Former Iraq U.N. Ambassador Feisal Istrabadi

Pages: 1 2

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH IRAQ AMBASSADOR FEISAL ISTRABADI

Mark Bruzonsky (MB) I’m Mark Bruzonsky. I’m in Washington and on the phone is Feisal Istrabadi. I could address him as Ambassador or I could address him as Professor. He’s been the Ambassador for three years, the deputy Ambassador of Iraq at the United Nations, but he resigned last August. He’s now Professor of Law at Indiana University. So Professor/Ambassador Istrabadi, how are you?

Feisal Istrabadi

Feisal Istrabadi (FI) I’m well, thank you. It’s good to be with you.

MB: Good. Thank you. You know, last August when you resigned, some very startling quotes appeared in the press – one quote, you said, “This government has got to go!” And I think you were referring not to the American government but to the Iraqi government. You said, “Iraq is facing chaos and instability.” That you’ve got “patently incompetent men appointed to important positions.” You took a very hard position against the very government that you have been involved with, and you must have had some good reasons for that.

FI: Again, turning the clock back to August, we had had over a year – year and a half of a really cataclysmically deteriorating situation in the country and a seeming inability of the government at the time to get a handle on those events. And so I think that many of us were very concerned that the government simply was unable to get that handle. And I, having walked away from that position, felt that I had the capacity to speak my own mind.

I must say that things have improved in some respects since then. That’s not to say that they are going well, but they are going better than they were in August. And so hopefully, that’s a harbinger of better things to come.

There are still real problems. And particularly, and in particular when I was talking about the competence of some of the people in government…I was particularly referring to what are called Service Ministries like the Ministry of Electricity, the Ministry of Health and so on… that continues to be a problem. It continues to be the case that Baghdad in particular has a real deficit in terms of electrical production capacity – electricity production capacity and delivery capacity, and providing services in its hospitals and schools and so on and that continues to be a concern for many of us.

MB: Well, in October of last year, and again, I’m quoting from a press report, you said, “Fundamentally, the Iraqi State is falling apart…”

FI: Yes….

MB: And that there’s an inability on the part of the political class to put it back together.” Now I understand you say that there have been some improvements since then, but is the quote still accurate? Is that still the…

FI: Well let’s see. Because now we have a real challenge. We have been being told over the past year that the Iraqi army is improving. That it is functioning better as a force – that it is better equipped, better trained than it has been over the last five years. So now is Basra you have this direct challenge to the authority of the Federal government. Is the army in fact, going to be able to respond? Are the political institutions in the country going to be able to respond in a way to promote the cohesion of the country? I think that the jury is still out. I think that we all hope that the answers to those questions are affirmative, but we have to see.

MB: Well in just a few weeks, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are coming back to Washington. They are going to publicly testify in the congress, all eyes and all cameras are going to be focused on them… What is it that you as someone who’s been involved through your whole life in these issues and have quite a rich family history as well, going back to your grandfather being involved in the constitution in 1925 … What is it that you…now that you are free to speak your own mind… would say to the Americans if you had a chance to testify in front of the Congress? What is it that we can actually do…. different than what we are doing?

FI: Well I think that one of the problems with what has happened in Iraq over the last five years…four years…in particular, has been the result of an American political agenda. So that it is not responding to the needs within Iraq but rather really to a political agenda within the United States that has to do with this or that election. Unfortunately in the United States you are never more than two years away from an election.

And so the imperatives that are attended – the political imperatives that are attended to such elections have been reflected in Iraq. So for instance, over the last seven – eight – nine months, we’ve had these benchmarks. Now these benchmarks have nothing to do with the needs of Iraq or of the Iraqi population. They have everything to do with the political realities in Washington and the fact that this year is an election year. So I would, I think urge, a more realistic assessment of the situation in Iraq on the ground rather than in respect to political fortunes of this or that party, or of this or that candidate.

The issues in Iraq are too important to the vital national security interests of the United States for them to be disposed of as simply an adjunct and as a cheap game of “gotcha” in an election campaign.

MB: But, specifically, what changes would you advocate? What is it that you…..

FI: Well I think, for instance this pressing for Governate elections, I think is a mistake. Governate elections at this time are likely to continue to be destabilizing. We know that elections are destabilizing to any nascent democracy. So that elections are not the first step which should occur in a democratic process; they should occur later on when certain institutions have been installed in order to support elections and a wider democratic process. Democracy isn’t just voting.

MB: And your criticism in the past of the 2005 election when saying that it was very premature and shouldn’t have happened..

FI: Yes, and I believe that….

MB: ..and the country ended up very sectarian, divided and the people voted their religion and voted what they were told… The country just wasn’t ready for it and you said that at the time.

FI: That’s right. And again…the reason the January 2005 elections occurred was because the Administration insisted that they occur. Most… I mean the entire Iraqi government, virtually, with two or three exceptions, believed that we needed to delay the elections if for no other reason than to find a way of averting a semi-boycott, which is exactly what occurred. And so these kinds of things…we’re now being told that we have to have an oil revenue sharing law… The fact is that oil revenue sharing is occurring whether we have a law or not. The fact that it is occurring, the fact that there is a modus operandi amongst Iraq’s political class is much more important than whether or not there is a law.

So I think that one of the things I would say is, this is now the political class that we have. I may have said in October in frustration – this government must go - but the fact is that it isn’t going to go, it’s going to be here – at least certainly the prime ministers are likely to stay. That being the case we need to allow the Iraq political class to make its own judgment of what is politically feasible and what is politically desirable to do at this time.

MB: But how do you explain that to the American people who have been prepped with the idea that there are going to be elections, there are going to be benchmarks…there are going to be this and that…? The American people have already been sold that bill of goods so what do we do now?

FI: This is a failure of the American political class. And I think that what you need is some straight talk with the people of the United States and I think that the American public is open to that. But it has to occur. I think those who have of view of the American people as sort of benighted and incapable of taking on a reasoned conversation about a vital national security issue…I think are mistaken.

MB: Well, one of the political candidates calls himself the straight talking guy so it sounds like to me that you’re saying he should get up there and tell it like it is.

FI: Well I have a bone to pick with each of the three candidates but I’d have to say…. I….

MB: Well start with the “Straight Talk” fellow.

FI: Well obviously, when he said that the United States will be in Iraq for 100 years…I mean that’s not tenable. The British were not able to pull that off 80 years ago; Senator McCain is not going to…or would be President McCain is not going to be able to pull that off now. But I do think that he, more than the other candidates understands that there are true vital national security issues that the United States faces in Iraq. He has been outspoken from the beginning that he believed that there was an insufficient force from the beginning…he has said that. He has been a critic of Donald Rumsfeld long before it became fashionable to do that.

So viewed from the perspective of a realistic assessment of Iraq – I think McCain has one. I think what we’re seeing from the Democratic side is “Jingoism.”

MB: Well start with Hillary.

FI: Well, I mean, you have once again, for those of us old enough to remember what would be the first Clinton administration, you have to parse the words very carefully. She’s been very careful to say that she would have a plan on her desk within 60 days for the withdrawal of troops. She has not actually said that she would begin withdrawing troops within 60 days.

The one that has been more candid about that seems to have been Senator Obama. He wants everybody out within a year and a half. That’s not tenable. And his version of all forces being out of Iraq is not all forces coming back to the United States and going home, rather he would put them in a holding pattern somewhere in the Middle East. Where? We don’t know. Why he thinks any country in the Middle East would welcome American troops after they would have turn tail and run from Iraq is beyond me.

But the fact of the matter is, I don’t think that we are getting a conversation…a discussion in this country. I mean we were criticizing the Iraqi political class – let’s talk about the American political class right now. We’re not getting a mature, rational conversation about Iraq from the American political class.

MB: It’s not only about Iraq…

FI: Well that may be, but that’s the issue I follow most closely – the one I feel I can comment on publicly.

MB: Now, then in your view – when it comes to American troops, when it comes to permanent bases…What is your view? What do you think is the responsible thing for us to do?

FI: Any notion that the United States is going to station permanently troops in Iraq was silly from the beginning. As I said before, the British were unable to pull it off after the First World War. The Middle East is not less radical than it was then – it is not more welcoming of this kind of presence now than it was then. Although I might add that there has been the presence, the long term presence of American troops throughout the Gulf – including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab of Emirates. Bahrain, Qatarand other places, but somehow in Iraq it has become a very sensitive issue in the region as well as among Iraqis. I don’t believe that the Iraqis will tolerate another long-term foreign presence on their soil.

But I do think that it is in the vital United States national interest, putting aside the interest of the Iraqis, to at least leave an Iraq that’s stable, that can govern itself, that can stand on its feet, that can rebuild its state institutions which after all were dismantled by the United States in 2003 for absolutely no good reason.

And we’re reaping the whirlwind of those disastrous series of decisions that were made by the defense department, by this administration and made by Ambassador Bremer in Baghdad.

MB: Well certainly the PBS series, the four and a half hour series, that has just played went through the details of what happened month by month, blow by blow, and it wasn’t a pretty picture.

FI: Well it’s remarkable to me, literally on the eve, or within a day or two of when he was leaving Baghdad, something like on the 26th of June and he left on the afternoon of the 28th of June, 2004, Paul Bremer issued a motor vehicle code for Iraq…

MB: On his way out the door.

FI: Yes. Now it’s stunning to me that at a time when the insurgency was really gearing up and getting going … long after it had already… I mean it started in October of 2003 in a serious way - this is June of 2004. The American Civil administrator in Iraq was worrying about how to define the word “automobile” in Iraq.

MB: What was your role at that time?

FI: I was at that time legal advisor to Dr. Adnan Pachechi who was a member of the Presidency of the Iraqi Governing Council.

MB: …and a candidate for the Presidency I believe…

FI: Well he was offered the Presidency of Iraq which he turned down, yes. Yes… Well that was not the Presidency of the Governing Council, he was President of the Governing Council on a rotating basis. He was offered the Presidency of Iraq and he turned it down. That is correct.

MB: Alright. Well that brings us to constitutional issues and structural issues. Here’s something that you’ve also said recently. You said, “…that what’s critical to me – is that of structural defects that have arisen in Iraq in the last two or three years are not being addressed.” What did you mean by “structural defects?” This is obviously something very important for you.

FI: Well principally, the Constitution of 2005 created an unworkably weak central government or Federal government in Baghdad. But that is not Switzerland. And our neighbors are not Austria, Italy and France, and Germany. We are in a very rough and tumble part of the world. We have real problems in keeping our neighbors hands out of the Iraqi pie.

That takes strong government and that takes stronger institutions in Baghdad. I’m not advocating a return to a centralized state. We all accept the principal of at least some Federalism. There’s no question for instance that the Kurds of Iraq are entitled to some type of Federalized arrangement. But that doesn’t necessarily mean by the way that the rest of the country has to be Federal.

It’s entirely possible to have a asymmetric Federation such as other countries around the world have – whether they use or don’t use the terminology “Federalism.” For example Spain is de facto although not de jure, an asymmetrical or asymmetric Federal Union. Although they don’t use the term “Federal.” But some other arrangement could certainly be made in Iraq.

The question of the control over the oil fields has to be clarified in the constitution. A police force has to be recreated – one which does not represent sectarian interests, but rather represents the entire Iraqi state and all of the people of Iraq. Even the Army that is much better, or let’s say much less sectarian than the police force has to be purged of sectarian tendencies and elements and ways found of insuring its loyalty to the state.

You cannot have a situation where the federal armed forces do not have the right to protect all the borders of the country but do not have the right to enter all regions of the country. This is a structural defect which was played out when we saw the Turkish invasion and incursion into Iraq recently. The Kurdistan Regional Government cannot and does not have the resources to raise a sufficient military force to protect its borders. That is to say the borders of Iraq.

Which includes two things:

Insuring that the borders of Iraq are not subject to incursion by foreign powers, and;

That foreigners who may find themselves in Iraq do not launch aggressive acts from Iraqi territory into neighboring states.

Clearly, the Kurdistan regional government is incapable of maintaining this kind of force now or in the long term. And so these are issues that go to the heart of what it is to have a modern, federal, but unified state. And we cannot sweep these issues under the carpet.

MB: Now the 2005 Constitution wrote into it a procedure for amending it. In fact, right away – a constitutional revision committee was set up, wasn’t it?

FI: Yes.

MB: And is that the way you propose these structural defects be dealt with?

FI: Well in part yes, although, I would – recalling the American example that you operated under the articles of Confederation for a time, for some decade or so… It was… I don’t recall how many years it was…

Feisal Istrabadi

That the constitutional convention in Philadelphia was actually charged with the job of reviewing and revising the articles of Confederation, and of course, what it did, rather than reviewing and revising the articles of confederation that it ignored the articles all together and it wrote something else entirely, namely the Constitution of the United States…more or less…with the exception of the amendments as we know it today.

And then maybe…I suppose that’s what I’m calling for… a radical rethinking of the constitutional arrangement that was entered into in 2005. When it must be recalled, the second largest ethno-confessional group in the country, namely Iraq’s Arab Sunnis were not represented in the process and voted virtually unanimously against this constitutional text.

MB: So what you’re basically saying … a constitutional convention… a new one is needed. It can be said that it is going to be amending the current constitution but in reality it’s going to be rewriting it.

FI: That’s what I would advocate. Yes. I think we ought not to say what we’re doing but we ought to do it anyway.

MB: And what time frame are we talking about? But not just for the constitution, back to American forces, American troops, obviously Americans are very much interested in that. What time frame do you see for the Americans forces to be there in the numbers there at the present time?

FI: Well I don’t think we can speak in terms of time frame. I understand that that is something very much in the American psyche now and I think it’s exactly wrong.

Nobody asks…. I mean I’ve studied the history of the period although I’m no expert on it but as an amateur history, I don’t think that anyone ever asked during the Second World War, “How long is it going to take?” People did what they had to do and they made the sacrifices that they had to make and defeated an enemy there.

Now I think, therefore, to talk in terms of timeframe is irrational and illogical. What we have to talk about is Number 1 – stability in Iraq and the capacity of the Iraqi forces and the Iraqi troops to do those things that the American forces are doing now, which means again – you have to have a better equipped, a better trained Iraqi force than you have now.

MB: You have to have a better-equipped and better trained American force too.

FI: That may be…that may be, but nonetheless, this is not 2003 and you don’t get to make the decision of whether or not to go to war again. That decision has already been made.

The United States has real interests. I’m not making some moral case, though I think that there is a moral obligation, but I understand that American policy makers don’t give …two thoughts for moral obligation… I’m talking about National Interests.

MB: Fair enough. But a lot of Americans do care about moral issues. And the refugees for instance – you have an unprecedented refugee problem. It’s bigger than the Palestinian refugee problem – 4 million of your people. What should the United States be doing in regard to the refugees?

FI: Well, in fact the issue there boils down to – what is the United States willing to do? Is the United States willing to admit those refugees into the United States?

MB: I think you know the answer to that question. Only a few hundred have gotten in.

FI: Right. So the answer to that question is no. The second issue is then….okay, what else could you do? You could pay to…these are people that left Iraq and are now living in poverty and squalor… Is the American public willing to underwrite … seeing to it that these individuals get health care and education and other benefits?

MB: If we’re spending 12 billion dollars a month on this war, you’d think a president could say, “we need to spend a reasonable amount of a few hundred million dollars of that each month for the millions of Iraqis that have been so carelessly…

FI: Do you see Congress approving that? I don’t think so.

MB: No I don’t think so either but then again, leadership is, …it would be nice if we had some leadership…

FI: Perhaps so. But that’s not in the cards. Because the response to that will be, “We don’t provide these services to our own here in the United States. Why should we be doing it for somebody else sitting in Damascus or Hamas?”

MB: Well how about the Iraqi government that’s sitting on all of this windfall of oil profit?

FI: Well, in point of fact, this is a part of the problem — that the problems in Iraq are profound. And there may be a supposed windfall of profit, but in fact, the problems in Iraq are even more profound. And it’s going to take hundreds of billions of dollars – far more than the Iraqi government has to address those problems.

MB: And where is that going to come from?

FI: Well, it’s going to come from the Iraqis, but the point is that they are not in a position now to spend money outside of Iraq. It’s difficult enough under these circumstances to spend it inside the country. And again, what you’re doing, is you’re dodging the American obligation.

You told me the American public is open to moral arguments and then you told me – why doesn’t the Iraqi government do it? Let’s talk about apples or oranges. But if we’re talking about…

MB: ..That’s after you rightly told me our congress wasn’t going to approve my suggestion.

FI: So then, either you expect the Iraqi government to continue to fund … which would actually be perverse that the Iraqi government would fund the existence of refugees outside Iraq… or the rational thing to do is for the United States and for the Iraqi government to work together to bring about a state of affairs where the refugees can go back home.

MB: Now that certainly is the rational, reasonable, and moral thing to do except it’s not being done.

FI: Well it may or it may not be and that’s part of what we’re talking about. We’re working on the wrong things. We’re working on an Oil Revenue Sharing Law when there’s oil revenue sharing going on. Rather than working on getting insurgents to put their arms down.

MB: Right. And I think that’s why it’s very important that we talk about these things and put these ideas out there.

FI: I understand and I appreciate the opportunity.

MB: What about Iran? What’s you…

FI: Iran has played a very negative role in Iraq. And of course, it was entirely predictable in the manner in which the administration chose to go to war in Iraq. Which was, before it even reached Baghdad it started threatening Iran before it made a right turn you’ll recall, and Syria before it made a left turn. The foolhardiness of that was amazing to me. Even if the administration intended to take on Iran and Syria, I could never understand why they would telegraph that.

Rather than convincing the Iranians, who after all, had been particularly cooperative with the United States through the downfall of the Taliban…

MB: Definitely a good question.

FI: Why not convince them that this was a one off? So naturally the Iranians responded in kind. Then Bremer saw to it that a number of key Iranian allies were allowed to return to Iraq and occupy key positions in the Iraqi Governing Council and subsequently in the Iraqi government…and that still has me baffled.

MB: And most of the rest of us as well…

FI: So he obviously has been writing one novella after another trying to justify what he did but it’s unjustifiable in fact.

MB: But what now? We’ve got this situation where General Petraeus just the other day was fingering Iran in the news pretty severely. We know what the vice president thinks. We know what Podhoretz and what the neocons think. Aren’t we in danger of a much larger war in the region?

FI: Well, perhaps so. But obviously, that’s not tenable from an American perspective. The obvious solution to this is diplomacy.

MB: i.e…. a Regional Conference that’s for real rather than for show?

FI: …and direct talks between the United States and Iran and the United States and Syria on substantive matters. And the Iraqi government by the way, has been calling for that for years.

MB: And why have the Americans in your view been so reluctant?

FI: Well…. I can think of no rational reason.

MB: (laughing) No rational reason. Well, it might be that the chessboard in the Middle East is very complicated and very full. There is certainly one party that has a lot of influence in Washington and that’s Israel – that has been screaming and hollering about Iran and does not want to see Iran brought into things in a diplomatic and dignified way.

FI: Well again, I mean I can somewhat understand that from an Israeli point of view, but why the United States would not do those things that are in its national interest I don’t know other than for ideological reasons … and the fact of the matter is that the United States has been talking to Iran, just on a low level.

MB: Right. Now your suggestion, and I think that this is really very important, that diplomacy is the way out here… that some way to stabilize the region and to give everybody in the region, including the Iranians and the Turks and the Syrians a stake in a settlement may be very difficult diplomatically, but does seem to be the rational, reasonable thing to do.

FI: Well I think so…it may be too late at this point because I’m not sure what the United States at this point…this should have happened five years ago, six years ago in fact, before the war… What does the United States offer Iran now? I don’t know. But there’s only one way to find out and that is to have direct talks at a sufficient level in which all issues are on the table.

You can’t say that we’re going to sit with Iranians but the only thing we’re going to talk about is the price of tea in China.

MB: Mmm hmm. When you were at the U.N. you must have had contact with all the parties involved.

FI: Sure. We try to maintain, for obvious reasons, good relations with everybody if we can.

MB: And the visit of the Iranian president just a few weeks ago to your country seemed to be quite an extravaganza.

FI: Well, I mean again… we are in a position in 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 than it has done over the prior 35 years. We have to have…we have to be within a period of introspection of rebuilding our own country, which requires that we be on good terms with all our neighbors. We have real issues with all our neighbors that we are going to have to resolve amicably.

With Turkey and Syria, putting all other issues aside we have a question of water rights. There are places in Iraq where you can walk across the Euphrates River and get so little water because of all the dam projects in Syria and in Turkey. And so there are real issues that have to be dealt with and they have to be dealt with bilaterally and in some instances regionally and others in an international fora in other cases. So we cannot afford to be in one or another of even our closest friend’s fights with any of our neighbors. We have six neighbors. We have to have good relationships with all of them.

MB: Well….

FI: Keeping in mind, keeping in mind, that I’m a firm believer in the saying, in the American saying that strong fences make good neighbors.

MB: Yes, we use that slogan ourselves. Well Ambassador Istrabadi, thank you so much for this extremely interesting and illuminating conversation. It’s very much appreciated.