 Welcome to this New America online event Iraq, 20 years after the US invasion, which will be March 19, March 20. We have a distinguished group of panelists to discuss kind of what the legacies and futures of Iraq, and the war. We're going from Baghdad by Simone Fulton who's a word for our to zero she's been based in Baghdad for since 2018. He's also a special correspondent for the PBS news hour there. We're also joined by up. Who is worked for the New York Times in Iraq and is now based in Boston, he works for Physicians for Human Rights. And also by Colonel Joel Rayburn, who is a fellow at New America and also has written two books, one massive 500,000 word book about the Iraq war and the US Army's role in the Iraq war. And also a shorter but very important book called Iraq after America which came out in the shortly after the United States withdrew and made I think a lot of accurate predictions about what that future would look like. He was also the senior director for Iraq on the National Security Council. So we're going to begin with Simone to tell us kind of what's going on on the ground right now. What she sees the future look like. Thank you. Thank you for for having me Peter I'm very grateful to New America for hosting this event, particularly in light of many other news Ukraine the recent earthquakes. It certainly feels like a lot of attention and resources have recently been diverted away from Iraq and having base been based here almost five years. It feels like the international attention is shifting away we're seeing, you know, some news organizations American news organizations either downsizing or closing their bureaus and that's certainly very worrying because Iraq is an important country for the region stability and, of course, the US has an enduring responsibility towards this country for the American public it may feel like the Iraq invasion is a thing of the past but Iraqis they continue to bear the consequences of the invasion until now and every single day and I'll, get into what some of those consequences are but I just wanted to quickly, you know recap how how we got here looking back so when, when the US invaded Iraq 20 years ago, it removes a largely stable and secular although repressive regime that kept a lid on Iranian influence as well as extremist groups like al Qaeda, for example, then the CPA the the coalition provisional authority went on to dismantle Iraq's institutions including the Iraqi army, essentially creating a power backing that was quickly filled by Islamist parties and radical armed groups which began buying for power and you can see that happening until today and I will get back to that later to speak a little bit about what happened in the Greens on last August. What followed of course we know the sectarian wars which ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people and I think what is also important to mention which what still has an influence until today is that when Saddam fell. He was essentially to some extent a bulwark to go to outside influence and since then Iraq has really kind of become a playground for regional and global powers to pursue their own interests. In a way it has become a battleground of sorts where you have, not just the US and Iran but the Gulf, increasingly Turkey, essentially meddling in in Iraq's internal affairs propping up certain politicians over others to pursue their own interests and that has really contributed to an ongoing fragmentation of the country and has really undermined Iraq's sovereignty so. In a way I mean you could say now 20 years on you know Iraq is relatively stable but have Iraq he's really tasted the dividends of democracy and I think a lot of people will say that the answer is no because, fundamentally the system of governance that was put in place by the US, which was intended to create a balance of power between the different ethno sectarian groups. What it ended up doing is that it really installed a system that fueled corruption and what you have today is essentially a hypocrisy where parties, different political parties across the spectrum, including Kurds on this shea. You can see government positions really only as a means to line their pockets and feel their patronage networks. And so this is completely hollowed out the Iraqi state. The bureaucracy that was once functioning is completely paralyzed and unable to deliver the most basic services to the population. And as a result of that, you can really see there is a continuity from, you know, when you know Iraq at its golden days in the 60s and then things kind of began getting worse with the Iran Iraq for then sanctions and this negative trend has continued with education levels plummeting health plummeting gender rights regressing because you have this tribal traditions that got stronger. You have all of these young Iraqis have kind of come of age in the last two decades who don't really know Saddam, but who are yearning for some kind of strong man rule that will reinstate order that will protect Iraq sovereignty and we saw that during the Tishrin protests, right? I would speak to a lot of the protesters in the protest squares and they would demand the return of a presidential system. They would, you know, demand even some military coup. Actually, they were, you know, for example, calling for for Abdul Wahhab Asadi to do a coup to get rid of this entire elite and, you know, install some kind of military rule and that is shocking to hear from, you know, from Iraqis who, of course, you know, to a large extent I think everybody agrees that Saddam was was was good riddance overall, but it just highlights the loss of legitimacy of the current of the current system. And so you could argue that okay let's not be so pessimistic because it's only been 20 years and 20 years is not a long time to really build a democracy so we really need some more time to build institutions to really, you know, report this democratic process and after all we have had five elections that were more or less free and fair we've had, you know, a peaceful transfer of power more or less from one government to the next but we do still have political violence as we saw last year, when you were fighting in the green zone when you essentially had Muktada al-Sadr invading the green zone in what many believed was an attempt to take power by force after he failed to form a government through constitutional means. And then you ended up having fighting between Sadaya Salam and the PMF the popular mobilization forces and that really highlighted the pitfalls of the system where you have where each political actor has an armed wing and that is not something that is really reserved for these Iran aligned actors as we often kind of like to say it's it's something that you see across the spectrum we have the Kurdish parties that have their Peshmerga. You have Muktada al-Sadr, you have Nuri al-Maliki who commands certain parts of the security forces even though they're on government payroll. But it's really the militarization of politics just like corruption is very much the norm. And it's something that happens across the spectrum. So, so those are kind of the new problem the old problems that we're all very familiar with right when we talk about Iraq the problem is that now on top of that you have new problems. And the government has not really been able to even come up with a strategy on how to face them and I will just touch on two of those problems so the first one is the drug trade, and this is a very serious issue that is affecting Iraq and also neighboring countries. This has really become rampant among Iraqi youth. There's a lot of unemployment a lot of disillusionment and people are increasingly seeking escape in cheap crystal meth which is mostly coming in through the border from Iran, also from Afghanistan. But there's also some signs that is there is also production taking place locally and then there is also from the other side, Capcom coming in from from Syria. This is really a huge challenge for for the for the Iraqi for the Iraqi government and I think it is, you know, it is really very difficult to deal with and we have seen that the state is illiquid to deal with there is not enough rehab centers. Drug users are thrown into prison in thousands where they graduate to drug dealers. We have to think of this as not again there is a tendency to kind of look at this as a consequence of Iran's influence in the way some, especially Western analysts and officials think about a drug trade okay this is like the Iranian backed armed groups are using this to finance their operations and again that's a very, I think limited perspective because it ignores that essentially, you know, it has become deeply embedded in the Iraqi state itself you have police who take bribe so that they register smaller quantities of contraband. You have judges taking bribe so that they give lower sentences. It's really something like a government official describe is to me as a as a as a state mafia so to say that is enabling this drug trade. And the worst part is, it has really infected the security forces. You have a lot of drug use within the security forces were supposed to combat it and just as an example one. One office recently told me that they used to have this policy of dismissing any soldier who was using drugs and he told me that he cannot do that anymore because he would lose half of his battalion. So that's just to highlight how how widespread it is. The challenge that Iraq is facing is climate change. Iraq is warming up twice as fast as the global average, and its rivers are slowly but certainly drying up both to do to climate change but also because of the dance that has built further upstream and in Turkey, as well as Iran, and the consequences have already been devastating last summer was really bad for farmers we had a lot of farmers having to abandon their lands and move to urban centers which are already incapable of providing resources for the urban population. And this is something that will continue 18% of Iraqis are employed in the agricultural sector so imagine if that is no longer sustainable you have these waves of displacement, going towards the cities and this is simply a recipe for unrest, intra-communal conflict, and it's a source of future instability. So those are kind of the new challenges that Iraq is facing and I know I painted a really bleak picture now. So I want to maybe end on a positive note that overall there is still, there is still sign of progress I mean you drive through Baghdad today in the evenings and you'll see lots of restaurants open families out and about enjoying their evenings. It's not possible just a few years ago. So, so there is reason, you know for hope that at least the security situation overall is more stable. If you compare Iraq to other countries in the region, relatively like if you look east and west, there is freedom of speech there are relatively free media although they're very politicized, and there are certainly certain issues with that as well but you know again it's relative. Iraq has a very young population, there's tons of potential for growth and investment so I think what the country really needs is a functional government, a government that actually represents the interests of these people and not its elites and that is something that you know we haven't seen until now. So I think, you know, that is really, you know, as I see it like there is, there is still potential for Iraq to succeed but it needs good leadership, and most of all it needs to put an end to corruption which is I think what it really comes down to is if corruption can be curved, then the government will be able to deliver, you know, investments in infrastructure services to its population. And, and you know, it will create a certain foundation to to get onto a positive trajectory again. Thank you Simone for that very succinct if slightly depressing summary, and Abdul Razak. Thank you. Thank you Peter for having me. So let me start sharing one memory. The sound of sirens woke me up after midnight on March 20, 2003. Shortly afterward the telephone run. It was a frame of mind saying congratulations. The United States military was waging a war against Saddam Hussein. My friend is Sunni, and I'm here. The background of his family's bath is opposite to mine. Like most Iraqis, we had intentionally waited for the war that would remove Saddam from power. Mark the end of that era and allow us to begin to plan for the future. In the coming years, my friend house was rated many times by the US soldier. Later he and his family become refugees in Syria, where they still live today. My family had felt better. I think about this story of such faith as we come together today to talk about the legacy of the Iraq war. What we Iraqis hoped for, and what we actually got. On March 19 or 20th in Iraq, 2003 was the end of an era that the start of a new. It was also the latest in a series of destructive events. The Iraq experience about seven revolutions and cool in the last century. The latest one in 2003 changed our love drastically. A few major things went right, but unfortunately more went wrong. We were freed from a vicious dictator. For the first time, we enjoyed many freedoms. Freedom of speech, free and open media, freedom to protest. We had been liberated by the United States military. However, while the end of sedan's regime was the end of one fear. It was the beginning of a new fear. We thought by the end of sedan, the violence and the atrocity would be over. Unfortunately, instead, we saw a different and a new wave of conflict and atrocity, mainly committed by men estate sectors. The invasions empowered the share majority as the primary political leader. For the first time in the history. From 1921, when the modern Iraq state was established and until until the fall of sedan regime Iraq had been politically and socially aligned with the Sunni with the with the Arab Sunni world. The invasion of 2003. In fact, revive the deep divisions between Sunni and share, not just among politicians as before, but it's got deeper among the society. It also revived the share around political and military influence across the Middle East. And reshaping the nature of the conflict in Middle East and the Arab world. And inside Iraq, power sharing among ethnic religious entities, which is articulated by sectarian political quotas and Arabic, we got my house. Have become a recipe for failure. And forced a continue lack of accountability. With the liberation from sedan. We might have gained our freedom. But we lost our national identity. Of course, we have continued to meddle along. Economically, Iraq some major improvement. When section ended, the average of Iraqi income increased dramatically as the oil revenue. One of the CPA major achievement was the reconstitution and launch the Iraqi currency to stabilize Iraqi economy. However, in the intervening year, bad governance. Misuse and corruption has left Iraq economic and fight and financial sector brittle and stable and unsustainable. Since the US changed the ruling system from dictatorship to democracy. Iraq has several free election, which is my consider the base in the region. But is Iraq a democratic state. Democracy is more than holding elections. It must be sustained by building institutions and empowering the rule of law. But we see the main concern of Iraqi political leader are enjoying power and its benefits and compensate themselves for decades of oppression and neglect. There was no vision on how to rebuild the country, or to help society recover, or how to deal with the legacy of atrocity of sedan or learn the basic of good governance. I've been asked many, many, many times this question with Iraq have been better off without the invasion. Hundreds of thousands of live loss and trillion of dollar wasted. Moreover, the invasion pays the way to empower Iran as the main threat in the Middle East, that's according to the US. But before the answer. How about this, how about if Iraqis could have ousted Saddam without foreign help with that have avoided as a bloody civil war. Has it been inevitable. I think Iraq Iraqis should not only blame the US. It is a complicated country. And there is no easy answer. However, I think Iraqis deserve better than Saddam and the poorly planned invasion. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, good day. Listen, I want to start by saying, you know, no one asked Captain Rayburn's opinion on whether the United States should invade Iraq in early 2003 so I don't, I don't accept any ownership of that decision. However, and I will say that if decision makers were confronted with the same problem of 2003 today, but knowing what the intervening 20 years has been like no, no US decision maker in their right mind. I think would rerun the 2003 invasion certainly the way it was run and the aftermath. Having said that, I would never wish Saddam and Uday and could say back on the Iraqis. I think we have to put things in a little bit of perspective, what would the Middle East have been like for the last 20 years with the Saddam regime still in place probably would have been pretty horrific. And remember, Saddam killed more Iraqis in a 60 day period in 1991, then the entirety of Iraqis that were killed the entire number of Iraqis that were killed during the Civil War period of 2003 to 2011. So the Saddam nostalgia is is pretty misguided. Let me rather than touch on the bleak state of affairs in Iraq today, and I agree with Samona and Abdel Rizak on on a lot of those. Let me, let me start first by examining the what the invasion and it's aftermath 20 years on signifies for the US for us decision making. I think it for the US to take proper stock of the Iraq war of the US relationship with Iraq. I think you have to, you have to start by saying that the state of affairs that exists today or existed in 2011 didn't flow uninterruptedly as a consequence of the invasion of 2003. It's there, there's been for 20 years a shortcut of saying well George W Bush caught. Well, you know, the situation in Baghdad is such George W Bush created this by his decision to invade in March, April 2003 etc etc. And that that's a, there were many intervening decision points, both in the US and, and elsewhere including among the Iraqi political class. And if you just gloss over those skip over those sweep them under the rug and there are some political factions that want to sweep them under the rug, then, and leave the leave those decisions and the courses of events that that have been unexamined, then you're really not learning anything I think I think you, you don't then address. You don't address the problems that led to the invasion of 2003 from a US perspective the decisions of 2003 and I've examined this in detail along with my team for years. Those decisions of 2003 and even the decisions of 2003 to 2006 on the US side, those weren't made by stupid people. Those were those decisions were made by highly intelligent highly experienced people, and they were made mostly in, in a sense of consensus that the very wise very experienced very sharp people intelligent people sitting on the table, all agreed on taking what appeared to them at the time to be the best course of action. That was true not just of 2003, but of 2009 to 11 and after the decisions of 2009 to 2011, which resulted in, which culminated in the US withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 look pretty stupid today, just as the decision if you don't if you don't examine the context and so on the decision to invade looks pretty stupid today. And as I say in both cases, those decisions were made by intelligent experienced people who were almost in unanimous consensus about taking that course of action. So the bigger takeaway for me. And so it's insufficient to say well, those decisions were made by dumb people. We're not dumb people. So we're not at risk of making those kinds of dumb decisions. The bigger takeaway what should be more scary is that highly intelligent people made what seemed like the best decisions to them at the time, and almost brought us to the US to strategic defeat on multiple occasions. So I think you have to be humble about assessments, you also have to be there's something, and that's, that's the greater takeaway about the nature of strategic decision making I think has to be taken into account. We also have to be careful in strategic decision making about what we think we know, not just on the question of weapons of mass destruction, which I think has been examined to death, I think over examine Iraq was a black box to the United States in the United States. I remember, I, there was an assumption for example that there were no internal politics in Iraq there were no internal factions in Iraq. There were meaningful, and that, and there was a conflation of the Saddam regime with the Iraqi state. And similarly, the assumptions that underpinned the decisions of 2009 to 2011 were were spectacularly wrong especially in retrospect. So, I think the bigger takeaway is that, you know, why should decision makers have assumed that their courses of action would be easy, or should have minimized underestimated the potential consequences of their courses of action. Now, moving back to 2003, the decision to the decision to do regime change quickly unraveled into state collapse, I think this is, for me, the, the, the strategic consequences of the of the invasion I think that's the biggest one for the period of 2003 to 2008. So much of what the United States and the rest of the coalition members and the Iraqis themselves were dealing with. After 2003, where the consequences and, and really I think predictable consequences of state collapse, as opposed to regime change. So there was, there was not a careful in the execution in other words was regime change was not carefully done and in the consequences were underestimated. The biggest thing and I would, I would, and Simone has made this point already is that institutions matter. So, you have to be careful about conflating regimes with state institutions. And, and I think one thing that Iraq has has has reminded us is, you may hate the state institutions but you'll hate the world without them even more, most likely. The, I think for example, you know, I told Khomeini didn't make that same mistake in the regime change in Iran in 1979. The, the early Islamic Republic, preserved state institutions and then purged them at their leisure afterwards but that that was that was not done in Iraq. Also from the US perspective what began as a 911 driven war. And remember, the rationale for removing Saddam was based on the broader, the broader context of 911, but that 911 driven war quickly became a war against the Iranian regime and its axis of resistance. But the strategic approach in Washington never changed. It remained a 911 and counterterrorism driven war didn't take account of the change in the in the character of the war to one that that was being waged more against the Iranian regime, and the Syrian regime than anybody else. And that brings me to another lesson that throughout from 2003 down to today, there's never been a coherent US strategy to account for the role of or the actions policies that Tehran and the Assad regime were implementing in Iraq. And it never has Washington had a coherent approach to these problems, and it's been left to tactical commanders or, or diplomats to try to work out and mitigate the problems of an Iranian invasion military invasion basically of Iraq and a Syrian regime intervention in Iraq, and the problem has always been beyond the means of tactical commanders and operational diplomats to handle. And the reason that this is the reason that US false policy has failed along these lines is because a military campaign that's detached from a political strategy is useless. I mean that's the message of clouds which I think this mark and so on people and communities and factions and forces fight for political objectives for political reasons. Once you resolve the underlying political conflict, or conflicts that is driving the military conflict and you can never win or resolve the military conflict. And there have only been brief times brief windows in Iraq and elsewhere, where the US military strategy was in alignment with a political strategy. Even there was simply an absence of a political strategy, but there were also times at which the military strategy and the political strategy were explicitly at odds. The US has never ignored nor the rest of the international community has never accounted for what the Iranian regime is trying to accomplish in Iraq and has gone a long way toward accomplishing. He was the one who helped to formulate and implement a strategy to neutralize the Iraqi state and military permanently. This is because the Iranian regime's big lesson concerning Iraq stems from the Iran Iraq war where they take away for them was number one, that the Iraqi military poses an existential threat and probably the greatest existential threat to the Islamic Republic anywhere in the region. And secondly, that the fighting having having sent hundreds of thousands of young Iranians to their deaths was obviously in that war the Iranian regime, Cosmo Soleimani decided to, to have a different way of war, where they would fight through Arab proxies, or Afghan proxies, rather than expend Iranian blood, the United States has never accounted for this. We didn't acknowledge and respond to this strategy from the Iranian regime which is still being implemented. We haven't done that today. Instead, for example, we let the ISIS campaign which was necessary. And we do a misguided assumption that the IRGC and even Bashar al-Assad and Russia could be partners with the US in a counter terrorism campaign, and that's still on some people's minds today. It's, it's absolutely a detachment of military approach from a proper political or geopolitical approach. There are many military lessons for the United States which I won't belabor here, you know having spent half a million words on them. But I would say, but the one that I think applies today that I would highlight, in addition to the strategic ones I've just mentioned, is that a security assistance effort is a political, is a political initiative. As the United States almost never understand that. And we don't account in our security assistant, our massive security assistance efforts, for example, not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan and elsewhere, those are the two biggest. We've never properly account for the political nature of what we're doing in building security institutions. The political pressures that those institutions are going to come under the fact that the security institutions that we're building instantly become a major political prize to be fought over and killed over in these places. So we, we, we tend to, we don't account for that we have we treat it as just a technical level, and it are a technical matter. And if it's not a political matter for us, we can be guaranteed that it'll be a political matter for somebody else, most often our enemies. A few, a few positives. Very quickly, as I said, I wouldn't wish Saddam back on the Iraqis I think they're much better off. I have no doubt he would have killed a lot more Iraqis in the intervening period. I think the, the removal of the Saddam regime did unlock Iraq's massive potential, it's a big country, big growing population, potentially enormous economy, great human capital, a lot of natural resources going for it there's a huge opportunity not yet seized by the kleptocratic political class, which is under the influence of the Iranian regime and has been under the influence Syrian regime etc. Before but I think the younger generation now in Iraq, and remember Iraq is close to having a majority of its population with not just no living memory of Saddam but no living memory of the war that came after Saddam. And that's so they're sort of unburdened they're not weighed down by by that political baggage and social baggage and I think I'm looking how how they behave and the way they're brave enough to go out on the street and the things that they want in life. I actually, I think in the long term, Iraq is going to be great and has and has the potential, especially when they outlive the Iranian regime the coming a regime and, and so on. I think the removal of custom solo money was a big positive for Iraq's future. The Iranian regime can't replicate the kind of influence and destabilizing role that he played in Iraq and and that continued. It's almost like Iranian destabilizing influence now is on a decay, decaying of half lives and, and over time, I think they'll get past the custom solo money role and I will met the al-Mohandis as well. As I mentioned there are many, many military operational and tactical positive lessons I would have to say though that the US military has largely not captured them in doctrine. So I think unfortunately sometime in the future, they'll just have to be dusted off the way that Captain David Petraeus had to dust off the lessons that were drawn from the Vietnam War back in the 1980s and then implement them as a general in the in the Thank you, Colonel Raven. You know, as we're talking here, you know, Thomas Hobbes wrote the viathan in 1651 as the English Civil War was winding down and his message was, you know, there's only one more thing worse than the desperate it's anarchy and in Iraq, you know, you not only lived in Iraq but you also worked in Libya and you know this is a bipartisan tendency in the United States we knocked over Saddam and anarchy kind of followed. And we don't we knocked over Gaddafi and Libya followed. So what do you, as somebody who sort of seen both of those things happen. What's your view, your mute. I think in my opinion what happened it's inevitable. I think for decades of dictatorship, like in Iraq and Libya, or even in Syria, although the Syrian regime is different. Bashar al-Assad is still there. I think the collapse of the regimes with cause huge vacuum Iraq is very complicated country. You know, as I said, it's multi sectarian multi religious multiple and the number of the victims of the of the atrocity are massive. We still don't know exactly how many people were killed and into father in 1991 and the mass graves and the others and also the number of perpetrator it's so high to there's many people who work with the huge amount of apparatus, especially the inner circle, like the special Revolutionary Guard and the Fidein and also the closet baths, and I always think I said, alright, so the US invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam, and they were having a rock, let us say, hypothetically, alright, we blame the US, that's fine. But when I work in Libya, there is no, there is no single foreign boot in Libya soil. He was not invaded by by by any foreign, by any foreign armies, although the NATO help with bombing. So having in Libya, I think now Libya is worse off than Iraq. And maybe it's only we talk about four, four million population. And by the way, they don't have Sunni share maybe the majority are, if it's not all are Sunni. So even there is no sectarian conflicts there. Maybe there's similarity between Iraq and Syria, because it's all, as I say, it's a fake modern state, which is, you know, we have Sunni, you have Shia, you have Arabs, you have Kurds, you have, you have Christians and then the, yeah, and the other. So I think what happened in Syria, what happened in Iraq, and what happened in Libya was, you know, in the top. I think, how about a free the Iraqis. I was to sit down without any help. What's we, what was the outcome. I mean, what are we going to do with the with the world, what are you going to do with the, it's, it's happened in 1991. And so down you, you know, if you sit down you use chemical weapons, or he almost use chemical weapons, but he used some powder in the, in the, in the north, and in the south, and to tell people this is a chemical weapon and everyone fled. And then he used very heavy heavy machine and rockets to crush the, the, the approach. I think in my opinion, without, without the US military in 2003. That's my, there was no force on earth that card go and get rid of sit down and remove from his box. And if that's not happened, we will have sit down dynasty for generations. And that and who said it might have been worse. So this is that I think is an anonymous question but it's also a question that I've been thinking about a lot about recently which is the lack of sort of self reflection in the United States on the that we launched this war in 2003 with basically one ally the British with very, you know, it was not NATO article five or UN sort of sanctioned. And so when it comes to you know it's very difficult for the United States to talk about crimes of aggression as a charge against Putin which is the easiest charge to prove in Ukraine. And the United States itself is sort of obviously a very different kind of war but nonetheless, the commonalities here in Iraq, Simona. Is there any kind of discussion of this issue. You mean the crimes committed by the Americans. Well just the parallel with the Russia invasion. Yeah, the fact that the United States is sort of like done something not dissimilar, which sort of set some of the frame here. Right, I mean so. I think this is, I mean it's a good and important question because I think in general, Iraqis don't see the US as. I would say a force of for good. They see it as a country that is that implements double standards that acts based on its own interests, and the whole rhetoric around human rights and spreading democracy is just a pretext to further And I think, I think that view has been around for a really long time so I think the way, you know, people see what is going on in Ukraine through very for a very different lens because they themselves, you know, have been invaded and and for them it's like well I mean this is the same thing that America did. They did in Iraq in a way and yes, yes it's it's wrong but they. They find it they do find it very strange that America is condemning Russia's invasion and completely ignoring the fact that they did the same thing in the past but I think, I think there is just the general, you know, kind of. How would I say disillusionment with with the US I don't think Iraq is really, some of them still have an expectation like when back when the Tishrin protests were taking place. And of course this was you know very young crowd was, you know, very idealistic to some extent they would call for, you know us intervention to help to get rid of this this ruling elite, but I would say that there was a very very small, you know, subsector of the population and overall there is just a general distrust and people look at the United States as, as, you know, definitely not a reliable partner, not a country that or governments that can be trusted in its and, and yeah I mean I think that's that's perhaps the legacy of the US invasion here that there is just a complete, you know, disillusionment and mistrust. Well, I believe that's a portrait of Florida Johnny behind you. Yeah, who wrote a book called the foreigners gift. Making kind of a counter argument. There's a specific question directed to you, sort of related to that and based on something you said, people may consensus decisions they felt correct. But you also highlighted that Iraq was a black box. Are these smart decisions if they're not really based on good information. Well, I didn't say they were smart decisions. They were they were bad decisions. I can smart people. So, I'm not saying the, I mean, that that that's what's, that's what should be daunting is that smart experience worldly people can make bad decisions. And then have to deal with the, with the consequences. We dig further into that because it seems that, you know, one of the kind of Machiavelli said famously wars beginning when when you will but they don't end when you please and so I think there's American tendency, like we're going to go in it's going to be quick it's decisive and often it is and then there's this. Here we are 20 years later so can you reflect a little bit on that. Well I think, look, the, the, the military operation to destroy Saddam's regime was an astonishing success. What was an astonishing failure was the, the management of the aftermath, and then, and then the decisions that happen almost on autopilot to to then purposely collapse, some of the Iraqi state institutions in the aftermath of the collapse of the regime, the biggest one is, of course the dissolution of the Iraqi army, which, and you know, then we had to reconstitute largely the same army over the next five years. And that's with sort of she about this officers instead of to Crete about this officers in the, at the top of the, of the general staff. So it probably would have been better. Just, I, I'm, I'm confident it would have been better just to keep the Iraqi army intact, and then try to reform it. At a minimum, you would have had what became the cadre of the insurgency Sunday insurgency and the she insurgency at least garrisoned where you could watch them. So, but that wasn't done they were all all these you know hundreds of thousands of armed men were sent out into the cold, not even with pensions. So it was that was a spectacular blunder. And again, it was made by smart experienced people who thought it was the best thing to do at the time, not just for Iraq but for the region. There was the, there was the idea that the Iraqi military institutions were on a leading threat to the rest of the region. Well they certainly were under Saddam's guidance I think but they also, they had an independent national character that was, that was dramatically underestimated. I think something, something Samona said I think the disillusionment that Iraqis feel concerning the United States, I don't think is because of the removable of Saddam. I think it's because, you know, there's all this assumption I used to hear it in in Iraq in Baghdad and elsewhere, you know, you the United States you put a man on the moon but you can't get the electrical grid running. So there were things like that it was more, it wasn't a disillusionment because what we did, it was more disillusionment of what we obviously weren't willing to do. And when, when, when there was an assumption we had the capability of doing certain things. So it was always, you know, the question isn't, why did, why did you guys invade the question was, why aren't you guys doing anything about this can't you see these, can't you see these Iranian people, can't you see this is this problem. Why aren't you doing anything aren't you the United States well to have. Well if you're not going to do anything that the hell with you. Okay, and what's the answer to that job. I think part of it is that there was an over learning of there was, there was Kim, the United States became way too gun shy of acting. As a result of the 2003 war and is because of the, the, the over learning of the idea that George W Bush decided to remove the Saddam regime and then everything exploded like a nuclear explosion across the Middle East. Well, I'm sorry that that's not the proper lesson to learn you still have your national interest. You still have strategic objectives that you have to try to align your, your means with. And that was that wasn't done has been done even to today. So, so I think, for example, we really say looking back on it. The Assad has has wound up killing hundreds of thousands of Syrians. And the reason there wasn't a more robust intervention to stop him from doing that I don't even mean to, I don't even mean to remove him just to stop him from doing that and try to stabilize the situation in Syria was because of deep anxiety that the slightest move in that direction would result in a repeat of the of the consequences of 2003. That's a, that's another reason why we don't, you know, we're now we don't exert our power when when we should these days. I think it's kind of being unlearned if you finally I think, you know, we're getting past that a little bit with Ukraine situation, or a lot with Ukraine situation, but it's, there's been a hell of a lot of mistakes in the intervening years between, you know, the fall of Baghdad and in the shoring up of Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Okay, so your question for both Simona and Rizak which is, you know, one of the big changes post 911 seems to be the spread of sectarianism throughout the region obviously it existed before but it's become much amplified. To what extent, what do you think is the Iraq war, the trigger for that. So, I just want to quickly, before I answer say something about what what Joel mentioned, I mean so first of all the fact that you know that Iraq was a black box for the United States, I think it still is to a large extent I think the United States still does not understand Iraq. And I think this is, this is partly driven just by the nature of their presence here that they are confined to this embassy compound in the green zone. It's partly the physical restriction and it's also an ideological decision to not engage with a significant part of Shia politicians because they're seen as being aligned with Iran and I think that significantly limits the perspective that you can get and it leads to a very distorted view of Iraq that is primarily through an Iran lens everything in Iraq is seen through an Iran lens. And I think it leads to certain fallacies and one of these fallacies is that, for example, it's the, you know, and Joel mentioned in his lines as well that it's a hypocrisy that is under Iranian influence or control and that is simply not true like, you know corruption is the motives of perante for all politicians in Iraq, be it Kurds, be it Sunnis. Some of the most corrupt politicians today in Iraq are Sunni and they're not aligned with Iran. So, you know, it's, it's something that has, you know, led to this distorted understanding of Iraq because everything is seen through Iran's influence and I gave the example of drugs earlier that you know it's generally seen as okay this is a financing mechanism for Iran aligned groups which is also just a very small, small part of the picture. And in a way, you know, the disillusionment of the US is also because some people don't understand, for example, the previous government of Mustafa al-Qadami which a lot of Iraqis see as failures they don't understand why the US supported that government. So it's not just disillusionment with okay, you know, why didn't you, you know, help rebuild the country help, you know, rebuild institutions it's also about political choices that the US continues to make until today, which some Iraqis feel that they just don't understand. Don't understand it. Just to get to get to your, you know, question about sectarianism I mean I would really defer to Abdulazak because this was actually a period where I was not in Iraq. That's, I think he would probably have a much better perspective I mean the only thing that I would say right now is that it has really receded a lot that it's not. You know, it's not the primary, you know, way in which people identify in which we should look at political problems there is. There is a lot of other fault lines that I think are more important than than the sectarian lens. So, while, yes we saw the surge of sectarian identities of a lot a lot of a lot of bloodshed, I think you know that period has largely passed it doesn't mean that it's there. I don't think that it's it's the most kind of important issue today. I think I remember in 2003 when I work for New York Times when interview people in Iraq and when we asked them are you seeing I share they get offended. They said, no, we there's no different I don't want to answer this question I'm a Muslim. And then they said, you are the Western media tried to divide it as forever. So, even they accused me because I work for New York Times in Iraq. Later on, it was a brutal sectarian conflicts under sort of in Iraq, even there was ethnic cleansing so the, the, the, the divisions, as I said before is not among the political parties. The political parties they were Sunni and Shia they were going along, because if you look at them they are Islamic parties for Sunni and Shia and they have the same agenda. I mean, our party and the Muslim Brotherhood are the same. It's just like now is the is the share version of Muslim Brotherhood. So the invasion definitely revived the division of the Moksun and Shia. We have the sectarian for centuries, but not among the society. I know Iraq since 1921 it's ruled by by by the Sunni minorities. But it's in the society. Yeah, it, you know, it was okay. So it was not like as common before. But also the invasion, I think it's reshaped the conflict in the whole Middle East. When I grow up in my generation and the, when I was in the 80s or the 90s, if you ask anyone, what was the major conflict in Middle East. Everyone will say the Arab is the Arab Israeli war. If you ask them after 2003, if I ask everyone, what's the major conflict now in Middle East. So in Iran, it's the, in fact, the Arabs now aligned with the, with, with Israelis, you know, against Iran. So it's a Sunni Shia is the Iran influence among, you know, in Shia countries, and they, you know, that's the access, and the other one is the Arab Sunni access. So yes, the invasion, it's, it's, it's amplified this, yeah, this division. And even, even, even this, even this in the, in the society. I'll give you one example. And the Saddam Trabuna, which is I monitored all the, all these done trial. So when I look at the judges and the prosecutor, they all Shia uncurred, except one prosecutor is Sunni. And guess what. All the defendants are Sunni. So in the society is like, no, it's a Shia prosecute Sunni. Yeah, so that is it. So therefore, so then later on become, you know, popular among, not just among the Iraqi Sunni but also among all the Arabs. Yeah. Joe. Yeah, I don't, I don't agree with Samona. I don't think Iraq is a black box to Americans now. I didn't just parachute into the situation in 2018. I mean, I think, I think here in Washington we have a pretty good understanding of the Shia Islamist parties and the Hashid, for example, we have a long history with those people. So I think we're missing some opportunity to sort of rehabilitate Kaisal Haazali, for example, or Hadi al-Amri. So I think it actually the mistake of the last several years has been to assume that there's some sort of trade space, where they could be weaned off of IRGC influence. And I so look, if Iraq were just a corruption problem. The United States would not have much of a strategic interest in addressing that. It is the influence. It is the fact that the Iranian regime can parasitically suck from the Iraqi economy that they have the level of influence in Iraqi politics that they do that they can divert state resources from, for example, to the tune of $2 billion into the Hashid. Corruption is a spectacular problem. It's the problem that the younger generation of Iraqis is, is contending with as a geopolitical matter. The number one issue in Iraq for the United States is the IRGC could force and its influence and its ability to use Iraqis as proxies in Iraq as a strategic outpost for the IRGC to threaten the rest of the region and US allies and interests in a way that has never been seen before in the modern era, coming, coming out of Iran. So I don't think there's, I don't think that's mistaken. I'm not sure what Joel means by parachuting into Iraq in 2018 I've actually lived in the country for five years, and I speak Arabic so I think I do know what's going on on the ground. But, but no I mean I think there is a tendency to. This is a very simplistic way of looking at these so called Iran aligned actors, I think, looking at them as Iranian proxies denies them their own history, because they rose up. First of all against Saddam, and then against the American invasion and occupation. And yes they were supported and funded by Iran but by calling them Iranian proxies, we deny them their objective to actually resist an occupation and I think that's a very important part of their history that's that tends to be omitted and I think that we can best describe them today and I interact with these actors on a regular basis is that they're at a strategic level their interests are aligned with Iran on a lot of things but not on all things but they very much have their domestic political economic and social interests. And of course it's a very difficult question of how to deal with them. Some people they they say that it requires time and stability to gradually absorb them into the political process that this is the only way forward because they are here to stay. They are not leaving. And we have seen some of that transition take place. And of course others they they you know propose a much harsher approach and I think it is a very difficult question but I don't think there is a simple answer, you know such as these are Iranian proxies and they need to be basically eliminated because they're not going anywhere they're like it or not kaiz al-khazari is an important player in the Iraqi political scene. And of course, the current government is very much backed by by this alliance. So this is the reality on the ground, and that's what you what any US administration needs to work with. Abdul Razak, you have the final word is the is the Iraqi in the room. In general or about the specific question. Whatever you want to say. Yeah, I think it's really, it's really complicated. And there is no, there's no easy answer. I think the US for for all the questions, what the hypothesis if that happened of the way we didn't happen. Who should be blamed and what's the legacy. I think we had the legacy of of of atrocity. I think the, the US had an excellent plan to get rid of Sudan. They were successful to get us done within only three weeks, which is that something no one, no one thought about it. But I think the problem is the post war plan was very, very poorly planned. So we paid, we paid a lot. And again, we might gain our freedom but we lost our national identity. And I say that, because I see all the people who fighting until each other, they were having the Iraqi flag, and they think they are real Iraqis. So therefore when I said, who's the real Iraqis now. So what I hope as you want to say, I hope in future now with a new generation of 33. And I think this generation. They got the problem. And there was main, there were major slogan and chanting, they said, you read what I mean, we need a country, we need to get back country back. So I think that might give us hope for better future. Okay, well, thank you very much for staying up in Baghdad. And thank you very much. I guess is, we didn't really resolve some outstanding questions completely. But thank you very much for bringing some real expertise to them. Thank you. Thank you for the discussion. Thank you. Thank for having us.