In the past week, I had the opportunity to meet two generals from two different armies: General Aziz, head of Kurdish forces in Sulaimani, and General Ray Odierno, head of US forces in Iraq.
General Aziz was kind enough to invite several teachers from AUIS over for a dinner fit for a king and enough food for his army. We had great conversations about topics such as education in the region and Kurdish Arab relations. Though it seems there is a long way to go in building trust and relationships between Kurds and Arabs in power, one teacher/ businessman who was there offered an example of natural reconciliation: his company is about half Kurdish and half Arab, and they worked together on a daily basis. Jobs are an important, if not the most important, part of the moving-on equation.
General Odierno happened to be in the Suli area and dropped by the American University and more specifically dropped by my Debate Club meeting. (My colleague Nate and I started an AUIS Debate Club about a week ago.) The fact that the debate topic for the week was coups provided a great platform for a mini discussion. I called on one of my students, who is at about an intermediate English-speaking level, to explain his perspective on coups to General Odierno: “coups,” he stated, “are only about money and authority…there is a big difference between coups and revolutions and uprisings…” His point, even in broken English, was profound and dead-on, that coups are not by the people or for the people. Interestingly enough, General Odierno responded with a similar point, albeit with different words: that the most important idea to remember about coups is that there are always two sides, what the orchestrators want the people to think and then the real reasons for the coup. Coup leaders always claim that they are overthrowing the current dictator to restore justice and power to the people, and end up as dictators themselves. We then proceeded to have two formal parliamentary style debates (government v. opposition) on whether a coup is ever legitimate. It was interesting hearing the perspective of individuals who experienced Saddam’s regime; the class was about divided on whether a coup was ever acceptable. Sometimes, one side argued, there is simply no other way.
I mean check out our twin-like arms-crossed stance.
I would have loved to have picked General Odierno’s brain for a while about the surge. Tom Ricks cites him as, in the beginning of the war, intransigent, but then later as one of the key players and strongest advocates, albeit too late, of instituting the COIN based strategy that was the surge. (For an amazingly detailed and thorough account of the surge decision I encourage all to read Ricks’ The Gamble.) While I don’t agree with any of it – the surge might have protected Iraqis in the short-term but its goal was purely American-centric: to provide short-term security so that American government could make an argument for leaving – I laud some for reversing the tragic and unforgivable irresponsible complacency that was the (lack of) policy from 2004-2007. The long-term effectiveness of this strategy is yet to be seen. For example al Sahwa movement (the Awakening) is not yet fully integrated into the army, and security is still a serious pipe dream.
