I spent three days in Iraq beginning one day after the
Baghdad
Summit Conference held on the August 28. The Rafidain Center for
Dialogue held from August 29–31 what it named as the Third Forum: Solutions.
اضافة اعلان
The center seems to be endowed with the necessary funds. Its
first open and hot forum was held in 2019 and I had the pleasure of attending
it. The debate is mainly focused on the restoration of Iraq’s entity as a
sovereign, Arab, and Islamic country, and in that order. In 2019, an intense
exchange between the supporters of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units
(PMU) and the chief of Iraq’s armed forces. It led eventually to the
resignation of head of the Iraqi Army.
Both sides claimed a full credit for the victory over Daesh.
The dialogue then was so tough and non-compromising. I am not aware of the
nature of the debate over this point in the Second Forum of 2020, since it was
limited to Iraqi participants due to COVID-19.
In this year’s dialogue, we listened to two prominent
leaders in the PMU. The first was Gen. Faleh Al-Fayyadh who insisted that the
PMU should be an Iraqi version of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Yet, he
remotely acknowledged that it should work in tandem with the official Iraqi
armed forces.
On the other hand, Hadi Al Aameri, the head of the Al-Badr
Forces which were established as a political party opposed to the Baathist
regime in Iraq (1992-2003) was mellower than Fayyadh. He believes that the
popular mobilization units should take orders from the army, but he insisted
that the PMU and army together helped in fighting Daesh.
No matter what is said or claimed, the PMU constitutes a
major impediment to Iraq’s unity and freedom from the direct influence — if not
hegemony — of Iraq’s neighbors, particularly Iran. Regardless of the flag which
the PMU carries, it remains a core Shiite and sectarian. It works diagonally
against the unity, dignity, and freedom of Iraq from foreign intervention.
In the first panel of the forum meetings, I was a discussant
together with representatives from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran. The Iranian
discussant was Kazem Sajjadpour, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and a Harvard
graduate.
The other three discussants emphasized the unity of Iraq and
the need to streamline efforts in order to allow Iraq to reconstruct and meet
its basic challenge of corruption, weak infrastructure, water shortage,
electricity stoppages, poverty, unemployment, disintegration of the
institutional structures, and brain drain.
I focused on the fact that Iraq’s three major partners
should come to an agreement among themselves to stop their proxy wars in the
region.
The Middle East should view itself as made up of four major
components: Arabs, Furs (Persians), Kurds, and Turks. To say that Iraq is made
of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds is a confusing taxonomy. Kurds are either Shiites
or Sunnis.
Any views regarding the future of the region should be based
on the four demographics which HRH Prince Al Hassan and his researchers spent
two years developing. We should stop weaponizing religious ethnicities and
substitute that with the acknowledgment of our comprehensive demographic
components.
I was pleasantly surprised by the response of the audience
to that idea. Turks, Kurds, and Arabs were sold to it. Iraqi Shiites were very
much enthused by it. The Iranians and pro-Iranians attending the conference did
not give me any response. From the looks of it, it is time to test the idea in
an open manner.
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