Browse content similar to Zuhair Al-Naher - UK Spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister's Dawa Party and Christopher Hill - US Ambassador to Iraq, 2009 - 2010. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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documents. You are up`to`date, now it is time | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk, just when you | :00:00. | :00:17. | |
think the instability in the Middle East can't get any worse, it does. | :00:18. | :00:21. | |
The Sunni extremist takeover of much of north and western Iraq threatens | :00:22. | :00:27. | |
to create a zone of chaos and violence that respects no national | :00:28. | :00:32. | |
borders. In Riyadh, Tehran and Washington, key strategic players | :00:33. | :00:36. | |
have a huge stake in what happens next. I am joined by Zuhair | :00:37. | :00:47. | |
al`Naher, a spokesman for the now `` Dawa Party, and Christopher Hill. | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
Can Iraq be brought back from the brink? | :00:52. | :01:19. | |
Zuhair al`Naher in London, and Christopher Hill in Denver, | :01:20. | :01:27. | |
Colorado, welcome to HARDtalk. Zuhair al`Naher, I want to start | :01:28. | :01:30. | |
with you. Would you accept that the very existence of your country as a | :01:31. | :01:36. | |
unitary state is now in great danger? The situation is grave, and | :01:37. | :01:46. | |
this is why Iraq has asked and is asking for everyone to contribute in | :01:47. | :01:57. | |
this difficulty. So, we are requesting regional countries to co` | :01:58. | :02:01. | |
operate, we are requesting the world community to co`operate with Iraq. | :02:02. | :02:07. | |
Iraq has been seized by a terrorist organisation that knows no | :02:08. | :02:12. | |
boundaries. They are battle hardened because of their activities, and the | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
freedom of activity that they have in Syria. There have been supported | :02:18. | :02:25. | |
financially by Gulf states in Syria, and often with the West turning a | :02:26. | :02:35. | |
blind I to this support. There is a problem with the " we" that you | :02:36. | :02:45. | |
refer to. We assume that means the Iraqi government. Christopher Hill, | :02:46. | :02:51. | |
is the problem not that the Iraqi government that is currently | :02:52. | :03:01. | |
constituted has been in entirely discredited? I would agree with what | :03:02. | :03:12. | |
you just said, but PM al`Maliki has lost the support of everyone else in | :03:13. | :03:16. | |
the country. Whether it is his fault or someone else's fault is something | :03:17. | :03:20. | |
one can discuss. Certainly he made some agreements with the Kurdish | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
people back in 2010. He tried to work things out with the Sunnis in | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
2010, and he is broadly perceived as someone who doesn't follow through | :03:31. | :03:33. | |
on his commitments. At this point, as they get ready to form a new | :03:34. | :03:37. | |
government, it is pretty clear that they need to form a new government | :03:38. | :03:40. | |
that someone other than al`Maliki at the helm. I do believe that the main | :03:41. | :03:47. | |
problem in Iraq continues to be that the Sunni community there has never | :03:48. | :03:54. | |
agreed to the idea of living under majority rule, and in the context of | :03:55. | :04:00. | |
Iraq, majority rule means Shia rule. I think it is a tall order right now | :04:01. | :04:05. | |
to try to hold Iraq together, and I think secretary Kerry is doing his | :04:06. | :04:12. | |
best, but this will be a very tough situation. I will get onto John | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
Kerry's role in a moment, but I want to throw it back to you Zuhair | :04:18. | :04:24. | |
Al`Naher, because what Christopher Hill was saying in part is that a PM | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
who cannot command with any credibility his armed forces, indeed | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
the armed forces that he is nominally responsible for runaway at | :04:35. | :04:37. | |
the first sign of a fight, that is the kind of man who, in a crisis | :04:38. | :04:45. | |
like Iraq today, clearly has no legitimacy or mandate as a leader. I | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
would like to go back to the very important point, a point that has a | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
lot of insight, which Ambassador Hill mentioned, which is that | :04:55. | :05:01. | |
al`Maliki has a problem in that he is dealing with partners, | :05:02. | :05:04. | |
particularly the Sunni community, who have never accepted that the | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
Iraqi political map has changed after the changeover of Saddam | :05:11. | :05:15. | |
Hussein. That the majority are Shia, and if you divide power | :05:16. | :05:21. | |
according to the representation of the Iraqi make up, then it means | :05:22. | :05:29. | |
that the shears have the majority. `` the Shia people. That is | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
something that the Sunni community has not yet accepted. Hang on a | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
minute, you represent the Dawa Party, and you very neatly put the | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
blame directly on the Sunni community for what is happening in | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
your country today. Surely much of the blame lies with a PM and his | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
coterie of friends at the top of government, who for years have | :05:50. | :05:55. | |
exercised power in a deeply sectarian way, and that is not my | :05:56. | :06:01. | |
opinion, that is the opinion of the American observers in the State | :06:02. | :06:03. | |
Department who have gone on the record in the recent past as | :06:04. | :06:11. | |
saying, " al`Maliki took apart all the political work that we had done | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
with Sunni communities in the awakening movement. He took it apart | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
brick by brick". The most important thing to say is al`Maliki, as all | :06:22. | :06:29. | |
the Shia parties, do not have a sectarian agenda. Why did he, for | :06:30. | :06:34. | |
example, lock`up, torture, sometimes some merrily execute so many Sunni | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
activists over the last decade? Why did he do that? There is no proof at | :06:41. | :06:51. | |
all, or any charge that he has executed or tortured... You have | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
read the human rights reports. In that between 30000 and 50,000 | :06:57. | :07:00. | |
detainees have been arrested, many of them it seems specifically for | :07:01. | :07:08. | |
their Sunni activities. You know what happened in the protest camp | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
when al`Maliki's forces moved in. You know about the bombardment at | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
Fallujah. Why do you deny this? Iraq as a process of law. When there are | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
antistate activities, people who take up arms, people who try to | :07:24. | :07:33. | |
encourage suicide bombings that killed people everyday, people who | :07:34. | :07:39. | |
encourage armed insurrection, there is a process of law in Iraq. These | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
people are detained. We have lawcourts who try these people in a | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
fair trial. And their punishment is meted out to them. Are you trying to | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
tell me that you believe that the exercise of security power and | :07:57. | :08:03. | |
judicial power in Iraq under Nuri al`Maliki has been ethnically and | :08:04. | :08:11. | |
religiously neutral? We cannot say it is ethnically neutral, there is | :08:12. | :08:17. | |
always based for improvement, but we have a ministry of human rights who | :08:18. | :08:23. | |
keeps a very close eye with foreign observers, with respect to the | :08:24. | :08:29. | |
judicial process, and the process of fairness in Iraq. So, you know, this | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
is an important thing which I need to clarify. A lot of people who do | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
not want the political process to survive or to exist will bring up | :08:40. | :08:47. | |
these charges. Sometimes they are hugely exaggerated. The Sunni | :08:48. | :08:52. | |
minority has been excluded from power, or oppressed. If that is the | :08:53. | :09:00. | |
case, why did the Sunni representatives join the government? | :09:01. | :09:03. | |
Why did they accept to have a head of parliament as a Sony, and a | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
deputy PM as Sunni? You know that many senior politicians have claimed | :09:09. | :09:15. | |
that they have been frozen out of al`Maliki's administration. We see a | :09:16. | :09:18. | |
vice president who ended up accused of serious crimes and had to flee to | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
Turkey. There is ample evidence of the sectarian nature of the | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
al`Maliki regime. And I jump in on this? Ambassador Hill, go ahead. | :09:29. | :09:35. | |
What has do that by this into several segments `` one has to | :09:36. | :09:45. | |
divide this into several segments. The Iraqi police have received a lot | :09:46. | :09:48. | |
of training, but they are not to be confused with London police. It is | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
not unheard of that people are mistreated, and this kind of thing. | :09:54. | :09:59. | |
I think that is one issue where you have institutions within the | :10:00. | :10:01. | |
government that are not quite capable of managing things. You also | :10:02. | :10:10. | |
have a lot of serious political misjudgements from Mr al`Maliki, and | :10:11. | :10:14. | |
I think that is the root cause of his demise. When he formed his | :10:15. | :10:20. | |
government in December 2010, he named eight Sunnis to government. | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
These were serious ministerial positions. With respect to the | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
Interior Ministry, and with respect to the defence ministry, he said, we | :10:30. | :10:34. | |
will come up with names later, but in the meantime he said he would run | :10:35. | :10:41. | |
them himself. Unfortunately that was four years ago, and here still | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
trying to run the defence the interior ministries, and frankly he | :10:46. | :10:50. | |
ran into the ground. Secondly, he had fights with a couple of the | :10:51. | :10:58. | |
Sunni leaders. The man who was the vice president, and also the Deputy | :10:59. | :11:07. | |
PM and minister of finance, and al`Maliki, frankly, whatever he | :11:08. | :11:10. | |
thought he had on them, it made no sense to go after them in the | :11:11. | :11:15. | |
growing sectarian mood of the country. After all, it was a time | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
when ISIS was already trying to move in to Anbar province. It was a | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
political time when he should have been doing all he could to reach out | :11:25. | :11:29. | |
to the Sunnis, and maybe not pressing his agenda on people like | :11:30. | :11:37. | |
the Deputy PM. Frankly, we have a PM who is a politician I think gets | :11:38. | :11:44. | |
very low grades. If you are going to run Iraq you had better be a better | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
politician. I appreciate that point. I want to push you, when you talk | :11:51. | :11:53. | |
about the mistakes made by al`Maliki, on the mistakes arguably | :11:54. | :11:56. | |
made in Washington by the US as well. An interesting piece of work | :11:57. | :12:01. | |
by Dexter Phil Kearns, a journalist who wrote a long piece in the New | :12:02. | :12:07. | |
Yorker looking back. He said a few months before the 2010 elections, | :12:08. | :12:10. | |
let's remind ourselves, you are in charge of the US embassy in Baghdad, | :12:11. | :12:16. | |
he said American diplomats in Iraq sent a rare dissenting cable to | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
Washington complaining that the US, with its combination of support and | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
indifference, was actually encouraging al`Maliki's | :12:26. | :12:28. | |
authoritarian tendencies. Is that true? First of all, I read his | :12:29. | :12:34. | |
article, and I can say categorically that there was no such telegram sent | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
from my embassy. I understand there was no such telegram sent from the | :12:41. | :12:46. | |
embassy of my successor. That little factoid I'm not sure is true. If | :12:47. | :12:50. | |
there wasn't such a message, maybe there should have been, and | :12:51. | :12:56. | |
Washington should have heeded it. Maybe you should have realised how | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
dangerous al`Maliki was going to be. There were a lot of concerns about | :13:01. | :13:03. | |
al`Maliki during my time, but the problem is, you can't beat someone | :13:04. | :13:08. | |
with no one. The problem is, the Shia did not come up with another | :13:09. | :13:11. | |
name that could really challenge al`Maliki. The problem was, the Iraq | :13:12. | :13:21. | |
national party, under a group of Sunni leaders, plus a person at the | :13:22. | :13:29. | |
top, a secular Shia, they came out ahead in the first round of | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
elections. They got 91 seats and al`Maliki got 89. You need 163 to | :13:36. | :13:42. | |
get a majority in Parliament. So al`Maliki went to work, and this is | :13:43. | :13:45. | |
a very hard`working, stubborn, difficult guy, he went to work, and | :13:46. | :13:51. | |
the Iraq national party people went to the Western press. So, al`Maliki | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
eventually prevailed, he made promises to the Kurdish people, he | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
reached out and picked off some of the Sunni cheeks, and he worked | :14:03. | :14:11. | |
quite well at that time. This is not 1950, this is 2010, and we were | :14:12. | :14:18. | |
supposed to stave some kind of coup d'etat, or push the front`running | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
candidate from replacing himself for a second term. The idea that we were | :14:24. | :14:27. | |
supposed to install someone else is really a reflection from people who | :14:28. | :14:33. | |
don't understand what American diplomats can and can't do. | :14:34. | :14:41. | |
We have to consider the here and now. The Sunni population of Iraq | :14:42. | :14:49. | |
will not accept Nouri al`Maliki as a man of reconciliation and the Kurds | :14:50. | :14:55. | |
have also had enough of him. The Shia majority seem to want him out | :14:56. | :14:59. | |
as well. If he is not the guy to form the new Iraqi government, who | :15:00. | :15:08. | |
is? Prime Minister al`Maliki has achieved, in recent elections, the | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
highest personal vote... We have already established that. He came | :15:14. | :15:18. | |
out with the best election results of any particular politician that | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
you, at the beginning of this programme, said that a vast amount | :15:24. | :15:26. | |
of your country is in the hands of terrorists and you admitted that it | :15:27. | :15:32. | |
is in an existential crisis and this is his legacy. Iraq needs a new | :15:33. | :15:39. | |
leader. There is a process that is going on in Iraq after the elections | :15:40. | :15:43. | |
and after the verification of the results. What will happen now is | :15:44. | :15:47. | |
that Parliament will convene on the 1st of July and the parliamentarians | :15:48. | :15:55. | |
and political blocs who have been newly elected, the largest block | :15:56. | :16:05. | |
which is the Shia bloc, will then be given the responsibility of forming | :16:06. | :16:10. | |
a government. That includes the largest block within that which is | :16:11. | :16:17. | |
the coalition of Prime Minister al`Maliki. I cannot predict what | :16:18. | :16:23. | |
will happen. Is your party ready to put forward a different name? | :16:24. | :16:29. | |
Clearly coming the next leader will be Shia. You have said that 60% of | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
the population is Shia and you are the majority but a new name, is your | :16:35. | :16:41. | |
party prepared to say to Nouri al`Maliki that it is time for | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
someone else to try to heal the wounds of the country? Thus far no | :16:46. | :16:51. | |
new name has been put forward, however, we do not know what will | :16:52. | :16:55. | |
happen in the meetings and it is quite a complicated set of | :16:56. | :17:02. | |
meetings. It is about electing a new government. The fear is that it | :17:03. | :17:06. | |
could take months of horse trading before we get there and you may not | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
moms even the situation on the ground. I want to get back to you, | :17:12. | :17:16. | |
Christopher Hill, are you concerned about the questions coming out of | :17:17. | :17:19. | |
the mouths of President Obama and John Kerry right now Pies they say | :17:20. | :17:23. | |
that there will be no decisions taken on Syria as far as military | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
interventions go until Iraq has a new inclusive government and then | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
John Kerry has gone to Baghdad and said that they will offer assistance | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
to ensure that there is an effective response to the challenge of ISIS. | :17:39. | :17:43. | |
What exactly is the United States up to right now? What the Obama | :17:44. | :17:48. | |
administration is doing is spreading a difficult needle. `` threading. | :17:49. | :17:56. | |
The American people do not want to see us militarily involved, even | :17:57. | :18:00. | |
sending 300 advisors was difficult for some people to swallow. On the | :18:01. | :18:06. | |
one hand, I don't think the president wants to be militarily | :18:07. | :18:09. | |
involved and on the other, he understands that he has to do | :18:10. | :18:14. | |
something. He also understands that this is not purely a military | :18:15. | :18:17. | |
problem but that it involves politics as well which is why he | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
sent the Secretary of State. I think John Kerry is trying to say to these | :18:24. | :18:27. | |
Sunni community, and I think that is one of the most difficult | :18:28. | :18:30. | |
conversations, to say that if there is a new Prime Minister who is a | :18:31. | :18:36. | |
Shia but is not named Nouri al`Maliki, will you support him? And | :18:37. | :18:41. | |
that has been the crux of the matter since the get`go. They have trouble | :18:42. | :18:48. | |
with the idea that Iraq should be the only Arab country in the Middle | :18:49. | :18:53. | |
East to have a Shia led ever meant and that is the crux of the | :18:54. | :18:59. | |
problems. To some extent, these Sunni community has been reluctant | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
to deal with ISIS the cause, frankly, they are intimidated by | :19:04. | :19:07. | |
them but they also understands that there is no way they can support a | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
government under Nouri al`Maliki and still have any credibility with the | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
Sunni faction. If the politics lineup and give the Sunni people can | :19:19. | :19:22. | |
understands that a Shia led government that reaches out to Sunni | :19:23. | :19:26. | |
people is a better outcome than getting their heads chopped off by | :19:27. | :19:33. | |
ISIS, and maybe this has a chance and the US would be prepared to do a | :19:34. | :19:37. | |
little more militarily. We don't have much time and they want to get | :19:38. | :19:42. | |
to the wider regional implications of everything that has happened. One | :19:43. | :19:51. | |
of them is the role of Iran. You could argue that given the total | :19:52. | :19:55. | |
failure of the Iraqi armed forces, the most significant player is the | :19:56. | :20:02. | |
general of the Iranian Revolutionary guards who seems to be behind so | :20:03. | :20:10. | |
much of the militia. Is the United States prepared to accept this role | :20:11. | :20:16. | |
for Iran in shaping the future of Iraq? I think this is a really | :20:17. | :20:21. | |
difficult one for the United States. After all, the Shia militia | :20:22. | :20:29. | |
who were funded and said to live by the Iranians are responsible for the | :20:30. | :20:32. | |
deaths of many Americans and I think the US would have difficulty doing | :20:33. | :20:38. | |
any kind of military co`ordination with someone like the head of their | :20:39. | :20:47. | |
force. It is a tough one. On the other hand, I think there needs to | :20:48. | :20:49. | |
be some kind of political dialogue with the Iranians and I think it is | :20:50. | :20:56. | |
a political mistake meant to say that Nouri al`Maliki is doing their | :20:57. | :21:00. | |
bidding for them. I can testify to this from back in 2010, he was the | :21:01. | :21:05. | |
fourth choice for the Iranians, they were never big fans of his. No one | :21:06. | :21:12. | |
is. They came around to him because there was no one else. We do need to | :21:13. | :21:17. | |
have political discussions with the Iranians but we are not prepared to | :21:18. | :21:21. | |
work with the militarily. Let's talk about the Kurds as well because the | :21:22. | :21:27. | |
jigsaw is so complex. We have the president of their regions saying | :21:28. | :21:29. | |
that Iraq is falling apart and the time is here for the people of | :21:30. | :21:37. | |
Kurdistan to determine their own future and this is the harbinger of | :21:38. | :21:41. | |
the breakup of your country, is it not? The Kurds have always had | :21:42. | :21:51. | |
aspirations. They have a federal government. Is your party prepared | :21:52. | :22:00. | |
to offer almost complete autonomy to the Kurds to keep them in some kind | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
of unitary state? I don't think they want complete autonomy. Iraq can | :22:06. | :22:13. | |
exist as a unit and a country with the Kurds as part of it. With them | :22:14. | :22:21. | |
controlling oil resources? There is a constitutional provision for that. | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
I think you have got two except that the Constitution does not apply | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
right now and the realistic question is whether you will let them | :22:31. | :22:35. | |
continue to control it? I don't think the Iraqi people are willing | :22:36. | :22:44. | |
to forfeit it. Could I jump in on this? I want to end on a big thought | :22:45. | :22:53. | |
from you. A recent UN human rights Council said that because of what is | :22:54. | :23:01. | |
happening in Iraq and Syria, this chaotic region of the Middle East, I | :23:02. | :23:06. | |
have said that the region is drawing very close to an all`out regional | :23:07. | :23:11. | |
war. Do you believe that? I do believe that and I believe that the | :23:12. | :23:15. | |
real problem is Syria and the complete lack of a political | :23:16. | :23:23. | |
process. Even if basher al`Assad `` by Schar all Asad was hit by a bus, | :23:24. | :23:32. | |
they will still need some kind of system and no one has even begun | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
that discussion. It is a marked contrast to Bosnia which used to be | :23:38. | :23:40. | |
held up as the poster child of the worst response to a crisis from the | :23:41. | :23:46. | |
West. Here we do not even have a contact plan or a contact group. | :23:47. | :23:50. | |
Maybe the Obama administration does not have any sort of strategic | :23:51. | :24:00. | |
vision? I will leave that to the BBC to say. I would rather you say it | :24:01. | :24:03. | |
because he works closely with him as an advisor. I think there needs to | :24:04. | :24:08. | |
be a much more comprehensive look at this. One of the concerns we all | :24:09. | :24:14. | |
have about the Obama administration is that there doesn't seem to be a | :24:15. | :24:18. | |
good team there. There doesn't seem to be a team of rivals even, just | :24:19. | :24:24. | |
many people with different views on the issues and I think he does need | :24:25. | :24:30. | |
to pull it together and look at it from a broader context as your | :24:31. | :24:34. | |
question implies. Christopher Hill and Zuhair Al`Naher, I thank you | :24:35. | :24:38. | |
very much for the `` being with me. After the warm summer sunshine that | :24:39. | :25:07. | |
we had in the first part of the week, things will turn a bit cooler | :25:08. | :25:12. | |
over the next few days. It is cooler today but there will still be some | :25:13. | :25:16. | |
hazy sunshine around. For much of Wednesday, England, Wales and the | :25:17. | :25:22. | |
east of Scotland will stay fine and dry with the western half of | :25:23. | :25:26. | |
Scotland and Northern Ireland cloudier without breaks of | :25:27. | :25:27. |