:00:00. > :00:00.documents. You are up`to`date, now it is time
:00:00. > :00:17.for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk, just when you
:00:18. > :00:21.think the instability in the Middle East can't get any worse, it does.
:00:22. > :00:27.The Sunni extremist takeover of much of north and western Iraq threatens
:00:28. > :00:32.to create a zone of chaos and violence that respects no national
:00:33. > :00:36.borders. In Riyadh, Tehran and Washington, key strategic players
:00:37. > :00:47.have a huge stake in what happens next. I am joined by Zuhair
:00:48. > :00:51.al`Naher, a spokesman for the now `` Dawa Party, and Christopher Hill.
:00:52. > :01:19.Can Iraq be brought back from the brink?
:01:20. > :01:27.Zuhair al`Naher in London, and Christopher Hill in Denver,
:01:28. > :01:30.Colorado, welcome to HARDtalk. Zuhair al`Naher, I want to start
:01:31. > :01:36.with you. Would you accept that the very existence of your country as a
:01:37. > :01:46.unitary state is now in great danger? The situation is grave, and
:01:47. > :01:57.this is why Iraq has asked and is asking for everyone to contribute in
:01:58. > :02:01.this difficulty. So, we are requesting regional countries to co`
:02:02. > :02:07.operate, we are requesting the world community to co`operate with Iraq.
:02:08. > :02:12.Iraq has been seized by a terrorist organisation that knows no
:02:13. > :02:17.boundaries. They are battle hardened because of their activities, and the
:02:18. > :02:25.freedom of activity that they have in Syria. There have been supported
:02:26. > :02:35.financially by Gulf states in Syria, and often with the West turning a
:02:36. > :02:45.blind I to this support. There is a problem with the " we" that you
:02:46. > :02:51.refer to. We assume that means the Iraqi government. Christopher Hill,
:02:52. > :03:01.is the problem not that the Iraqi government that is currently
:03:02. > :03:12.constituted has been in entirely discredited? I would agree with what
:03:13. > :03:16.you just said, but PM al`Maliki has lost the support of everyone else in
:03:17. > :03:20.the country. Whether it is his fault or someone else's fault is something
:03:21. > :03:25.one can discuss. Certainly he made some agreements with the Kurdish
:03:26. > :03:30.people back in 2010. He tried to work things out with the Sunnis in
:03:31. > :03:33.2010, and he is broadly perceived as someone who doesn't follow through
:03:34. > :03:37.on his commitments. At this point, as they get ready to form a new
:03:38. > :03:40.government, it is pretty clear that they need to form a new government
:03:41. > :03:47.that someone other than al`Maliki at the helm. I do believe that the main
:03:48. > :03:54.problem in Iraq continues to be that the Sunni community there has never
:03:55. > :04:00.agreed to the idea of living under majority rule, and in the context of
:04:01. > :04:05.Iraq, majority rule means Shia rule. I think it is a tall order right now
:04:06. > :04:12.to try to hold Iraq together, and I think secretary Kerry is doing his
:04:13. > :04:17.best, but this will be a very tough situation. I will get onto John
:04:18. > :04:24.Kerry's role in a moment, but I want to throw it back to you Zuhair
:04:25. > :04:30.Al`Naher, because what Christopher Hill was saying in part is that a PM
:04:31. > :04:34.who cannot command with any credibility his armed forces, indeed
:04:35. > :04:37.the armed forces that he is nominally responsible for runaway at
:04:38. > :04:45.the first sign of a fight, that is the kind of man who, in a crisis
:04:46. > :04:50.like Iraq today, clearly has no legitimacy or mandate as a leader. I
:04:51. > :04:54.would like to go back to the very important point, a point that has a
:04:55. > :05:01.lot of insight, which Ambassador Hill mentioned, which is that
:05:02. > :05:04.al`Maliki has a problem in that he is dealing with partners,
:05:05. > :05:10.particularly the Sunni community, who have never accepted that the
:05:11. > :05:15.Iraqi political map has changed after the changeover of Saddam
:05:16. > :05:21.Hussein. That the majority are Shia, and if you divide power
:05:22. > :05:29.according to the representation of the Iraqi make up, then it means
:05:30. > :05:32.that the shears have the majority. `` the Shia people. That is
:05:33. > :05:37.something that the Sunni community has not yet accepted. Hang on a
:05:38. > :05:41.minute, you represent the Dawa Party, and you very neatly put the
:05:42. > :05:45.blame directly on the Sunni community for what is happening in
:05:46. > :05:49.your country today. Surely much of the blame lies with a PM and his
:05:50. > :05:55.coterie of friends at the top of government, who for years have
:05:56. > :06:01.exercised power in a deeply sectarian way, and that is not my
:06:02. > :06:03.opinion, that is the opinion of the American observers in the State
:06:04. > :06:11.Department who have gone on the record in the recent past as
:06:12. > :06:16.saying, " al`Maliki took apart all the political work that we had done
:06:17. > :06:21.with Sunni communities in the awakening movement. He took it apart
:06:22. > :06:29.brick by brick". The most important thing to say is al`Maliki, as all
:06:30. > :06:34.the Shia parties, do not have a sectarian agenda. Why did he, for
:06:35. > :06:40.example, lock`up, torture, sometimes some merrily execute so many Sunni
:06:41. > :06:51.activists over the last decade? Why did he do that? There is no proof at
:06:52. > :06:56.all, or any charge that he has executed or tortured... You have
:06:57. > :07:00.read the human rights reports. In that between 30000 and 50,000
:07:01. > :07:08.detainees have been arrested, many of them it seems specifically for
:07:09. > :07:13.their Sunni activities. You know what happened in the protest camp
:07:14. > :07:18.when al`Maliki's forces moved in. You know about the bombardment at
:07:19. > :07:23.Fallujah. Why do you deny this? Iraq as a process of law. When there are
:07:24. > :07:33.antistate activities, people who take up arms, people who try to
:07:34. > :07:39.encourage suicide bombings that killed people everyday, people who
:07:40. > :07:44.encourage armed insurrection, there is a process of law in Iraq. These
:07:45. > :07:51.people are detained. We have lawcourts who try these people in a
:07:52. > :07:56.fair trial. And their punishment is meted out to them. Are you trying to
:07:57. > :08:03.tell me that you believe that the exercise of security power and
:08:04. > :08:11.judicial power in Iraq under Nuri al`Maliki has been ethnically and
:08:12. > :08:17.religiously neutral? We cannot say it is ethnically neutral, there is
:08:18. > :08:23.always based for improvement, but we have a ministry of human rights who
:08:24. > :08:29.keeps a very close eye with foreign observers, with respect to the
:08:30. > :08:35.judicial process, and the process of fairness in Iraq. So, you know, this
:08:36. > :08:39.is an important thing which I need to clarify. A lot of people who do
:08:40. > :08:47.not want the political process to survive or to exist will bring up
:08:48. > :08:52.these charges. Sometimes they are hugely exaggerated. The Sunni
:08:53. > :09:00.minority has been excluded from power, or oppressed. If that is the
:09:01. > :09:03.case, why did the Sunni representatives join the government?
:09:04. > :09:08.Why did they accept to have a head of parliament as a Sony, and a
:09:09. > :09:15.deputy PM as Sunni? You know that many senior politicians have claimed
:09:16. > :09:18.that they have been frozen out of al`Maliki's administration. We see a
:09:19. > :09:22.vice president who ended up accused of serious crimes and had to flee to
:09:23. > :09:28.Turkey. There is ample evidence of the sectarian nature of the
:09:29. > :09:35.al`Maliki regime. And I jump in on this? Ambassador Hill, go ahead.
:09:36. > :09:45.What has do that by this into several segments `` one has to
:09:46. > :09:48.divide this into several segments. The Iraqi police have received a lot
:09:49. > :09:53.of training, but they are not to be confused with London police. It is
:09:54. > :09:59.not unheard of that people are mistreated, and this kind of thing.
:10:00. > :10:01.I think that is one issue where you have institutions within the
:10:02. > :10:10.government that are not quite capable of managing things. You also
:10:11. > :10:14.have a lot of serious political misjudgements from Mr al`Maliki, and
:10:15. > :10:20.I think that is the root cause of his demise. When he formed his
:10:21. > :10:24.government in December 2010, he named eight Sunnis to government.
:10:25. > :10:29.These were serious ministerial positions. With respect to the
:10:30. > :10:34.Interior Ministry, and with respect to the defence ministry, he said, we
:10:35. > :10:41.will come up with names later, but in the meantime he said he would run
:10:42. > :10:45.them himself. Unfortunately that was four years ago, and here still
:10:46. > :10:50.trying to run the defence the interior ministries, and frankly he
:10:51. > :10:58.ran into the ground. Secondly, he had fights with a couple of the
:10:59. > :11:07.Sunni leaders. The man who was the vice president, and also the Deputy
:11:08. > :11:10.PM and minister of finance, and al`Maliki, frankly, whatever he
:11:11. > :11:15.thought he had on them, it made no sense to go after them in the
:11:16. > :11:20.growing sectarian mood of the country. After all, it was a time
:11:21. > :11:24.when ISIS was already trying to move in to Anbar province. It was a
:11:25. > :11:29.political time when he should have been doing all he could to reach out
:11:30. > :11:37.to the Sunnis, and maybe not pressing his agenda on people like
:11:38. > :11:44.the Deputy PM. Frankly, we have a PM who is a politician I think gets
:11:45. > :11:50.very low grades. If you are going to run Iraq you had better be a better
:11:51. > :11:53.politician. I appreciate that point. I want to push you, when you talk
:11:54. > :11:56.about the mistakes made by al`Maliki, on the mistakes arguably
:11:57. > :12:01.made in Washington by the US as well. An interesting piece of work
:12:02. > :12:07.by Dexter Phil Kearns, a journalist who wrote a long piece in the New
:12:08. > :12:10.Yorker looking back. He said a few months before the 2010 elections,
:12:11. > :12:16.let's remind ourselves, you are in charge of the US embassy in Baghdad,
:12:17. > :12:20.he said American diplomats in Iraq sent a rare dissenting cable to
:12:21. > :12:25.Washington complaining that the US, with its combination of support and
:12:26. > :12:28.indifference, was actually encouraging al`Maliki's
:12:29. > :12:34.authoritarian tendencies. Is that true? First of all, I read his
:12:35. > :12:40.article, and I can say categorically that there was no such telegram sent
:12:41. > :12:46.from my embassy. I understand there was no such telegram sent from the
:12:47. > :12:50.embassy of my successor. That little factoid I'm not sure is true. If
:12:51. > :12:56.there wasn't such a message, maybe there should have been, and
:12:57. > :13:00.Washington should have heeded it. Maybe you should have realised how
:13:01. > :13:03.dangerous al`Maliki was going to be. There were a lot of concerns about
:13:04. > :13:08.al`Maliki during my time, but the problem is, you can't beat someone
:13:09. > :13:11.with no one. The problem is, the Shia did not come up with another
:13:12. > :13:21.name that could really challenge al`Maliki. The problem was, the Iraq
:13:22. > :13:29.national party, under a group of Sunni leaders, plus a person at the
:13:30. > :13:35.top, a secular Shia, they came out ahead in the first round of
:13:36. > :13:42.elections. They got 91 seats and al`Maliki got 89. You need 163 to
:13:43. > :13:45.get a majority in Parliament. So al`Maliki went to work, and this is
:13:46. > :13:51.a very hard`working, stubborn, difficult guy, he went to work, and
:13:52. > :13:57.the Iraq national party people went to the Western press. So, al`Maliki
:13:58. > :14:02.eventually prevailed, he made promises to the Kurdish people, he
:14:03. > :14:11.reached out and picked off some of the Sunni cheeks, and he worked
:14:12. > :14:18.quite well at that time. This is not 1950, this is 2010, and we were
:14:19. > :14:23.supposed to stave some kind of coup d'etat, or push the front`running
:14:24. > :14:27.candidate from replacing himself for a second term. The idea that we were
:14:28. > :14:33.supposed to install someone else is really a reflection from people who
:14:34. > :14:41.don't understand what American diplomats can and can't do.
:14:42. > :14:49.We have to consider the here and now. The Sunni population of Iraq
:14:50. > :14:55.will not accept Nouri al`Maliki as a man of reconciliation and the Kurds
:14:56. > :14:59.have also had enough of him. The Shia majority seem to want him out
:15:00. > :15:08.as well. If he is not the guy to form the new Iraqi government, who
:15:09. > :15:13.is? Prime Minister al`Maliki has achieved, in recent elections, the
:15:14. > :15:18.highest personal vote... We have already established that. He came
:15:19. > :15:23.out with the best election results of any particular politician that
:15:24. > :15:26.you, at the beginning of this programme, said that a vast amount
:15:27. > :15:32.of your country is in the hands of terrorists and you admitted that it
:15:33. > :15:39.is in an existential crisis and this is his legacy. Iraq needs a new
:15:40. > :15:43.leader. There is a process that is going on in Iraq after the elections
:15:44. > :15:47.and after the verification of the results. What will happen now is
:15:48. > :15:55.that Parliament will convene on the 1st of July and the parliamentarians
:15:56. > :16:05.and political blocs who have been newly elected, the largest block
:16:06. > :16:10.which is the Shia bloc, will then be given the responsibility of forming
:16:11. > :16:17.a government. That includes the largest block within that which is
:16:18. > :16:23.the coalition of Prime Minister al`Maliki. I cannot predict what
:16:24. > :16:29.will happen. Is your party ready to put forward a different name?
:16:30. > :16:34.Clearly coming the next leader will be Shia. You have said that 60% of
:16:35. > :16:41.the population is Shia and you are the majority but a new name, is your
:16:42. > :16:45.party prepared to say to Nouri al`Maliki that it is time for
:16:46. > :16:51.someone else to try to heal the wounds of the country? Thus far no
:16:52. > :16:55.new name has been put forward, however, we do not know what will
:16:56. > :17:02.happen in the meetings and it is quite a complicated set of
:17:03. > :17:06.meetings. It is about electing a new government. The fear is that it
:17:07. > :17:11.could take months of horse trading before we get there and you may not
:17:12. > :17:16.moms even the situation on the ground. I want to get back to you,
:17:17. > :17:19.Christopher Hill, are you concerned about the questions coming out of
:17:20. > :17:23.the mouths of President Obama and John Kerry right now Pies they say
:17:24. > :17:28.that there will be no decisions taken on Syria as far as military
:17:29. > :17:33.interventions go until Iraq has a new inclusive government and then
:17:34. > :17:38.John Kerry has gone to Baghdad and said that they will offer assistance
:17:39. > :17:43.to ensure that there is an effective response to the challenge of ISIS.
:17:44. > :17:48.What exactly is the United States up to right now? What the Obama
:17:49. > :17:56.administration is doing is spreading a difficult needle. `` threading.
:17:57. > :18:00.The American people do not want to see us militarily involved, even
:18:01. > :18:06.sending 300 advisors was difficult for some people to swallow. On the
:18:07. > :18:09.one hand, I don't think the president wants to be militarily
:18:10. > :18:14.involved and on the other, he understands that he has to do
:18:15. > :18:17.something. He also understands that this is not purely a military
:18:18. > :18:23.problem but that it involves politics as well which is why he
:18:24. > :18:27.sent the Secretary of State. I think John Kerry is trying to say to these
:18:28. > :18:30.Sunni community, and I think that is one of the most difficult
:18:31. > :18:36.conversations, to say that if there is a new Prime Minister who is a
:18:37. > :18:41.Shia but is not named Nouri al`Maliki, will you support him? And
:18:42. > :18:48.that has been the crux of the matter since the get`go. They have trouble
:18:49. > :18:53.with the idea that Iraq should be the only Arab country in the Middle
:18:54. > :18:59.East to have a Shia led ever meant and that is the crux of the
:19:00. > :19:03.problems. To some extent, these Sunni community has been reluctant
:19:04. > :19:07.to deal with ISIS the cause, frankly, they are intimidated by
:19:08. > :19:12.them but they also understands that there is no way they can support a
:19:13. > :19:18.government under Nouri al`Maliki and still have any credibility with the
:19:19. > :19:22.Sunni faction. If the politics lineup and give the Sunni people can
:19:23. > :19:26.understands that a Shia led government that reaches out to Sunni
:19:27. > :19:33.people is a better outcome than getting their heads chopped off by
:19:34. > :19:37.ISIS, and maybe this has a chance and the US would be prepared to do a
:19:38. > :19:42.little more militarily. We don't have much time and they want to get
:19:43. > :19:51.to the wider regional implications of everything that has happened. One
:19:52. > :19:55.of them is the role of Iran. You could argue that given the total
:19:56. > :20:02.failure of the Iraqi armed forces, the most significant player is the
:20:03. > :20:10.general of the Iranian Revolutionary guards who seems to be behind so
:20:11. > :20:16.much of the militia. Is the United States prepared to accept this role
:20:17. > :20:21.for Iran in shaping the future of Iraq? I think this is a really
:20:22. > :20:29.difficult one for the United States. After all, the Shia militia
:20:30. > :20:32.who were funded and said to live by the Iranians are responsible for the
:20:33. > :20:38.deaths of many Americans and I think the US would have difficulty doing
:20:39. > :20:47.any kind of military co`ordination with someone like the head of their
:20:48. > :20:49.force. It is a tough one. On the other hand, I think there needs to
:20:50. > :20:56.be some kind of political dialogue with the Iranians and I think it is
:20:57. > :21:00.a political mistake meant to say that Nouri al`Maliki is doing their
:21:01. > :21:05.bidding for them. I can testify to this from back in 2010, he was the
:21:06. > :21:12.fourth choice for the Iranians, they were never big fans of his. No one
:21:13. > :21:17.is. They came around to him because there was no one else. We do need to
:21:18. > :21:21.have political discussions with the Iranians but we are not prepared to
:21:22. > :21:27.work with the militarily. Let's talk about the Kurds as well because the
:21:28. > :21:29.jigsaw is so complex. We have the president of their regions saying
:21:30. > :21:37.that Iraq is falling apart and the time is here for the people of
:21:38. > :21:41.Kurdistan to determine their own future and this is the harbinger of
:21:42. > :21:51.the breakup of your country, is it not? The Kurds have always had
:21:52. > :22:00.aspirations. They have a federal government. Is your party prepared
:22:01. > :22:05.to offer almost complete autonomy to the Kurds to keep them in some kind
:22:06. > :22:13.of unitary state? I don't think they want complete autonomy. Iraq can
:22:14. > :22:21.exist as a unit and a country with the Kurds as part of it. With them
:22:22. > :22:25.controlling oil resources? There is a constitutional provision for that.
:22:26. > :22:30.I think you have got two except that the Constitution does not apply
:22:31. > :22:35.right now and the realistic question is whether you will let them
:22:36. > :22:44.continue to control it? I don't think the Iraqi people are willing
:22:45. > :22:53.to forfeit it. Could I jump in on this? I want to end on a big thought
:22:54. > :23:01.from you. A recent UN human rights Council said that because of what is
:23:02. > :23:06.happening in Iraq and Syria, this chaotic region of the Middle East, I
:23:07. > :23:11.have said that the region is drawing very close to an all`out regional
:23:12. > :23:15.war. Do you believe that? I do believe that and I believe that the
:23:16. > :23:23.real problem is Syria and the complete lack of a political
:23:24. > :23:32.process. Even if basher al`Assad `` by Schar all Asad was hit by a bus,
:23:33. > :23:37.they will still need some kind of system and no one has even begun
:23:38. > :23:40.that discussion. It is a marked contrast to Bosnia which used to be
:23:41. > :23:46.held up as the poster child of the worst response to a crisis from the
:23:47. > :23:50.West. Here we do not even have a contact plan or a contact group.
:23:51. > :24:00.Maybe the Obama administration does not have any sort of strategic
:24:01. > :24:03.vision? I will leave that to the BBC to say. I would rather you say it
:24:04. > :24:08.because he works closely with him as an advisor. I think there needs to
:24:09. > :24:14.be a much more comprehensive look at this. One of the concerns we all
:24:15. > :24:18.have about the Obama administration is that there doesn't seem to be a
:24:19. > :24:24.good team there. There doesn't seem to be a team of rivals even, just
:24:25. > :24:30.many people with different views on the issues and I think he does need
:24:31. > :24:34.to pull it together and look at it from a broader context as your
:24:35. > :24:38.question implies. Christopher Hill and Zuhair Al`Naher, I thank you
:24:39. > :25:07.very much for the `` being with me. After the warm summer sunshine that
:25:08. > :25:12.we had in the first part of the week, things will turn a bit cooler
:25:13. > :25:16.over the next few days. It is cooler today but there will still be some
:25:17. > :25:22.hazy sunshine around. For much of Wednesday, England, Wales and the
:25:23. > :25:26.east of Scotland will stay fine and dry with the western half of
:25:27. > :25:27.Scotland and Northern Ireland cloudier without breaks of