it. And that's not money. That's people, your own soldiers, your own sons and daughters, sisters. So okay, I understand it. But if I have to, and I wasn't sure myself what was the surge would do. But to judge by results, the surge did manage to pacify most of Baghdad. Not much else, not much more than that, but most of Baghdad, and remember Baghdad is about 26% or so of the population of Iraq. It's about a quarter of the Iraqi population, more or less. So Maybe up to 6 million, who knows? So what I'm trying to say is that the surge did do some good job in Baghdad and a little bit in other areas. But then you had something else which happened which was no less important, if not even more important, the tribes. If you read my New York Times op ed from October 28, 2003, I suggested because it was, if you remember Already by late 2003, there was insurgency was picking up momentum and you were paying with many dead soldiers and a huge expense. And also there was a lot already the beginning of a lot of civilian price in Iraq. Many civilians were dying because Al Qaeda were already there and they used local Sunni tribesmen as allies. And you had the Sunni tribes usually didn't like it, didn't do it, but Al Qaeda did it. And they had a lot of car bombs exploding in downtown Baghdad, especially in Shi areas, and people were dying in droves, civilians. Same happened on very important Shi' I holy days when you had a lot of Shiite people congregating in small areas. And when I saw that, I felt that the tribes, the Iraqi tribes, especially of Anbar, especially of this area, were certainly a large part of the problem, but they should and could be made a large part of the solution. I wrote this article at the time for a variety of reasons. The policy was not adopted. And some reasons are perfectly legitimate, some reasons are different that I don't know. I'm not even sure why yes, why no. But maybe also had it been adopted, fully fledged, its results would not have been as spectacular as they are today because certain things happen between the time I wrote it. It was just an advice for long term policy. And now it started Working. And I doubt it even that those who actually are implementing it today read the article. I suspect they never did. They're busy chasing terrorists and so on. Al Qaeda terrorists. So, okay, the point is this, that something between Al Qaeda, Iraq, aqi, as usually now in America, I think you are, and the tribes went very, very wrong. It didn't seem at the time to be. I saw something, but things went even worse between them and Al Qaeda over time. What happened? By the way, I want to direct you to two things that are going to come out soon. One which came. Sorry, one. Two came out and one is going to come out very soon. One is my own article about who are the insurgents. It came out later. It came out in, I think, April 2005 at the website of the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, dc. It's by bipartisan congressional think tank, Think and Do tank. And that's when I tried to analyze who are the insurgents and why are they revolting against the Americans and against the coalition and against the Iraqi government and against everybody else after that. Another article, very good, was published by a colleague of mine, Michael Eisenstadt from the Washington Institute, who went a little further. And very soon will come an excellent article by another colleague of mine, Professor Ahmed Hashem from the Naval War College, that really sums up the whole picture. Updating, updated to sort of late 2007. Anything a problem? It's okay. So look up Ahmed Hashem's article. It will come out soon. Really an excellent article all the way to late 2007 in that respect. Really, you couldn't find anything better. That's why they joined the revolt or the insurgency. And who are they? Okay, so all these articles are dealing with that. But here is something further which we all touch upon, but a little more. Why did the tribes start to reject Al Qaeda? Remember Al Qaeda, Iraq, Al Qaeda. They had other names as well. Abu Musavazar Qawi, if you remember this very cruel guy who eventually died in an American bomb attack. These guys were Sunni Arabs, very radical Islamists who came to help the Sunni Arabs of Iraq against the coalition forces and against the Iraqi government, which was controlled by the Shia mostly. So at first it was only natural for the tribes to adopt them and to help them and to serve as the ocean within which the revolutionary fish are swimming. Why change? Well, here are a number of interesting reasons. First of all, history, until November 2005, there was no real cooperation between the American forces in Anbar, or in Anbar, as it should be called, really, and the tribes, the Tribes turned to them a few times, Americans said yes, didn't do it properly and the whole thing was sort of not really very effective. But by November 2005, a certain military operation called Steel Curtain, the American forces, the Marines helped a very interesting tribe on the Syrian Iraqi border called Al Bumahal to fight Al Qaeda. And the help was meaningful and effective. And after that another tribe turned for help, another tribe closer to Baghdad, middle way between Baghdad and the Syrian border called Al Bu Nimr. And all of a sudden there is cooperation. And then one after another tribes started joining in. Now until this very day, some tribes are not really working against Al Qaeda. In fact I sort of try to identify who isn't. I would say there is a tribe near the Syrian border called the Karabla and other tribes called the Salmoni near the Syrian bodies border. Then you have, near Baghdad you have a tribe called the Zawbah that only recently started to cooperate and only part of it started to cooperate. Another tribe called Al Buaysa in Ramadi, which is Ramadi here, Al Buisa, part of it doesn't want to collaborate. The sheikh doesn't want and, and in fact I think he's still working with Al Qaeda and other part already joined the tribal coalition against Al Qaeda. And this coalition is called Majalis Asahwa or the Awakening Councils in Arabic sahwa. There are other names like concerned citizens and so on. But what basically we have here is a group of tribes and parts of tribes, sometimes not the whole tribe that decided simply to do everything necessary to drive Al Qaeda out of this huge governorate called Anbar. Because life in proximity to Al Qaeda, in cooperation with Al Qaeda became absolutely impossible. This is not a short term development. Some people say, oh tomorrow they can switch back to Al Qaeda. Yes they might. But things have to change very radically for them to do that. Because the turning to the coalition forces to the Iraqi government is not just a fluke of good chance, it's very serious. Why? Well, number one, Al Qaeda Iraq and the organizations that support them. I won't even go into the whole list of them and they're slightly different from each other and so on. I won't go into it, but I'll just call them Al Qaeda. Okay, aq, whatever. Al Qaeda Iraq and its supporters started taking control of whole tribal areas and the tribal sheikhs didn't like it because they felt that their position was under threat. It's a matter of power politics even before you go to anything else. And there was a lot more. So that's how they started to alienate those tribal sheikhs. And eventually they paid very dearly for it. Second of all, they started demanding of all these tribes, especially those who dealt with, along the border with Syria, all this area here, they started demanding 50% of their revenues. Now, where is the revenue coming, do you think? I'll tell you something. In tribal history in Iraq and also in Kuwait and in Saudi Arabia, smuggling is a way of life. You do this in order to survive. So people smuggle a lot. I had a discussion about that with my colleague Ahmad Hashem from the Naval War College. And I said to him, he studied tribes further north, not in Anbar, but here in the area here in Nineveh, especially near the city of Tal Afar, which is roughly here. Tal Afar is more or less here. And he said, I'm telling them. He said, I'm telling the tribal guys, Shammar and others, you know, guys, you are really smuggling. And they said to me, but Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel, you know, this is no smuggling. This is import export business, you know. And that's how they see it. Now, if you demand of them 50%, they are getting mighty angry because it's dangerous and because it's difficult and they need the money. So all of a sudden, Al Qaeda, instead of helping them, are now squeezing them. But also other things. And I'll say why, which. But that is a problem. In addition to that, they started imposing on the tribes Taliban style Islam. Now, I know you all know about the Taliban, but let's go to the details. The details are quite problematic if you are a traditional Muslim in Western Iraq. First of all, dressing style. A man cannot walk in shorts. A man has to be covered. A woman has to be covered completely. You can't see more than her hand. You can't see her wrist, you can't see her ankles. Now, some women were doing that anyway, but it was a matter of personal choice. Now it's compulsory. And they would punish you if you don't dress properly. A man cannot shave his beard. A man cannot choose a western style, more or less hairdo. Nobody can listen to music. Music is out. You cannot buy, you cannot sell cassettes, video cassettes, audio cassettes, nothing. They close down everything. You cannot drink. I mean, alcoholic drinks. Yeah. People in those areas were not drinking very much anyway. But now absolutely nothing. Yes. If anybody is caught breaking these rules, there was a very severe corporal punishment. Very severe. So people started feeling that they are being absolutely limited in what they do in their lifestyle. Everything changed. And that's coming from foreigners who are not Even Iraqis. Yes, they are Muslim. Yes, they are Arab, most of them Arab. But who are they to force me to change my lifestyle? It aggravated people a great deal. One more thing I'm sure that you all heard about Sufi Islam. Sufi Islam is. It's like the new age, maybe. Yes, it's really mystical. Okay, it's mystical Islam. Now, in classical Islamic tradition from the 12th century, you can be both a Sufi Muslim and an orthodox Muslim. There is no contradiction. You go to the mosque, you pray like everybody else, with our imam, with a sheikh, religious Islamic sheikh, who is leading the prayer. And after that, you in one of the corners of the. Everybody goes home. But those who belong to the circle. Circle of the Sufi order. It's called the circle, are sitting in a circle, indeed. And are doing their thing. It's mystical Islam, perfectly legitimate. But these guys are purists, and they couldn't allow that. And they killed people for that. Or corporal punishment of the worst kind. In public, too. Flogging in public, terrible things. And that aggravated people because it changed. It threatened to change their whole approach to Islam. I myself counted no more than eight different Sufi Islamic orders. Only in Fallujah. Fallujah. Well, it doesn't show it here, but it does. It does. Here's Fallujah. Sorry, wrong direction. Here is Fallujah. Okay, so eight different Sufi orders. And all of them were practicing, and all of them met in the mosque after the prayer and everything. He thought this was perfectly okay. And it was okay in every way except that these guys didn't accept it. So I could go on and on, but basically what you see here is huge difference in everything relating to lifestyle. And they started killing people who do not obey them, including tribal sheikhs. Now, if you try to kill people in tribal society, you immediately provoked blood revenge. That's nothing new to us. And they got into fights. They killed Sometimes, I think 50 or 60 recruits to the police in Ramadi. Showed you who Ramadi was. Yeah, they wanted to join the police, but there was no need to kill them. You could warn them, you could ignore them. No, they killed them. And that, of course, created huge hostility towards them throughout Ramadi, because the kids who were waiting to be recruited to the police were of a number of tribes, not just one. And they murdered a few sheikhs. In other words, you have a problem there. The cooperation with the tribes became very effective, I would say really effective by early 2007. And by late 2007, there were hardly any Al Qaeda people left in Anbar and already in Baghdad. Many of them were kicked out and from other areas, although not from all of the areas. We are talking about only Sunnis here. I'm not going to. We don't have time to deal with the Shia unless you ask a question. I'll try to answer, but basically that's it. The question is, okay, is it good, is it bad? Did it have to happen? Did it not have to happen? Because tribes are not purely perfectly democratic systems, as we all know. The tribal sheikh is like a leader and so on, but. And he's not always very democratic. But let's face it, this is the way the society is organized in that area. And you have to recognize it and accept it. You don't have to make the tribal sheikh stronger than he is. That would be a mistake. But to recognize his authority and to relate to him as a community leader, why not? In fact, you should. So you had no choice. You had to do that. The question is though, are you riding on the back of a tiger? And the answer is yes, you are riding on the back of a tiger. And what are the dangers? Okay, the Sunni tribes haven't yet accepted the Shiite rule in Iraq or the Shia not ruled, but Shia had Germany in Iraq, the Shia are a majority, but they haven't yet accepted it. How do you reconcile that with the need for support for the central government? It's a difficult issue. So your commanders and your diplomats in Iraq are really blade runners. Have you seen that film Blade Runner? It's a wonderful film. They are blade runners. They run on a blade like tightrope, walking between the tribes on the one hand and the government in Baghdad on the other. They owe allegiance to both. They head to tribes financially, militarily and so on, but they also need the government and they support the government. So it's blood but blade running. Another possibility is that a tribe in the Sunni area will ask an American commander to help them against another tribe in the Sunni area. Sunni on Sunni. You have to be very careful about that. You don't want to get into that. Another possibility is that which is happening now, and I don't know if it's bad or good, but it's happening. The tribal people in Anbar, here, tribal sheikhs are already challenging not only the Shia who are hegemonic in Baghdad, but also the Sunni parties that were elected in 2005 in general Democratic elections. They are saying, we didn't go to the elections. We told our people to boycott the elections. Very few, Very, very few. I think 20% went to vote. So Those who were voted in don't represent us. They are just politicians of Islamic parties, Sunni but Islamic party. We are not interested in them and they are corrupt as well. So the question is, what do you about that? Well, we had to find a way of dealing with it. I have some ideas, but I'm not going to do it here. The point is that you are blade running over a number of issues and the central government is afraid of the tribes and the tribes are not trusting the central government. But there are some very good news. I'll put it this way. How did the security improvement change the political atmosphere? We are only beginning to move forward. It's the beginning of the beginning. So, hey, life in Iraq is very difficult and very dangerous. And don't get me wrong, but everything has to be compared to a background to what happened before. I can see a few laws, very important laws. I can go into it, but I don't have time. But if you ask me, I might. A few very important laws already passed not only through the government, which needs a consensus in the government. Government is a mix of all the main communities, but also were approved by Parliament. Very important laws that will be very helpful for Sunni, Shi, rapprochement, reconciliation, call it what you like. Tremendously important. Now, a lot depends on the interpretation of the law. You know, laws can be interpreted in various ways, but basically this is a huge step forward on the whole. I would say some laws have been approved by the government, but not yet by the parliament. Okay. It's always more difficult, but it seems to me that it's already on the way. I'll sum it up by saying that you already achieved something on the security level, which makes it easier for the politicians to reach agreements, to reach more agreements than ever before. It's a very important development. I cannot overestimate the importance of that. We all Iraq watchers, we feel a certain. A certain. How shall I define it? A certain spring of thaw. Now, you know that the spring is not coming with the first. How do you call that bird you have? What? Robin. First robin. Okay, so it's not yet spring, but we feel a certain whiff of thaw, especially between Sunnis and Shis, which is the main fault line right now. Kuds are another issue I won't even put upon it. This is a brief lecture, brief talk. Is this the result of the combined influence of the conflation or of the synergy between the surge and the tribal awakening, so to say, as it's called? Yes, it is. Is it promising? It's Definitely, definitely promising. But you have to nurture it all the time. You have to really be very good at knowing how to nurture it in order to bring some results. So both in the countryside and in the center, things will get better. And one more good thing, small scale, but it's happening even in the countryside. Grassroots level. Grassroots level, not talking about parliamentary confirmed laws and so on. I can see growing cooperation between Shiite tribes and Sunni tribes in touching areas. Because today, as a result of the ethnic cleansing, it's almost. Not quite, but almost Sunni areas and Shi areas. Okay. But you see in the fault lines, you see growing cooperation between tribal sheikhs on both sides. You have it in what is called today the triangle of death, the Yusufiyya area south of Baghdad, where you have Sunni Jis living together and you have cooperation between tribal sheikhs and tribes. So I would say maybe we are into something. It's difficult to say, it's too early, but at least I would say it's not a lost cause. And advice that I could give to anybody who works on it now in Iraq is. And by this I'll end my presentation. Many tribes in Iraq are split, some down the middle, some one third, two thirds between Sunnis and Shia, Sunni and Shia Muslims. Namely, you have a tribe like the tribe of Tamim. Can I have. Eric? The Baghdad. In Baghdad, there is an area where the tribe of Tamim is living apparently together, but there is a transparent border between them because about 2/3 are Sunni, one third are Shi', I, and there is no barrier, but it exists in people's minds. So you have on the eastern side, Sunni, sorry, Shi' I Tamim, and on the western side, Sunni Tamim. Today it's in this area, Abu Ghraib here. This is roughly, by the way, that's the border. The Shia are here, the Sunnis are here. Now, what does it mean? You can try and take advantage of the fact that they both have some tribal affinity common uniting them and try and get them closer to each other. It's very difficult because the sectarian religious difference is today, you know, up front. But I would say this is not a lost cause either to try and work. When you have tribes like that on the tribal basis, that unites them. They are the same family in a way, very extended, of course, and they know it. So there are some problems between those two parts of the same tribe. Yes, some serious problems. But at least this is something you can work on in some other tribes. It's much easier. It's already there. So I would say on the whole, I am not totally unhopeful about the future of Iraq, but it needs some more time. I don't know. I don't want to discuss how many soldiers it's on my field and I'm not going to give you assessments of that unless you force me. But really, that's not my main issue. My main issue is to try and help you understand what's happening in Iraq. We have the beginning of, of a. Thor. Very, very early beginning. Very. Don't go to Iraq, if you ask me. If you don't have to, I don't recommend, you know, stay in Google and have fun. You have free lunch. It's fantastic. It's the only place I know that you have free lunch. So it's, it's wonderful. But, but. So one day you'll be able to go to Iraq. I think five or seven years from now it will be a wonderful thing to go to Iraq as a tourist. Absolutely. Now it's very dangerous, very dangerous. But at the same time, we Compare it to 2005 or 2006, I can see a major improvement and a meaningful, major. I don't know, it's a matter of definition, but a meaningful improvement. And as a result, I would say not a lost cause yet. I don't want to go into slogans like winning in Iraq, losing in Iraq. I'll just say I see improvement and this improvement is worse. Supporting. As long as it makes sense. How long it makes sense? That's a crucial question. But that's up to you. That's up to the American people to decide how long it makes sense for them to try and help reconciliation and stability in Iraq. That's an American issue. But at least I'd say as long as the American people feel that it still makes sense to stay and less forces, less money, less investment, but to stay and nurture these positive developments, I would say you cannot go wrong. Questions? Yes. How much of the violence do you think was caused by ethnic cleansing? And now that ethnic cleansing is largely complete, how much of the reduction in violence do you think is caused by the success of ethnic cleansing? An excellent question. And the answer is if you implied something, you are right. Yes, ethnic cleansing created a lot of friction. But you know that had it not been for the tribal, tribal rejection in Anbar, tribal rejection of Al Qaeda, you would still have here huge ethnic cleansing or not cleansing, ethnic killing. Because if Al Qaeda is still getting a lot of head. Al Qaeda still got a lot of support in Anbar, which is connecting it to Syria, where the foreigners are coming in, they could Prepare for you. 20 is easily 20 car bombs, meaningful car bombs for Baghdad. They could turn Baghdad into a carnage field. And that's what they're trying still to do. They're sending car bombs and suicide bombers into a Shiite marketplace and it explodes and 20 people die and 100 people are getting wounded and perhaps maimed for life. That could go on a huge scale even for another 10 years. So the fact that you have in ANBA this quote unquote awakening a sawa or concerned citizens, this is limiting in itself to a huge extent, inter intersectarian war, hostility, bloodshed. So, yes, of course, now you have a Shi area, a Sunni area. It's easier to guard, easier to prevent violence. But it's an open city. It's an open city. You cannot prevent it 100%. You can't even prevent it 90%. The fact that it was prevented by 70% is mainly due to the change in Anbar, the tribes. Yes.

In the news in the United States, we hear a lot about how the violence has diminished considerably, but that there's not much progress on the political front and noticeably absent from what I heard you talking about. I didn't even hear al Maliki's name coming out of your mouth at all. Do you think that they're relevant or. I mean, you seem very focused on the tribes and the relationships between the sheikhs. And at that level, is the political reconciliation at the central government level not very important, do you feel, or what role do you think that plays?

Very good. Again, look, I'll start with Maliki. Maliki is very important. He's a prime minister. He's not a very strong prime minister. He is the prime minister, though. And his interests represent those of basically the government, his government, those whom he controls. And if you don't find a way of mediating and of making marrying the tribal sheikhs in Anbar and now in Mosul and so on, who are helping the government, helping the government against Al Qaeda and helping the coalition. If you don't find a way to marry them to the central government in Baghdad, you will have failed in all the project that you did so well so far, because you will create two states at war with each other this time. Americans building an Iraqi army in Baghdad, arming it, training it, and building an Iraqi army in Anbar, arming it and trading it and paying salaries. It's a disaster. That's why I'm saying you are still riding on the back of a tiger or you are tightrope walking. And you have to find a way. I can have some practical ideas, but that's not a place to do that. But certainly you can have a way of my wife, okay, who was, by the way, born and bred in San Diego. As I said, she is a matchmaker. She's a matchmaker, and she's a great matchmaker, free of charge. She does it only for satisfaction. And she got about 12 couples married happily. And how did she do it? Well, she knows how to do it. Maybe she can advise the Iraqi government. The idea is you need to get to marry these guys to each other. You need. One of the simple ways is to convince Maliki to finance from the central coffers a local militia. Don't call it militia. Call it, call it, which I think it will be National Guard. National Guard. In America you have National Guard for each state, right? Each state has its own in Iraq. Each province. Each province, like Anbar and so on and so forth, needs its own National Guard. That's the way I look at it. In any case, already they have national police. Take this National Police and National Guard under your wings. Let them join the forces, pay them their salaries, give them their uniform, give them the documents. And today, with the iris and with a fingerprint. You know, when I came to America, I had a problem because my fingerprint doesn't show. So the guy who looked at, he said, matthias, he said, Dr. Baram, are you sure you are not Al Capone? Because there is no nothing here. So I said, you can use my iris. He said, no, no, no, this is high technology anyway, whatever. But in Iraq, you use it already this way. Turn them as a part of your system. And that's, to my mind, the solution, It's a very simple solution. It's not simple to implement, but the principle is very simple and it worked miracles. It worked extremely well in Jordan, where tribal people were recruited to the Jordanian army and did extremely well to guard the monarchy. And in Saudi Arabia and in Oman, in Oman, the Sultanate of Oman, in the court supreme southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, extreme part of the Persian Gulf. So what I'm saying, it can work, it will work if they know how to do it. And the central government has to do it. That's one example. They are reluctant. They are afraid. I understand it. They're afraid the Sunnis will have a coup d'. Etat. Sunnis cannot have a coup d'. Etat. No way. Even if they have their territorial army or their National Guard. So here's just one example. But the central government is Extremely important. You are supporting it. You brought about the first free elections in Iraq ever since. So maybe in 1954 they had free elections too. But that was the first and last time, 54 that they had free elections. And after that, nothing. So now we have a government that was elected that way. True. These guys didn't participate. These tribes didn't participate. They boycott it. Okay, tell them in trouble years you have in two years. Exactly. You have another set of elections, participate, then make your mark. In the meantime, you have to marry them together in a practical way. The first question was about what was it? Do you remember the first question? No, no, that I said. So it's very relevant. Yes, but no, there was another question. Your first question was also a good question. Does anybody remember what it was? Okay, somebody will ask it or not. Yes, please. I don't remember his question. It's a new question. So I was just wondering.

I thought you answered my question.

Well, I was just wondering if you feel that the American government is employing individuals that are culturally aware, like you, before they come up with their strategy. The administration here was not fully aware of the cultural problems. Maybe it's too much to expect. I mean, you cannot imagine, you cannot imagine the gulf between the political culture of the Washington D.C. and unbarred. It's like two different worlds, which is hardly surprising, but still. And for the first years, you really struggled with it. You had serious difficulties as a result of that, if you ask me now, to my mind, yes, now people are really studying it, really learning about it, trying to know more and more before they go to Iraq. I'm talking mostly about officers and some anthropologists and so on, and volunteers, civilians. And I think that today the American armed forces and also the American diplomatic machine are. Yes, today they know more or less what they're doing. They know what they're doing. But life is difficult when you know about a serious problem in America and you understand it extremely well. The distance between understanding it well and solving it is still huge. That's the problem. Now, I think today they understand. Yes, you understand what's going on there. You are focused. What you do is basically correct. I'd say what Petraeus did, joining forces with the tribes against Al Qaeda with was fantastic, was absolutely fantastic. And the results I described only part of the results. But yeah, look, when the western country is conquering an eastern country, the distances in political thinking are so huge, the gaps that you need time to catch up. So I don't want to be too critical of the American administration. Yeah, I Would like it. And I would have preferred that they were already knew better what you know, how to deal with the local cultures and so on. It's an interesting question. What, what will. Okay, what will happen when you forget about conquering countries? I don't think you need to conquer anybody. Okay, but. No, but let's talk about a peace. Peace missions. Peace. Peacekeeping. Peacekeeping missions. Yes. And you will be involved in a lot of those. When you are involved in peacekeeping mission. You need to know also. So I think America, because you are the superpower, the only superpower left so far at least, you should really concentrate much more for peacekeeping operations on this kind of studying local culture, cultures. And one more thing which people are not fully aware on very close coordination as exists today, but not beforehand, between the diplomatic political side and the military. The cooperation today between Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus is exemplary. And not just towards the top, but all the way down. You really have a very nice meshing into each other, as it should be. It was not like that at the beginning. You were not ready for it. America was not ready for such a thing. So even if you had an extensive peace operation, peacekeeping operation, you would still fail at first because you were not ready for it. It's a matter of forget about the past. You have to draw conclusions for the future. And I think this is very important for America. Absolutely. One. So a number of presidential candidates have.

Discussed their plans for troop withdrawal if elected to office. I'm sort of curious what your thoughts on these are. Do you think that it'll undermine Iraqi stability? Do you think that, you know, in a year's time that it starts to make sense to look at troop withdrawal?

I was hopeful that you won't drag me into this American issue. I'm not American and I wish you all the luck in the world. And you have a chance. You have a fighting chance in Iraq for the first time, or not for the first time, but now you really have a fighting chance. Okay, I'll put it this way. In the final analysis. Final analysis, it's up to the American people, and I really mean that because your children and your brothers are dying in Iraq and your tax money is going into Iraq in large quantities. And when the American people feel that whatever happens in Iraq doesn't concern us anymore, we spent enough. Enough is enough, and out we go. I will be the last one to criticize you because I understand what the burden is. The burden is very, very heavy seen from the Iraqi side. Okay. You know, it's very funny when you Ask Iraqis, and that's a number of public opinion polls in Iraq show the same thing exactly. Would you like the Americans to leave Iraq? The answer is almost uniformly yes. Yes. Would you like them to go immediately? A small majority or majority says not immediately, but very soon. But they have been saying that for the last two years. Not immediately, but very soon. They would like you out because they don't like foreigners controlling their lives. And nothing strange about that. You wouldn't like that either. But they realize, many Shias and Sunnis realize, and Kurds realize that if you withdraw from Iraq in one big bang, let's say four months, three months from today, six months from today, like this, regardless of what's happening on the ground, there can be a return to civil war. And the civil war will not just concern the Iraqis, it will concern Saudis, Iranians and Turks. The Turks will watch the Kurds like hawks. And if the Kurds do anything which is absolutely abominable to the mind, to the Turkish mind, the Turks will do something. I don't know what, but they'll do something. The Saudis and the Gulf Arabs cannot allow the Shia to oppress the Sunnah. So they'll have the Sunnis. But the Shia are afraid of the Sunnah, of the Sunnis, afraid because Saddam ruled over Iraq for the last 30 something years and the Shia population suffered here and there, you know, more than here and there. So they are afraid of a resurgent Sunni, whatever. So they'll turn to Iran. They have no choice. They're not very trustful of Iran. Don't get me wrong, Iran is Iran and we are US and we are Iraq. Different. But if you have no other way, you turn to the Iranians if your life depends on it. So I would say that that's the kind of thing that Americans have to think about. You have to reach some reasonable stability between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. And then you can withdraw your forces. And you should withdraw your forces. I'll just say that I don't believe personally that American forces necessarily have to stay in Iraq for a long time. I don't think so. Depending if the Iraqi government, which is democratically elected is asking you to stay a little longer, you stay a little longer, but there is a limit. You can yourself decide when you don't want to stay anymore. The crucial point will be, have we achieved reasonable stability so we can help the various forces and communities in Iraq from the outside? And yes, you can. Either you have. If the Iraqi government asks you to do it, you Have a base or two, base three in the desert somewhere. God, for a second in Iraq, but that most Iraqis won't like. The Iraqis are very, very nationalistic, very proud people. They don't like it, you know, but you can, you, you can have your bases, especially now, maybe 10 years, I'll ask you to come back, but right now, you know, thank you very much. You conquered us, go home. But you can keep forces, rapid deployment and air force and whatever in neighboring countries all around Iraq. And if there is need, the government wants you to you help, or the tribes feel that their lives are in danger and they need something, you can try and help. Though I hope that never will happen. And that, and so my answer to you is within reasonable time, you have to, you'll have to evacuate Iraq. But, and I don't want to say how long, I'll just say reasonable time. But you have to always weigh American cost, cost to America, cost to America of staying and needs in Iraq as perceived by most Iraqis and somehow played very sensitively. I cannot, I don't want to get into this whole debate because it's a, you know, you have elections now and to my mind, the most amazing and exciting elections in American history. But I'm not an historian, my America. So just my feeling about this, you wanted something very small.

It's actually not connected to my first question, but it does tie into what you were just talking about regarding Iran.

Iran.

And you know.

One perception that I've had watching news that Iran is kind of a wild card and could at any time, just by choice, due to their enormous military and intelligence apparatus, be able to destabilize our whole project.

A week or a month. Yes. The Iranian position, the Iranian threat, potential threat, possible threat, no threat. I'll say in a very like, in one sentence, you need to try and talk to the Iranians and find out what really they want. You need to try, try and reach with them an agreement and understanding. And when you agree on or understand something together with them, you need to verify with Iranians it's respect and suspect. Respect and suspect. Verify, verify, verify. If you don't reach any agreement, then I can't take you what to do. But as for the Iranian danger, definitely there is a danger. I definitely see a danger to Iraq, to Iraq's stability and even sovereignty. You can prevent a massive Iranian armored, armored division, multi divisional force invading Iraq. That you can do. That's what you are good at doing. But you cannot prevent de facto Iranian control of most of Iraq if they decide to do that and you never know if they want to do it or not. So first you try to reach with them in agreement, but if you don't, I would say a combination of a dialogue, which to my mind is important, and power and power position. You also have some powers, major powers in the Gulf and they have to understand that you will not allow them to take over Iraq. Now what happens, happens if everything in Iraq falls apart and the Shia government, the Shia controlled government will invite the Iranians to come. I don't know what to say. It's a sovereign government, God forbid, that hopefully will never happen. But I can see now that the Iranians are trying to work with you on something. Maybe you'll be able to work with them. And if it doesn't work, just deterrence, simple deterrence. That's all. That's all I can say. The Iranians didn't invade Iraq even when they could during the 1991 Gulf War. I remind you that because they knew that you would punish them real bad. So they always knew that you can do to them things they don't want you to do to them. So I would say they bear it in mind. Make them make sure that they bear it in mind, you know, but there is no need for anything radical except if they go crazy. But I don't see them go crazy. In fact, recently I see that they are lowering the fire. Maybe it's tactical. Watch them, watch them like hawks and make it clear that you won't allow certain things. But as part of this, also try to talk to them, see if you can reach something and then verify, verify, verify. Like with the Soviets, you reached arms control agreement, you verified and verified and verified and verified and worked very well with them. Maybe it's possible, maybe it's not. I don't know. Thank you.