Former Iraq U.N. Ambassador Feisal Istrabadi

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Feisal Istrabadi

Ambassador Feisal Istrabadi resigned last August from his post as Iraq’s Deputy Ambassador at the United Nations. Prior to his diplomatic appointment in September 2003 he was appointed legal advisor to the Iraqi Minister for Foreign Affairs and lead the negotiations that resulted in the June 2004 U.N. Security Council resolution recognizing the reassertion of Iraqi sovereignty. Ambassador Istrabadi was the principal legal drafter of Iraq’s interim constitution, as well as of the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period and the associated Bill of Fundamental Rights

Ambassador Istrabadi was born in Virginia just before his family moved back to Baghdad. In 1970 he and his family moved permanently to the United States. He attended Indiana University receiving a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and then Indiana University School of Law receiving a J.D. law degree. In 2002, Ambassador Istrabadi joined the State Department’s Future of Iraq Project that focused on post-war planning for Iraq.

The Istrabadi family has been living in Iraq for almost 700 years. His grandfather, Hajj Mahmoud Al-Istrabadi, was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1923 that drafted the Permanent Constitution of Iraq in 1925.

Ambassador Istrabadi was interviewed by GfA in March 2008.

QUOTES from Ambassador Istrabadi

“I may have said in frustration in October that this government must go. But the fact is it isn’t going to go… That being the case we need to allow the Iraqi political class to make its own judgement as to what is politically feasible and what is politically desireable to do at this time.”

“This is a failure of the American political class. I think what you need is some straight talk with the people of the United States. I think the American public is open to that, but it has to occur. I think that those who have a view of the American public as incapable of carrying on a reasoned conversation about a vital national security issue, I think they are wrong.

“The obvious solution…is diplomacy; direct talks between the U.S. and Iran and the U.S. and Syria on substantive matters.”

“The State of Iraq at this moment in its history, and I think for a good long time, has to operate on a very different basis that it has over the prior 35 years. We have to be in a period of introspection and rebuilding our own country which requires that we be on good terms with all of our neighbors. We have real issues with all of our neighbors that we are going to have to resolve amicably.”

“We cannot afford to be caught up in one or another of even our closest friends fights with any of our neighbors. We have six neighbors. We have to have good relations with each of them and all of them…keeping in mind that I’m a firm believer in the Ameican saying that strong fences make good neighbors.”

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