 Welcome to Iraq's Next Steps, America Abroad's Town Hall Discussion here at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington. My name is Joshua Johnson, and I am the host of 1A on NPR. Let's introduce today's panel. Joining us on the panel today is Sir Hong Hamasahid. He's the director of Middle East programs here at the United States Institute of Peace. His work focuses on reconciliation and post-conflict stabilization in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Also with us on the panel is Denise Natali, the director for strategic research and a distinguished research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. She has worked in the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria, focusing on post-conflict relief and security issues. Now she provides security analysis to the Department of Defense. And Ken Pollock, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, he served on the National Security Council as director of Persian Gulf Affairs. And before that, he was a Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA. Let's have a warm welcome for all our panelists today. On May 12th, Iraqis went to the polls to elect a new parliament. The results of that election were, to many people, a big surprise. The party that won the most seats is led by Muktada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric. Let's talk a little bit about the ethnic and religious makeup of Iraq. Sir, I think this is one aspect of the Iraq story that has most people the most confused by it because there are so many interchanging parts and so many factions with overlapping but differing needs and wants. Tell us a bit about the difference between the Sunni Muslims, the Shiite Muslims, and the Kurds. Where are they? What are some of the points of connection between them? What are the main aims and goals? Lay that out for us. Thank you. Well, Iraq is a country that is known for its diversity, diversity of the different ethnicities, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens, and other minorities. It's a country known for religious diversity in terms of religion of Islam, Christianity, Yazidis, Kakeids, and others. So you will see in the country political parties that represent those ethno-sectarian diversities but also religious, political diversities in terms of the role of the religion in politics and the secularist party that believes in the civilian state. So in Iraq, all these diversities were at play on the May 12 elections. Are Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims encouraged the three main groups that were at play in the election in terms of the major players or were there others that people should know about? No, there are others who should know about. So you have Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, you have Kurds who are Shia, you have Christians, you have Yazidis, you have Kakeids, you have about a dozen minority groups in Iraq. So Iraq is very diverse. So I take this before I come to Denise to mean that in understanding the Iraqi election, coalitions and alliances are going to be really important for us to pay attention to as we continue our conversation. Absolutely. You can govern Iraq without them. Denise Natali, take us back to the founding of modern Iraq. I know it's a long way to go back. Not all the way back. I'm just trying to get a sense of what some of the sources of contention are among the different groups. Are they mostly religious? Are they mostly economic? What are the main bones that these different factions have to pick with one another? Sure. A hundred years ago, no. When the modern Iraqi state was created, the tensions between groups are not exactly the way that they are today. Note that the dissipation of the Ottoman Empire meant that some of the very traditional socioeconomic groups, the Sunni establishment, that was the dominant, let's say, category of political identities at the time, was intentions with some secular groups. There were Christian-Muslim tensions. There were tensions between local groups who wanted to retain the Ottoman Empire and those who were battling against those creating new boundaries of the new state system. Some of the groups that Sartang just talked about, Kurds, Shia, Sunni Arabs, that was not necessarily the way that Iraq was fighting each other at the time. Many of the Kurds in the 1900s, the early 1900s, were very much in support of remaining with the Ottoman Empire. Some most did not want a Kurdish state. And so there were very big differences. One of the biggest, though, that plays out today as well is between the traditional Sheikh establishment of tribes and some of the secular groups. So what Iraq would look like over the last 100 years played out not just between ethnic groups and non-ethnic groups or religious groups, but between these groups together. So there have been tensions between Kurdish groups throughout the last 100 years and between some Arab groups as well. Denise, what about the drawing of borders? The British and the French decided where Iraq's borders would be. I imagine they didn't do it with perfect regard to who was living there. How much of that has fueled what's happening today? In Iraq, some of it, but really, quite frankly, not all of it. If you look back, it's very easy to say the Treaty of Severs refused the Kurds a state and this is an artificial state. I don't really buy the artificial state argument because I don't know what a natural state is supposed to be. But nonetheless, some of it was portions of Iraq today, a small portion with portions of Turkey could have been a Kurdish state or parts of Mosul, small part of it. But a lot of what's going on today, in fact, is a byproduct of successive policies of successive Iraqi governments over time and regional governments between these ethnic groups. So for example, contrary to popular wisdom, the Kurds haven't been struggling against the state for 100 years, for a state. But at different episodes in Iraqi history, they have depending on the central government. Different relationships with regional states have changed as well. Iraqi Arabs have had different relationships. So a lot of this, I would attribute to the way that the Iraqi state evolved, particularly after Abathism became salient. And then after 2003, when you had a different kind of state that became a federal state. Ken Pollock, talk about the impact of the United States. When did the US start to become significantly involved in Iraq? Was it mostly with the onset of the Gulf War? Was it before that? Well, the first real involvement between the United States and Iraq starts during the Iran-Iraq War, when the United States decides that we're not going to allow the Iranians to win the Iran-Iraq War. And so we side with Saddam. But of course, it grows enormously thereafter. After the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam makes the foolish decision to invade Kuwait. The United States leads a 30-nation coalition to evict the Iraqis from Kuwait. The Bush administration, the first Bush administration, I think did a brilliant job putting together a coalition, evicting Saddam from Kuwait. But then, unfortunately, made the assumption that it would cause Saddam to fall from power, the defeat all by itself. And of course, that didn't happen. And so then we get into 12 years of horrific sanctions and isolation of Iraq, which scarred Iraqi society, which started to worsen some of the internal tensions. And then, of course, in 2003, we make the decision to invade the country. And the real problem there is that we decide to invade, and we make no effort to actually govern it afterwards. We create a security vacuum. And Iraq, like other states that have been put in similar circumstances, descends into chaos, warlordism, and civil war. And so a lot of the different problems between these different sectarian and ethnic groups that both Sarhang and Denise were talking about, they really explode during that period. And these are tensions that were there exactly the way they described it. But you have to understand that when you put people in a Hobbesian state of nature, the way that the United States did in 2003, you were going to wind up with conflict regardless of how amicable things were beforehand. Talk about Saddam Hussein and the Bath Party. What more do we need to know about him and his party to make the Iraq story make sense? I think, other than the fact that the relationship with the US was always very fraught, tell us more about him and his party. Sure. Let me start with Saddam because it's by far the more important part of the story. Saddam was one of the worst tyrants of the 20th century, and he traumatized Iraqi society. One of my favorite lines about Iraq was a journalist who, before the invasion of Iraq, he had this wonderful line. He said, I hate going to Saddam's Iraq. It's like crawling inside someone else's nightmare. Saddam studied Joseph Stalin. He idolized Joseph Stalin. He took Stalin's terror state to its logical or illogical extreme. And every Iraqi still carries that with him. Even those who were born afterwards grew up in the shadow of Saddam, and it continues to pervade the atmosphere, the distrust, the fear, the legacy of harm that each side or different groups did to one another. His bath party was simply a vehicle for Saddam. It existed before him. It had a life before Saddam. But he, of course, took it over very much the way that Stalin did the Communist Party, and he made it his own. And what became important about the bath party was that it really was simply a vehicle for loyalty to Saddam and patronage, by which Saddam took the resources of the Iraqi state and distributed them to a certain extent to the people below him. You wanted a good job. You had to be a member of the bath party. You wanted extra benefits. You had to become a member of the bath party. And of course, not everyone was allowed to be part of the bath party. It's worth noting there were Kurds who were in the bath party. There were Shia in the bath party. One in Iraq could join in some way, shape, or form, but not every community had equal representation in the bath. And after we overthrew Saddam for a great many Shia and a great many Kurds and Turkmen and others, they felt that there's somewhat exclusion from the bath and the fact that the bath was really Saddam's party, which he used to keep himself in power, which he used to reward his greatest loyalists. That then became a mark of shame, a mark that picked you out as someone who was with Saddam. Before I come back to Sarhang, what was it, Ken, that allowed Saddam Hussein to take over the bath party? Was it a weekend party that he just capitalized on? Did he just know what to say to the right people? How did he do that? In a word, I'd say it's ruthlessness. Saddam recognized the structure of the party, understood people's weaknesses, and was willing to do things that no one else was, was often willing to use violence when other people weren't, was willing to use horrific violence when other people weren't. Saddam once said that I know that someone is going to be a coup plotter even before he knows it. In other words, if you even, Saddam even suspected you of being somewhat disloyal, he would kill you and not just kill you, he'd kill your old family, he'd kill every person you met. He would do whatever was necessary to impose that fear on everyone out there in a way that very few other people are willing to do so. Before I come back to Sarhang, Denise Natala, you wanted to jump in? I just wanted to add, and I agree with what Ken said, another way that Saddam was able to gain authority is through co-optive means of compliance. That is, in addition to coercion, and you had an Iraqi oil state, and then what developed as part of Baathism was a social welfare state reliant on oil revenues. So Saddam could also create a large distributive mechanism so that everything was free, develop and nationalize the Iraqi oil industry even before he became president so that you also have what may sound unthinkable, but there were also people who supported him or bought into it, not because they liked him, because he was authoritarian or dictator, was because the 70s was the golden age of Iraq, and many people became very, very wealthy. Many of the biggest supporters of Saddam were some of the tribal groups as well, and this has been going on, that had been going on, in addition to coercive means of compliance. Sarhang Hamasahid, after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 for Saddam Hussein out of power, the Kurds eventually gained a much stronger position in Iraqi politics. How has the Kurdish national movement changed since the American invasion of Iraq? I mean, I think this was a change not only for the Kurds, this was a big change for the Kurds and the Shia and some other communities. For the Kurds, it was the closest they came, actually, to having close to an independent state in the sense that the structure of the Kurdistan regional government that they had formed in 1992 was called the du facto government until 2003, but after 2003, they enshrined it in the Iraqi constitution, the Kurdish Peshmerga, to be part of the Iraqi defense system. They, federalism, a federal structure for Iraq became formalized, and that gave them diplomatic access to the international community, actually, which they had, but it formalized it. It gave them economic resources like never before. It gave them the means to participate in governance and Baghdad and in the direction of the country. Those same attributions that I mentioned, and it gave a lot of power to the Shia of Iraq as well. For them, they were suppressed like the Kurds by Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party, after 2003, it gave them having the majority and formed the government to have the position of the prime minister and have access to the levers of power, the economic resources, and diplomatic interaction with the region and the international community. Denise, I was going to ask you to follow up on that with regards to the Kurds. You had mentioned in Iraq's history that the Kurds have had varying views on a state, on territory. What about today, particularly going into the election? How much does the idea of a fully independent Kurdish state factor for Iraqi Kurds today? I would start with, I wouldn't look at any self-determination movement or a national group as an ethnically homogenous group. That would be set the Kurds up for something that's unrealistic as well as any other group. They're not ethnically homogenous in their demands, and that difference historically has played out in the groups between the more traditional establishment, the conservative, whether that be tribal groups or shakes or religious leaders, and some of the left-leaning socialist groups, urban-educated, those two main factions have been competing with each other for relevance, if you will, over the last several years. Now, what you have today is some of that playing out at the political level, but now on the streets, it's different, and I want to add to what Sardang said that after 1992, and I was part of OPC when we were, Operation Provide Comfort when we were working with the Kurds in the safe haven back then, what was the biggest difference is even though the Kurdistan Regional Government created its first government in 1992, it wasn't recognized, so people were coming in and out. It was still very dependent on being situated as it's Iraqi, but we can't recognize this. After 2003, the very, very big difference is the Constitution that created a federal Iraqi state, gave the Kurds rights, it gave them recognition legally. Now the Kurdistan Regional Government was recognized, internally and regionally and externally, and it gave them revenues. The Kurds got a lot of money as a portion of the Iraqi government's budget by being an entity within a federal Iraq, so those three things right there gave the Kurds credibility, legitimacy, and then of course they developed a lobby, very important international support. What has changed now between these divisions is over the last, particularly over the last, let's say, seven years, ten years, some of the abilities to trying to create an independent oil sector, a non-transparent oil sector, the non-deliverance of services has made those differences not just between the two political parties, but between the people and the government, between the political elites and the Kurdish nationalist streets. And so it's really not that different than what you've seen in other countries in the world where people are challenging the political elites because they want their services, but I would say that this is one of the most important divides inside the Kurdistan region today. You're listening to America Abroad's discussion on the future of Iraq and foreign policy here at the United States Institute of Peace. I'm Joshua Johnson. Joining us today are Sarhang Hamasai, Director of Middle East Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Denise Natali, Distinguished Researcher at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, and Ken Pollack, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Ken, let me come to you. Let's talk about this election. What were the main issues going into it? How much was this a referendum on the Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, and how much was this related to other things? Well, one of the more interesting things about it, Joshua, I think that we suspected this going in, but the vote itself really made it clear, was where the Iraqi people were on all of this. I think that going into it, a lot of different people had a lot of different ideas about what this election might be about. What the results demonstrated is that for the vast majority of Iraqis, what it really was about was finding a government that could actually deliver services, could provide benefits, get the economy going, and curb corruption. Those were the critical issues. And again, I think all of us knew that this was out there, but different people thought that it might be about defeating ISIS and it might be about ties with Iran. And instead, it became very much focused on the set of core issues about running the government, about the domestic economy, about the role of corruption. Ken, I hate to oversimplify this, but it sounds like you're saying people were just voting for a government that could govern. Well, they were looking for the government that could govern. This is the issue, Joshua, is what we see coming out of it is actually a very fragmented political picture. Everybody is talking about Muktara Sadar winning this great victory. He didn't. This is a very small plurality that he won. And in fact, what we saw was a whole variety of different parties winning more or less similar numbers of seats. And I think that what you really want to take away from that is Iraqis were looking for someone who could actually provide them with good governance, with efficient administration, with anti-corruption, and they couldn't find it. They didn't know who to vote for. And so different people voted for different leaders in the hope that one of them might do it. But let's also remember, in many ways, the biggest takeaway from this election, Joshua, is how many people didn't vote. You had almost a 30% drop in actual voter participation between this election and the previous two. Yeah, I did want to ask you about voter turnout. But before we do that, you mentioned Muktara Sadar. Give us the thumbnail sketch of who he is. Very powerful Shia Clarek has had kind of an evolving public image over the years. He's a bit of a cipher, right? I don't think any of us knows really what to make of him. He is the younger child of a very famous Shia family. He wasn't very much before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But in the chaos that followed, he stood up. He kind of, he struck a very nationalist figure, was willing to use violence, but also tried to reward and take care of the people who supported him, got very closely tied to Iran and got beat up for doing that. The United States and the Iraqi government really hammered him for that, forced him to redefine himself. And he has redefined himself as very much a kind of arch-nationalist and a champion of the average person, the average Shia in particular, who wanted less corruption, better governance, more efficiency. And ultimately what we saw in the election was that it looks like Muktara simply lost less than everybody else, and that allowed him to emerge ahead. Can you clarify? I don't think there is an analog to Muktara Sadar in American political society. I think if you come at it from a purely Western mentality, I don't know if there is an analog of a religious figure that exerts the kind of political influence that he exerted. Can you give us an example of how his influence played out? I mean, I wouldn't consider Muktara Sadar analogous to say, Pat Robertson. They're both religious and powerful, but not the same. Can you clarify on an everyday ground level, what would I as an everyday Iraqi notice about Muktara Sadar that would affect my life? Let's start with the fact that the Middle East is a fairly religious place to begin with. Let's add to that the fact that under Saddam there were lots of people, lots of communities who looked to religion as a safe space. It was an area where Saddam was less willing, not unwilling. Famously he killed both Muktara's father and his uncle, but he was less willing to interfere. It was a place where people could seek refuge, where they might get help and support against the government. It created that safe space. It further reinforced the importance of religion. And let's face facts, you know, Saddam's world was an utterly perverse totalitarian society. Religion made a lot of sense for people, and that also helped. And so when the chaos breaks out after 2003, it was natural for a lot of different Iraqis to look for aid, for support, even for protection from religious figures from their religious communities, and Muktara wanted to. He clearly was looking to acquire political power by using his role as a religious figure to secure secular authority. And again, it's been a very rocky road for him, and I don't think that we should be anointing him as the new king of Iraq. He isn't. He's at best first among equals, but the worm has finally turned in his direction. Mr. Sarhanga, I was just going to ask you about that in terms of what it means for Muktara al-Sadr's surprise showing and the future of Iraq's parliament. First of all, who is surprised by this, where people really call like, who did this catch off guard? And then what does this possibly mean going forward? That's a great question of who was surprised. I think looking at it from the Iraqi perspective, you see the same diversity or division, whichever term you go with in Iraq's politics. So Muktara al-Sadr represents a segment of the Iraqi society, as Ken mentioned, the poor Shia mostly. And he has made an interesting alliance with the secular groups and communist groups who call for reform in Iraq. You also see a group led by the Al-Fat coalition, the so strong Shia, an Iranian influence there. You see a coalition of the Kurds or a group of the Kurds that if they form together, they will represent 40 to 50 seats of the Kurds. So that diversity or division in the political landscape of Iraq for the most part remains the same. So what is surprising for people is that actually in a way that someone like Prime Minister Haid al-Abadi, who represented, had a lot of wins under his belt going into the election in terms of win against ISIS, a win in terms of regional engagement with the rest of the Middle East, the Middle East country, and also a win in terms of the suppressing the Kurdish independence vote and redeploying federal authority to disputed territories, but not translating that into a bigger victory. So Sadr's surprise in the sense that he did better than the others. But in terms of his historic performance in the elections, he's about the same range. And Denise, before I let you comment, I just want to make sure that we're clear or so hung. We're talking about Muhtar al-Sadr's coalition. He was not on a ballot. Like, it wasn't him running. No, no, he was not on a ballot. He supported a coalition that represented specific issues that the Shia base and others cared about. Gotcha. Just wanted to make sure we're clear on that. Denise? I just want to add, and I fully agree with both Ken and Sadr, particularly about don't over-determine Sadr. I mean, he won seats, but if you look at where he won, his majority, it was still in a very concentrated area, except for Diyala, my understanding as of now. He didn't win seats in disputed territories, or he didn't win outside of his Shia base, whereas Fatah, the Alliance of Popular Mobilization Forces under Emory, for example, they have won in areas outside of Shia regions, such as Anbar, such as Kirkuk, even if they were fifth, but certainly areas outside of their zone. So that's one part. But in addition, and Sadr himself, in addition to the religious component is a socioeconomic component. Sadr represents the poor, impoverished Shia Streets in Baghdad. There is a place in Baghdad called Sadr City. And Sadr City was that component of loyalists, not just because it was some private neighborhood with a nice area in Baghdad with pools. It was a poor neighborhood that had loyalists to Sadr. So back to your question, how surprising from an outside view, you may look at this because what you read in the press is a very articulate Prime Minister Abadi, you know, pretty much everybody thinks he's a decent person and he is. But from an inside view, this is about, as Ken said, who can deliver services? Who can fight against corruption? And I heard this over and over again before the election as well, is who's going to be able to push back the militia and over and over again. So, and a point to be made since 2003, Sadr's the first person to win this many votes who wasn't from the diaspora. Again, I don't know, he's not going to be Prime Minister. But he's certainly, again, this reflects this local or internal Iraqi nationalist movement within about fixing the Iraqi state. Make a pardon, when you say he wasn't from the diaspora? Well, he wasn't, he wasn't, yeah, he wasn't a leader that came that had left Iraq and was brought in to lead this party. Sadr remained in Iraq. Ken, and then it all comes to Sir Hang on a moment. Since Denise mentioned pushing back militia, what about the broader fight against ISIS and extremism? What do the conditions look like now? And how much does the threat of ISIS still remain a factor in Iraq politically or otherwise? Sure, I will say, yeah, there are still pockets of ISIS still in Iraq. They are trying to remain relevant. They conduct attacks, they kill people, they blow things up. They're not the biggest most important problem in Iraq today. I think that we have consistently exaggerated the importance of ISIS as an entity in and of itself. And what we've consistently downplayed are the circumstances in Iraq, the context which gave rise to ISIS. And so you're asking the question about, okay, what's the threat from ISIS? The threat from the group is there, but it's not terribly significant. What's really significant is the potential for those same circumstances to reemerge, right? Once again, we're seeing an election where the Iraqi people, they've participated in democracy, they like democracy, they want it, but they are frustrated. They are not getting the kind of life that they believe they deserve. They have a corrupt leadership that they feel like is not delivering for them. They are searching for answers, right? If they don't get answers, the question becomes, where do they go next? Do they go looking for another group, whether it be like ISIS, or the Shia militias, or somebody else who might deliver it in a more unsavory way? Yes, I wanted to point out actually, the points to Muqt al-Sadr and what Ken just said is that we are at an interesting point in Iraq's history, where you see enough evidence and indicators of seeing a change towards nonviolent change in Iraq. So someone like Muqt al-Sadr from a militia leader actually, or to organizing sit-ins is a positive thing. But for the Iraqi communities, trying to tribal leaders after an area is liberated from ISIS, trying to come together and heal, and the sense of volunteerism that you see in a lot of communities to rebuild with very, very limited or no resources sometimes. These are all positive things that Iraq, that Iraq that was manufactured, probably for the first time that people are coming to rebuild their communities and not asking the state to do it for them. But also Iraq is in another way, it's a more dangerous place compared to four years ago when we had ISIS take a lot of parts. This is where you have the militarization in the community and the many armed groups are there. Actually, the threat of the conditions that contribute to the rise of ISIS is more complicated. The Iraqi society in certain ways is more divided. The wounds that the conflict with ISIS left behind the tactics that ISIS used to divide the community and so the long seeds of division and hostility are there. So the next government is really crucial to be inclusive enough that can represent the issues that will deal with those problems and not go back to the politics of usual of Iraq. Can you give an example of how that's changed, of what some of those seeds of division are that are there now? So in ISIS used members of the Sunni community to perpetrate crimes like the Spiker Massacre in which they killed 1700 Shia cadets. They have used members of certain tribes in Anbar against other tribes. They did the same. So Sunni tribes, Sunni Arab tribes were used by ISIS against Sunni Arab tribes against the Shia against the Kurds against the Yazidis and the religious minorities. Those are communal divisions that this conflict is leaving behind that requires careful work. And there are Iraqis who are taking the responsibility at the community level that they are trying to deal with these problems. But this is where Iraq is most vulnerable at the communal level. We're speaking to Sir Hanh Hamasai, director of Middle East programs at the United States Institute of Peace. We are at USIP for America Abroad's discussion on the future of Iraq and foreign policy. We're also speaking to Denise Natali, distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University and Ken Pollock, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. We'll get to some questions from our audience in just a few minutes. But first, let's talk a little bit more about the future and about the election. Haider El Abadi, the prime minister of Iraq, wrote an op ed in the Washington Post on May 18th. I'd like to read you a piece of his op-ed and get some of your reaction. It reads in part, quote, There are three concerns every Iraqi prioritizes, whether they are from fighting corruption, providing job opportunities and improving service delivery. These are the same priorities to which I am committed. They require a steady hand and informed perspective and patience to stay the course. During the past four years, along with liberating our country from terrorism, helping internally displaced people return home and improving security to the best level since 2003, I have led my government through the hard work necessary to achieve these aims. We took on these commitments despite historically low oil prices, which led to austerity measures that were necessary to pull us out of a fiscal crisis. We are now in a better position as a nation. Our security forces have defeated the enemies that threatened us and we stand ready to rebuild our country and economy. He goes on to write, quote, I said in October that our nation would remain united, and it has. I vowed that elections would be held on time in every part of the country and they have. I promised our people that we would liberate our land from terrorism and this has been delivered. I now declare to our people that the next four years will witness a tremendous transformation for Iraq if the right government is in place. My vision is to reform our economy and defeat corruption, provide jobs to the millions of young people who make up the majority of our population, continue the improvement of public services and ensure that human rights and female empowerment are actively pursued and justice is extended to all. If chosen as prime minister again, I will fight to achieve these critical advances every day that I lead the country, unquote. That is from an op-ed written by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Ken Pollock, what stood out to you from the Prime Minister's op-ed? Some of the statements he made, promises he made and achievements that he touted. Sure. I'll start by saying I thought he hit every single right note. The question I had was why do it in English in an American newspaper. I would have voted for him based on that, but it sounds pretty good on paper. I didn't get to vote. For Iraqis, I want to go back to a point that Denise made. I think she's absolutely right. My own experiences with Haider al-Abadi, I think he is a very good man. I think that his heart is absolutely in the right place. I actually think that most Iraqis would say that, and we had some polls before the election that indicated that most Iraqis believe that too. I think that the question that was marked for many Iraqis that you saw play out in the election was whether this good, well-intentioned man could actually deliver on what they wanted. That he had been in office for four years, and what they saw was he hadn't been able to curb corruption. He hadn't been able to put in place a reform agenda. All things that he had promised that I think he genuinely wants. And the question becomes, well, was that his fault, or was that the circumstances that he was in? He and his aides will say, listen, I had a fragmented government. I had to fight ISIS. I had all these other problems I needed to deal with. I couldn't deal with that. That may well be. I think what we're seeing, though, is in the electorate that that message didn't resonate with them. Denise, what stood out to you about the Prime Minister's remarks, or his op-ed rather? Well, nothing that, again, that hasn't already been said to Western audiences. I agree with it. I would even agree with it. But I would say, looking back from Iraqis, many of those statements, I would say to people that I spoke to in Iraq just even a month ago. And the response was, but they didn't still tackle corruption, a lot of what Ken said, too. So that was less important than, one, the immediate, here was the last few years, the corruption wasn't handled. And there's something else that I don't even think that this is an issue of Prime Minister Abadi, which is, on the one hand, many people in Iraq will still say we want democracy we believe in the, you know, in the all of the changes that are occurring, and then we want a really strong leader as well. I mean, well, not someone like Saddam, but someone who's a strong man. And so, I mean, it's almost a fickle, it doesn't make sense. Well, you want a democratic individual who is committed to going through the process without violence, but he's not strong enough. And some of this just doesn't plays out in why many didn't vote for him as well. Sarhan? Yes, I think it was also interesting for me that it was in English and in the Washington Post. I think he is reminding the American public. He's reminding the U.S. partners that he has delivered a number of things in Iraq. He was a good partner, and he hopes that he will get their support in the next government formation. Because the perception of the people in the region is that, yes, you could have the support of the United States, but when the political winds change, then the U.S. may go for another candidate. So if a new coalition forms and votes for another prime minister, the U.S. will be supportive. When the State Department spokesman spoke a few days ago after the win of Sutter, they did not specify which prime minister they favor. They say they will hope to continue a positive relationship with the next prime minister of Iraq. And for him, and probably for his close aides, this may signal the U.S. may not be committed in supporting him, and this is a tough choice for the United States. Yes, they know the U.S. prime minister Abadi was a good partner, and he delivered a number of things, but the weaknesses that Ken and the U.S. mentioned, the U.S. also saw those. For the next chapter of Iraq, it will be far more difficult than the previous one, because the meeting the demands of people, in my view, is harder than defeating ISIS, and that is the chapter that not the Iraqis are not confident that the prime minister can deliver on, and even grant Ayatollah al-Sistani, whose support, and came out full force supporting prime minister Abadi to hit corruption with an iron fist. This was the most public, the grant Ayatollah has come in support of a prime minister, and they feel frustrated and disappointed that he did not take it seriously enough. We'll get to questions from some of you in the audience in just a minute, but Ken Pollock, it seems like now the U.S. might be forced to deal with Muqtadaal Sadr, where the U.S. and he can work together, where they might remain at longer heads. What does that look like? First, let me start by saying, Joshua, that we're a long way from knowing who's going to roll Iraq, right? The election is just the first part of this process. I recently described it as it's just the appetizer. The main course in the Iraqis is government formation, where the results of the election can be thrown out the window all entirely. So there's no certainty that Muqtada is going to dominate, let alone dictate this process. If he is the dominant player in the government, then I think the U.S. has got its work cut out for it. There are areas of agreement, right? We can all agree that reform, anti-corruption, these are critical in the way that the U.S. government should be as helpful as it can be in trying to help enable Iraq's efforts there. We can also agree that Iraq should be strong and independent. That is something that the United States should want. That is something that Muqtada's solder wants. The big problem is that first Muqtada does have very complicated ties to Iran. They go back a ways, they have not been completely cut. But other than that, Muqtada hates the United States, right? And that's going to be a problem. And we're going to have to figure out how do we relate to someone who has defined himself by his enmity toward the United States. I hope that the U.S. government will stick with it. I hope that we will try as best we can. I hope that we will be able to bring him around. But let's also understand we're not going to allow the United States forces. If the U.S. has nothing to offer, then he has no particular reason to stick with us. Before we get to our first audience question, let me let Denise jump in. Just one other thing. I would move beyond the Muqtada too, who's probably going to know that he needs and there's been indications that they need to work or allow the United States forces to remain. But it's the FATA alliance that's more disconcerting to me. I'm not saying that we're going to get any more militias inside them. I mean, Sather, at least, he's an Iraqi nationalist to his court, no fan. But nonetheless, where and what role is FATA going to play in this future would be my concern. Because that is not just about do you get seats in the parliament. Will some of these Iranian-backed groups, which are not all of the militia, by the way, so I'm wondering, will they get seats? Which government ministries will they have? How will they be influencing the provinces? So, Sather, aside, where is FATA going to play in this whole game as well? That's Denise Natali of the National Defense University, Kenneth Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute, and Sir Hang Hamasahid of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Let's get to some questions from our audience. If you would please then tell us what's on your mind. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Alexander Kravitz from Insight. Thank you for a great panel. Maybe to pick up on Sir Hang's last comments about the Badi's oped. Brett McGurk is currently spending some time in the Kurdistan region in Iraq. I wonder if you would comment on the visit. And the second question, there have been allegations of fraud in the Kurdish region. How serious are those accusations? And how might that play out? Thank you. Anyone you'd like to put that question to a particular or who would like to take that one? Let's start with Brett McGurk if we could. First of all, tell us who he is for those who don't know. And then let's get to that part of the question. Sir Ha? Yes, Brett McGurk is U.S. Special Presidential Advisor, sorry, Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. He's a member of the U.S. National Association that the United States put together to work with allies to defeat the Islamic State. So he is in Iraq. I cannot speak to the details of his efforts and meetings, but I think it is understandable that the United States will try to play a constructive role in expediting the government formation in Iraq. Something that at least a good number of Iraqi leaders across the country has leverage and friendships and relationships with political actors there that can play a constructive role in expediting the government formation. And quickly on fraud, this is something that is still being sorted out in the elections. It is reported in the Kurdistan region, but also in other places of Iraq. The forms of corruption, sorry, the fraud that has been reported varies. We will have to wait for the investigation of the Iraqi High Electoral Commission to see how some of those play out. The different political actors say they have evidence. They present in those evidence. We will see if that will change the results of the elections. I just want to add, Alexander, as well. Again, you can't, we can say there's fraud everywhere. You have to be very careful about using that word because it has to be proven. But some of the figures are very offensive. The system itself, because there's some of the opposition groups or some of the groups that are almost in shock that they receive some small seats, the system itself doesn't allow for small parties to gain the types of seats, so that wasn't a very good gamble. But the types in certain provinces, we all know that there's been a big issue in Kirkuk, so there's been people who went to vote at places and their names are on the list, and there's been a huge shortage of a difference between the numbers that came out on the electronic box and the ones that are actual, the actual numbers. I don't know how people are going to defend that. So they are, I've seen some of them, and I'm almost, you know, you don't know what to say. Whether or not they're going to be addressed is another issue. And Denise, could we be clear when we're talking about election fraud, do we want to say that there's been a lot of people who have been discriminated against by the provinces or monkeying with the final counter, like intimidating people away from the polls? You know, again, I want to say this with trepidation because you don't want to accuse somebody of something that you didn't physically see, but there have been people that are election monitors, and we do know who have reported on it, so there have been people that have reported on voting places. And I've also had, in my experience, as I've been an election monitor, people just don't go out and vote. The boycott worked against these people. So you can't blame everything and say this is all corruption and all fraud, either. But some of the plays, yes. And I'm not saying you, I'm just saying in general, one cannot but places where people are in the same position. Yes, sir. Hi, I'm Krishnadev Kala-Mur with the Atlantic, and my question is, given the current state of U.S.-Iranian relationship, how is this likely to affect government formation in Iraq? So U.S.-Iran relationship. Ken, why don't you take that question? Sure. I, you know, we're pretty obsessed with what's going on. I'm kind of obsessed about it, too. That said, I think it may have some impact on Iraq. I wouldn't exaggerate it. The way to put it is I think that Iran, as it moves forward, probably is looking at Iraq and thinking that Iraq is even more meaningful to it than it was in the past. I mean, Iraq is a very important country for Iran. But if the Iranians are looking for a potential for the Europeans to be forced to join it, Iraq looms larger because, first of all, the Iranians make money off of Iraq. That's very important. There is smuggling through Iraq. And beyond that, they want to make sure that Iraq is not going to be strong unified in the U.S. camp. Now, I think that those things are all important, but they're not hugely important. I think that that may influence how Iran works. Again, I think that Iran had big interests in Iraq's government formation to begin with. And while I think that that may add a little bit of urgency to what the Iranians are up to in making sure that the coalition that comes out is going to be one that allows the Hashashabi, the Shia militias to do their thing and allows Iran to smuggle as it likes and allows Iran to manipulate currency as it likes, given the likely weakness that the government emerged from that government formation process and the ability of Iran to influence it, I'm not sure that what's just happened between the U.S. and Iran greatly changes that. Other thoughts on the U.S.-Iran impact on forming a government? Denise? I wouldn't just say it's just not just about these two actors as well. What else other things are going on, the integration of Iraq into the region, the re-establishment of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other groups in the region that could push back some of those concerns. And again, it's not just U.S.-Iran relations. How strong this Iraqi nationalist current will be, that's where I would be focusing on, and not the Iran-U.S. dimension only. Why focus on that nationalist current, Denise? Because this is what this was about. We've spent so much time over the last couple of years, not we, everybody in this room, looking at, soon she occurred, how many times, you can just write about using those words, because this is what we thought Iraq was supposed to be. Remember the breakup of Iraq, remember the wonderful maps with three colors? It just didn't work out that way. How easy it could have been. And all of this time, we underestimated, not we, many Iraqi nationalism. You don't underestimate Iraqi nationalism as a nationalist identity or a sense of civicness in the state. And this is what's played out. At demonstrations, I was at last November in Terrier Square. The communists were with the Sadrists, and they were all singing the Iraqi national anthem, draped in the Iraqi flag, talking about all of these things that had nothing to do with sectarianism. And I would say some of that's part of what we're talking about. We're talking about the sectarianism relations as well. Not all Kurds obviously look at themselves as Iraqis. But there's a good segment of Kurdish people right now, particularly the youth who are saying we want a democratic Iraq as opposed to, you know, a Kurdistan region that can't function. So that's why I say push back against the sectarianism, because this is what this was about. The cross-sectarian sentiments that has been enhanced in Iraq mostly came as a result of the military defeat of ISIS, where the Iraqis fought a common enemy and the, yes, supported by the global coalition in the United States, but that fighting a common enemy, that positive energy did come into the political space, and so far it's mostly rhetoric and it reflected in the formation of some of the coalitions. The true test in the government that has to come. And I think both getting to some interconnected points about the United States and Iran are both actively now trying to help expedite the government formation process. They both have interest. There is the game of numbers who can have the largest number of seats. Muqtada Sader probably has a path of that, but then that doesn't mean he can ignore the PMF, because they have forces on the ground, they have access, they have weapons, they have political resources. The other way around as well, Iran can actually put enough muscle behind different coalitions to exclude Muqtada Sader and probably Ammar al-Hakeem, but that will be at their own peril. Both sides are too powerful on the streets, on the ground. They have to find a way to coexist. Let's see if we can squeeze in a few more. Hi, Dan Flally from Bloomberg News. This question is for Sarhan. I believe a few weeks ago you mentioned at another panel here at IOP a number of arrest warrants that have been issued for people suspected of collaborating or being involved with ISIS in Iraq. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how that will play out, that process of I think these warrants, the fact that could mean for the next chapter in Iraq as these sectarian and various issues are sorted out. Thank you for pointing that out. That's a great question. Actually, this is one of the deep wounds of Iraq. The numbers I mentioned at the time and this is quoting a senior Iraqi government official that they have arrest warrants for 90,000 people who are accused of being ISIS, obviously that official acknowledged that not all of them are members of ISIS, but there are accusations and there are about 35,000 people who are in custody. So this is a big problem for Iraq's judicial institutions and this is most of these people are Iraqi Sunnis. So they will be, the Iraqi government will have to look at those cases. They don't have the capability. A good number of them will be seen within a political veil where they accuse that the Iraqi government is going after those people. This affects about 700,000 to 800,000 people if you extrapolate that to the number of family members. That is affecting stability from the government standpoint. This affects political inclusion for those families. It affects livelihoods and economic opportunities. This could give us a more complex problem than de-bathification. The removal of Saddam's members, the removal of people accused of ISIS could be very destabilizing and this is basically taking us back into 2012 when many Iraqi Sunnis were saying that the government has thousands of their sons and women under the influence of Article 4 of the terror law and they felt the government being unfairly targeting them. We have that now more complex because they will feel the government is targeting them but also their cousins and their brothers from other tribes also targeting them. Yes, sir. It's on your mind. Hi. Douglas Ollivant with the New America and Manta International. In some ways you have to feel bad for the next Iraqi prime minister who is going to cut that baby or whatever metaphor we want to use. I think this is a great question. You have a demand that corruption be deeply reduced but at the same time they want no cuts in the public sector, the bloated Iraqi public sector which makes the corruption really possible on a grand scale. How is the next prime minister going to cut that baby or that knot or whatever metaphor we want to use? Great question. I think this is one of the biggest problems that we face out there and we can add a few more things into it. Sir Hung's great point before about it needs to be an inclusive government because you want to have people all feeling like they're part of it. The points that I made about having an efficient bureaucracy that actually gets things done. All of these points run at cross purposes and adds to that the fact that you've got a badly fragmented strong prime minister. Someone who can say, well, look, I've got 95, 100 seats in the parliament. Everybody's going to have to go with me. We haven't got that. So I think you're absolutely right. I think the next prime minister structurally right now, wow, does he or she really have their work cut out for them? You could probably make the case that they are set up for failure unless they get a tremendous amount of external assistance, right, which can only come from the United States and its coalition partners. And so far, I don't see a Trump administration that has any interest in doing that. I think it's going to be incredibly hard for the next Iraqi prime minister without it. Denise, before you jump in, I wonder if what Prime Minister Abadi mentioned in his op-ed about historically low oil prices factors into that. It seems like if oil prices are lower, that revenue decreases, the gravy train slows down significantly. Are there changes just by dint of the reality of Iraq today? Or is this really a change that someone's going to have to generate from within? No, sorry. Ken? Oh, I'm sorry. I think you're right, Joshua, that the low oil prices don't help the circumstances. But again, a lot of these problems go beyond even that. I mean, you're certainly right that the more money you have pouring in, the easier it is to deal with some of these problems. But what we know is that when oil was incredibly high, corruption went insane in Iraq. It was impossible to keep control over it. And prices are always eventually going to come down, and then you're going to get stuck with this problem. And a lot of these problems have nothing to do with oil prices. A lot of this is about do you have the strength of a leader, the strength of the political system, the strength of a political party, and the strength of a coalition to actually make this move ahead of time? I think a couple things. One, I agree, Doug, what's not going to change whereas in Iraq and many other places, the mentality of having a job, even if you have a job, is I have a government job, right? It doesn't count if you have a private sector job because you get all of the pensions and everything else. And I don't see that changing in the near future. What could happen, first oil is about $80 a barrel now. So like 70, that is different from the other companies. This may give the Kurdistan regional government more leeway. Just the way that they had to make some deals. They had to make some deals with the KRG because they didn't have enough money to pay these salaries. So we'll split, for example, we'll split your budget and you can go export what you need to pay your salaries and we'll look the other way. That may enhance corruption because there could be an inverse relationship. But what I'm saying is how are you going to make more of this flexibility, creativity and funding so they don't have to be responsible for some of these outlying areas financially? I think, I mean, I don't see how the Iraqi government, again if oil prices were low, would be able to provide the services, because this is not just about corruption too. Corruption is part of it. Can you provide the services? Can you co-opt away what the PM use or what some of these militias are doing in the localities? Providing services, fixing potholes, providing salaries. If you want the militia to go away, it's not just about grievance, it's about opportunities. So either the Iraqi government's going to have to pay or those militias are still going to be there. Sir Hong briefly? Very briefly. I think one of the, I mean, a lot has been written about the entrenchment in the system and the corruption. But one, two sources to look into for support for an agenda to fight corruption is actually those people who did not vote. They are the frustrated public that could come out and propose a danger. Those who went and vote for Muqtada Sattar, they voted mostly because they want the better government and better jobs. So these two energies are out there if whatever political class of Iraq or new government ignores those two, I think they are in trouble. I think it's time for one more question. Yes, sir. Eric, I have something with Epic. Having followed this as long as I have, I feel like there's been this kind of rerun that we keep going through and it's about losing, taking our eyes off the ball. So when we look at Iraq right now, the challenges, the opportunities that are there, what's most important in terms of resources from the United States and the international community to make a difference to Iraq? That might be a good question to end on with all three of you. Why don't we start Ken with you? Yeah, it's a huge question, Eric. So I'll, I think there are two points though I'd like to make with regard to this one. First, I think that American military forces are very important for Iraq. At the end of the day, as I said before, this all began with the security vacuum that we created in 2003. And we saw again when American forces aren't present and they don't need to be in enormous quantities. But they need to be there to reassure average Iraqis that the warlords and the militias aren't going to go crazy. They need to be there as a caution to the warlords and militias not to go crazy. They need to be there as an enforcement mechanism so that people will act peacefully and that violence will not be used for political purposes. That's critical. That doesn't happen. Nothing else matters. And too frequently in Iraq we've seen that happen and when that does, all the well-meaning political leaders in the world don't matter for anything. The second piece here I'd say that where the United States spends money to me is less important. I could certainly talk through different programs that I think that are better, that I think that are worse. What I think is most important is the United States making a commitment. Committing to Iraqis, saying to Iraqis we're not abandoning you. We're going to put resources into Iraq. It doesn't have to be an enormous amount and an ideal world and American long-term commitment. Again, I keep saying this. I'll say it again. I'd like to see the United States commit to $1 to $2 billion a year for at least five years. And then you use that to build a wider international aid package. That you can then go to the Iraqis with and say there are all kinds of things that we can do here. Let's talk through what priorities are. I mean, Doug's absolutely right about some of the tensions. Well, that could be solved. That could be ameliorated dramatically if you had external aid that was targeted at specific things. I think there are a lot of projects out there that people have floated that could be used both as an immediate source of sucker for people, but also as a long-term form of development. But the real key is to say to the people we're not walking away the way that we have done in the past exactly as you said, we're going to stick with you. And for those who are willing to tread in the path that we think is best, which is the same path you want, a strong, more independent, economically prosperous Iraq, there are going to be resources there for you. I think that's critical in getting so many of these political leaders who have opted for all kinds of other options to say, no, you know what? This is worth doing. We will take the good path. Denise? I don't speak for the government and I can't, but I will just give my thoughts on understanding that we're not going to engage in Iraq with the types of large-scale aid programs that went on after 2003 where billions of dollars were put in and nobody knows what happened. Large-scale projects were built and they weren't used. And I'm not blaming Iraqis for this, but they're just inappropriate projects for the wrong place. But again, more realistically, what's acceptable for Iraqis? So, is it particularly given this new government? To what extent will Iraqis accept a certain small-scale presence of U.S. military forces to train, to continue training? I think we should continue to train border security, continue to provide security assistance, technical intelligence assistance is what my understanding what Cole's for for their security sector. I would be less inclined to provide large amounts of aid, but to encourage local entrepreneurship, to encourage the types of agreements between private sector and trying to foster an Iraqi private sector. Some of the issues brought out at the Kuwait conference. So that there is some, you know, you have a whole young generation of really vibrant, hard-working Iraqi youth who are starting up, doing all these other startups and technologically driven businesses, and I would encourage that. And finally, so this is not large-scale engagement, but it's the type of engagement that we're bringing together. And third is to enhance a strong, sovereign Iraqi state. I'll say Iraqi sovereignty to look at Iraqis at Iraq and move away from the language of as soon as she occurred and anything we write because it's really aggravating to most Iraqis. And if you want to get rid of, you know, the militia problem is a militia problem based on opportunities and who can fill those voids. But there's also an issue of a reaction. So Iraq, a lot of this again is that Iraqis look at themselves as a sovereign state. And we should stop, I would say, refrain from the notion of perhaps we can enhance sub-state actors because that's a better form of securing the state. So that's what I would do. So, Hunk? I think the most important contribution and support the United States can give to Iraq is to help the political train to move forward in a truly inclusive manner. Inclusive, not in the number of ministers representing each community, but the issues that need to be addressed to be on the agenda of the government. And that's in all my meetings in Iraq with all layers of government in the community, that is a key ask. Without it, I don't think we can move forward. And a second piece to that, with the political developments, with the Fatah and with with Sutter, I think the role of the European allies is far more important than any other time before on both playing a role in the political space, but also to help with the resources that Iraq needs. With the rise of oil prices, Iraq will get a boost in its own local revenue, so less demand for international financial support. I think getting the governance moving forward is critical. In Iraq, a key role that will be also now a new development with the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The more Iraq is pushed to act against Iran, I think the more Iran will get aggressive. The more difficult Iraqi leaders from all the spectrums will have difficulty facing that Iranian pressure. I think investing in the institutions of Iraq to grow stronger and represent the people and work for the people will be one of the best ways to deter against the role of Iran. And lastly, one area that is less obvious is the Iraqi civil society, Iraqi community organizations. I think they are the front line for reversing the tide against violence and finding solutions for coexisting. The political class will always have its problems, but it is at the communal level where violence breaks out and political actors and external actors come and exploit. So continuing investment at the communal level, I think will have long-term dividends. Sarhan Hamasai, the director of Middle East programs at the United States Institute of Peace. He is the director for strategic research and a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies and Ken Pollack, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Ken, Denise, Sarhan, thanks for talking to us. Thanks everybody.