Iraq: Assyrians at risk as Kurds 'play with fire'

by Elizabeth Kendal

The Assyrians are a Christian nation and the indigenous people of Northern Iraq. Between June-August 2014, ISIS (and subsequently IS) drove more than 130,000 Assyrians from their homes in Mosul and the Assyrian heartland of the Nineveh Plains. Traumatised and destitute, most found refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan; particularly in Dohuk (to the north) and in Erbil, the Kurdish capital (to the east). With the Iraqi Army in a state of collapse, the Kurds moved quickly to occupy and defend oil-rich Kirkuk (formerly under the control of Baghdad).

This year, a coalition led by the Iraqi Army and aided by Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs, mostly Iranian-led Shi’ite militias formed to fight ISIS in June 2014 in the wake of the Iraqi Army’s collapse), along with US-backed Kurdish peshmerger forces and Assyrian units, has liberated Mosul and much of the Nineveh Plains. As Assyrians tentatively trickle back into their towns and villages, they do so with the hope that the Nineveh Plains might one day be an autonomous entity within the state of Iraq. The last thing they want is to fall victim to a Kurdish land grab, or to find themselves stuck in the middle of another war.

Assyrians return to Qaraqosh, Palm Sunday 2017.
Report and images by Open Doors
more images: al-arabiya, from Oct 2016

KURDISH REFERENDUM ON INDEPENDENCE

Absent a miracle, Iraqi Kurds will hold a referendum on independence on Monday 25 September. While the anticipated “YES” vote will not trigger an automatic declaration of independence, it is expected to lead to official negotiations.

Analysts suspect that Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani is focused less on Kurdish independence (which he knows in not feasible) and more on acquiring leverage to aid negotiations over revenue sharing (more money), further devolution of power (more power), and the demarcation of Iraqi Kurdistan’s borders (more land).
For more on this see: 
Kurdistan’s referendum won’t lead to independence – so why hold it?
The Conversation, 15 June 2017

If the referendum is little more than a ploy for leverage, then it remains to be seen if it will be worth the risk. Fresh talk of Kurdish independence has sent tensions soaring both inside Iraq and across the region. As Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi noted on 16 September, the Kurds are “playing with fire”. 

THE GREAT KURDISH LAND GRAB

Eager to expand its borders, the KRG aim to include “disputed territories” in the referendum; including the Nineveh Plains, Sinjar and oil-rich Kirkuk.

Nineveh Plains region (the Assyrian heartland) is marked with a Cross.

Despite pressure from Kurd and pro-Kurd authorities, virtually all Assyrians oppose the referendum and don’t want their lands included. As noted by Assyrian Democratic Movement deputy secretary-general Imad Yohanna, “Most of Iraq’s Christian community opposes a regional referendum. We reject this referendum; we don’t view it as beneficial to our people’s future. Holding a referendum in areas to which they [Assyrian Christians] have yet to return would be an injustice and an exploitation of internally displaced people.”

An Assyrian militia known as the Babylon Brigade released a statement accusing some Christian politicians of supporting the referendum for personal gain; and insisting that the referendum not be “imposed on Christians and other residents living in Nineveh Plains by means of collections of signatures obtained under intimidation”. With some 12,000 Kurdish peshmerger currently deployed across the Nineveh Plains, ostensibly to maintain order but also to reign in dissent, Assyrians have good reason to feel anxious.

Meanwhile, fearing Shi’ite power, Nineveh’s Sunni Arabs support Kurdish independence and do want to be included.

Outside of Nineveh Province, Iraq’s minority Sunnis are mostly opposed Kurdish independence, aware it would leave them more marginalised than ever.

EXPLOSIVE KIRKUK

In a move destined to destabilise the whole region, Dr. Najmaldin Karim – the Kurdish governor of oil-rich Kirkuk (which was controlled by Baghdad until Kurdish forces seized it in the chaos of August 2014) – has declared that Kirkuk will participate in the referendum.

On Tuesday 12 September, Iraq’s central government passed a resolution opposing the proposed referendum and authorising Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to “take all measures” necessary to preserve the unity of Iraq.

On 14 September the Iraqi parliament voted to remove Karim from his post. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) responded by announcing it was ending its partnership with Baghdad. Karim, meanwhile, is ignoring the order to step down as governor.

Further to this, Hamdi Malik reports for Al-Monitor: “The Imam Ali Division, an armed Shiite faction in Iraq backed by Iran and very close to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, warned Sept. 3 that it will attack Kirkuk if the city is annexed to Kurdistan or to whatever independent state that might be established as a result of the referendum. The division’s spokesman, Ayoub Faleh (also known as Abu Azrael), hinted that Iran has given the unit the green light to attack Kirkuk if it decides to secede from Iraq. . .

“Hadi al-Amiri, secretary-general of the Badr Organization, an Iraqi political party close to Iran, said his group also will take up arms if Kurdish parties pursue their separatist projects. . .

“Iran,” explains Malik, “is fiercely opposed to Kurdistan’s independence projects, including the referendum, and is particularly against Kirkuk’s participation. . .

“Maysam Behravesh, an expert on international relations at Sweden’s University of Lund, told Al-Monitor by phone, ‘Given Iran’s troubled history with Kurds inside and outside of its territory, it will not tolerate a newborn Kurdish independent state, and one presumably close to its arch-foe Israel at that. . . I think if the Kurds either declare independence or take Kirkuk out of Iraqi hands, Iran will be unlikely to intervene directly to oppose or reverse these moves. Yet it will probably act by proxy and unleash its Shia paramilitary forces against the Kurdistan government.”

Kurds across region

Like Iran, Turkey also opposes the referendum on the grounds that it could embolden its own restive Kurdish minorities. In what can only be seen as a strong message to the KRG, the Turkish Armed Forces staged military exercises on 18 September, outside the town of Silopi, which sits less than 10 km from the intersection of Turkey’s borders with Syria and Iraq, close to the Habur border crossing with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Barin Kayaoglu surmised for Al-Monitor, that with approximately 100 tanks, armored personnel carriers and self-propelled artilleries participating in the drill, “The timing and venue of the exercises leave little doubt that Ankara is displeased with the Sept. 25 independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan.”

Adding fuel to the fire, Turkish pro-government media has been spreading the unsubstantiated rumour (fake news) that Israel – the only state in the region to support Kurdish independence – plans to resettle some 200,000 Jewish Israelis of Kurdish origin into Iraqi Kurdistan should it become independent. The Israeli Embassy in Ankara had to be evacuated on Friday 15 September as supporters of an ultra-nationalist party demonstrated outside against the alleged Zionist plot to create a “second Israel” in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Meanwhile, the pro-Kurdish US is opposed to the referendum on the grounds that it will weaken Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to the benefit of Iran ahead of the April 2018 general elections.

Many Kurds too are opposed to the referendum, primarily because they sense this is simply not the right time for such a provocative move.

While lamenting Iraq’s deep wounds, Juliana Taimoorazy, head of the Illinois-based Iraqi Christian Relief Council (ICRC), echo that concern: “This is not the time for a referendum. Most of our [Assyrian] people in Iraq and in the Diaspora want Iraq to stay intact . . . We are worried, if this goes through, we will be subjected again to another war that will be by Turkey or Iran attacking the Kurds.’

HEAVY DIPLOMACY

The seriousness of the situation is reflected in the frantic efforts underway to try and convince KRG President Massoud Barzani to cancel or indefinitely postpone the referendum. To that end, Barzani has received visits from Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT); Qasem Soleimani, chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force; and Brett McGurk, the US special anti-IS envoy, who was accompanied by US Ambassador Douglas Silliman.

Soleimani reportedly threatened senior Kurdish officials, saying: “Until now, we have held back the [Popular Mobilization Units (PMU)] from attacking, but I will not bother to do that anymore. Just look at Mandali and what happened there. That is the beginning."  Al-Monitor explains that Soleimani was referring to an incident on 11 September, in which a group of over a hundred Iranian-backed Iraqi militia fighters arrived in the disputed sub-district of Mandali in Diyala province, 100 km northeast of Baghdad, and forced the Kurdish head of the town’s council out of his job and announced that the town will not be included in the Kurdistan referendum.

However, it has all been to no avail. On Sunday 17 September, the KRG’s High Referendum Council, headed by Barzani, voted to reject the US-backed alternative and press ahead with the 25 September referendum on independence as planned.

ASSYRIAN LEADER APPEALS FOR COURAGEOUS DIALOGUE

Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako has issued an urgent appeal, calling on Erbil and Baghdad to “resume dialogue with courage”.

He laments that “some have already started playing the war drums,” noting, “If there were a new military conflict, the consequences would be disastrous for everyone, and minorities would always be the ones to pay a high price . . .

"Everyone,” he said, “should be aware of the seriousness of the situation and hurry to support national reconciliation and peace before it is too late.”


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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.

She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and, After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).

See www.ElizabethKendal.com

Middle East Crisis Entirely Predictable

Sir John Chilcot right to say hindsight not required
by Elizabeth Kendal

How often do you hear it said that the current crisis in Middle East is “unprecedented”?

Despite being routinely parroted by our political, academic and media elites, this assertion is absolutely false.

Those who make this claim are either embarrassingly ignorant of history, or desperate to excuse their utter cluelessness and/or deflect criticism from their catastrophic policy failures.

Surely one of the most pivotal sentences in the 150 page executive summary of Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq Inquiry is one found on page 129 under the heading “Lessons”, subheading “The decision to go to war”, in paragraph 828: “When the potential for military action arises, the Government should not commit to a firm political objective before it is clear that it can be achieved.”

Could the US-led West's objectives in Iraq have been achieved? 

Iraq straddles one of the most volatile religious fault-lines on the planet. Consequently, even the most basic understanding of Iraq’s sectarian dynamics and history would have given anyone considering war cause for concern.

Likewise, anyone with a basic understanding of the Islamic worldview would have known that an invasion of “infidel” forces would have triggered Islamic resistance. Furthermore, anyone with knowledge of the history of Muslim-Christian relations in the Middle East would have anticipated the consequences for local Christians should Islamic resistance be triggered or an Islamic order restored.

The events of 1979—the successful Shi’ite revolution in Iran and the failed Sunni revolution in Saudi Arabia—heightened Islamic and sectarian zeal, and set in motion the wheels of global Islamic radicalisation. One generation later, the Middle East was a radicalised Islamic tinderbox just waiting for a spark. Had Western policy-makers truly understood and appreciated that fact, then they might have heeded the warnings and accepted an alternative. Yes, there were alternatives!

In late 2002, Russian President Vladimir Putin advised the administration of President G. W. Bush that instead of going after Saddam Hussein, it should concentrate on the real sponsors of Islamic terror, specifically Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and put an end to the Saudi funding of Wahhabi extremism.
As terrorism analyst Yossef Bodansky explains: “Russian experts warned that the problem in Iraq was not just Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction, but rather the prevailing radical militant trends. They urged the Americans to be ready to deal with radicalized populations, Sunni Islamist militancy, a radical Shiite population under Iranian influence, the flow of al-Qaeda operatives, and Kurdish-Turkish and Turkman-Arab hatred—all of which were likely to intensify in reaction to an American invasion of Iraq.” The Kremlin’s position was that rather than defeating terrorism, a US-led invasion would actually create and open new venues for terrorism.

In receipt of an abundance of intelligence from all sides, the onus was on Western policy-makers to assess that intelligence. Unfortunately our political leaders were ill-equipped for the task. Lacking knowledge of history and understanding of religion; blinded by arrogance [“where everyone else failed, we will succeed!”] and hamstrung by bias [“we are not going to listen to Russia!”], they were incapable of discerning wisdom from fantasy, or interest-driven propaganda from plain hard reality.

When US-led forces bombed and invaded Iraq in 2003, and removed Saddam and the Baathists by force, they liberated not “the Iraqi people”, but the Iraqi Shi’ites—facilitating the rise of the “Shia Crescent”.

By 2005 Iraq, once part of a north-south Sunni bloc, was fully integrated into an east-west "Shia Crescent" (more accurately known as the Axis of Resistance) with Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1982 vision of a continuous arc of Iranian influence extending from Tehran “to Jerusalem . . .  through Kabala” (in southern Iraq) awaiting only its final installment.

That Iraq’s political realignment would trigger Sunni resistance in Iraq, and have regional implications for oil and gas pipeline politics, and existentially imperil the region’s US-allied Sunni regimes—was entirely predictable.

That conflict in Iraq would attract international jihadists, and result in the genocide of minorities—including the region’s indigenous Christian nation (the Assyrians)—was all entirely predictable to anyone with knowledge of history and understanding of religion.

Sir John Chilcot was absolutely right to reject Tony Blair’s contention that the difficulties encountered after the invasion could not have been foreseen.

“We do not agree that hindsight is required,” Chilcot said. “The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and al-Qaida activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion.”

What a pity the Chilcot report had not been released in 2010, before the US-led West chose to back regime change in Damascus.

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Elizabeth Kendal is a long-time religious liberty analyst and advocate, author of the weekly Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin. She serves as the Director of Advocacy at Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF) in Canberra, Australia, and is an adjunct research fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.

Her second book, After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East, (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA) was released in June 2016. For more information see: www.ElizabethKendal.com  

Unprecedented?

The Plight of Minorities in the Middle East

On Sunday 26 July 2015, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) held a policy forum entitled, 'Policy Solutions for Persecuted Religious Minorities,' as part of the Australia Labor Party FRINGE Program, an event running alongside the Australian Labor Party (ALP) annual national conference in the Melbourne Convention Centre.

The forum, which was hosted by ACL Managing Director Lyle Shelton, featured (in order of appearance): Syrian journalist Johnny Abo, Elizabeth Kendal (religious liberty analyst, advocate and author), Chris Hayes (MP), His Grace Bishop Suriel of the Coptic Church and Maria Vamvakinou (MP). The purpose of the forum was to raise awareness of the plight of the Middle East's persecuted and existentially threatened religious minorities, and to propose policy solutions.

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Unprecedented? 
By Elizabeth Kendal
www.ElizabethKendal.com

Iraq’s last official census (1987) counted 1.4 million Assyrians (the indigenous people of Mesopotamia, who are Christian). But as Islamic zeal and Arab nationalism rose in the wake of Gulf War One (1991) persecution escalated and Christians with means emigrated.

By the time of the March 2003 US-led invasion, the Christian population of Iraq was estimated to have declined to between 800,000 and 1.2 million.

By 2010 -- church bombings, killings and kidnappings had caused the Christian population to decline to around 400,000. By this time, the Mandaeans of southern Iraq – a pacifist people who follow the teachings of John the Baptists – preaching righteousness and engaging in regular baptisms for the forgiveness of sins – had been essentially annihilated.

In December 2011 – as the last US troops prepared to withdraw – Archbishop Louis Sako of the Chaldean Catholic Church gave voice to the pervasive fear, that if the persecution continues with such intensity, “Iraq could be emptied of Christians”.

In Australia, the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) published an open letter to the Prime Minister, appealing for help from the Australian government. The letter included this grave warning:“The slow genocide of the indigenous Assyrians, also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs, in Iraq now sits at the tipping point of a relentless and inexorable genocide, leading to ethnic extinction.” 
After detailing the destruction of churches, the targeted violent persecution of Christians and the desperate flight of more than 600,000 Assyrians since 2003, the AUA letter highlighted the saddest and most shameful aspect of all:“Despite the scale of this human tragedy and the drastic displacement of the Assyrians, the International Community’s response has been almost non-existent and the displaced Assyrians have been left to their demise.”

In March 2013 – on the 10-year anniversary of the US invasion – Canon Andrew White (a.k.a. as the Vicar of Baghdad) estimated that a mere remnant of 200,000 Christians remained – with most hunkered down in Nineveh Province – in the provincial capital Mosul, and in Iraq’s largest Assyrian city, Bakhdida (a.k.a. Qaraqosh).

In June 2014 – ISIS swept into Nineveh, seizing Mosul in a blitzkrieg as tens of thousands of Iraqi security personnel (Shi’ites) fled for their lives, unwilling to defend the city, especially in the face of widespread Sunni support for ISIS.

On Friday 18 July 2014, ISIS – now known as Islamic State (IS) – issued an ultimatum: Christians would have until midday of the next day to either convert to Islam, submit as dhimmis (second-class citizens) and pay the jizya (protection money) – otherwise they would “face the sword”.

Mosul’s remnant Christians departed, causing Archbishop Sako to lament, “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.”

In August 2014, IS drove the Assyrians from Qaraqosh and totally ethnically-religiously cleansed the entire Nineveh Plain. The plight of the Yazidis stranded on Mt Sinjar captured the attention of the world. Some 3000 women were taken captive, to be sold as sex-slaves.

Patriarch Louis Sako, issued a statement on 10 Aug 2014, in which he warned that Iraq’s Christians “are facing a human catastrophe and risk a real genocide”.

Lamenting that all the churches from Mosul to the border of Iraqi Kurdistan were now deserted and desecrated, he added, “The level of disaster is extreme.”

In SYRIA meanwhile – where religious minorities makes up around 25 percent (12% Alawite, 10% Christian) the Syrian government stands as the last line of defence preventing a genocide of the minorities. The threat was made clear from the outset, for when the banned Syrian Muslim Brotherhood led a “day of rage” in the “Arab Spring” of April 2011, protesters were heard chanting in the streets, “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave”.

As Syria was flooded with international jihadis, the threat became existential.

In March 2013, the northern city of Al-Raqqa became the first provincial capital to fall under rebel control. In Jan 2014, ISIS and al-Nusra split – with al-Nusra concentrating on the Battle for Aleppo, and ISIS assuming full control of Al-Raqqa where they enforced Sharia law without compromise, without mercy. 

In March 2015, Idlib became the second provincial capital to fall under rebel control after a rebel coalition led by al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra, but including several FSA battalions, stormed the city.

Everywhere the rebels have gained control Christians have been forced to flee – many have perished.

In February 2015 – IS fighters raided a string of Assyrian villages along the Khabour River in north-eastern Haseka, displacing thousands. Some 230 Assyrians remain in IS captivity to this day.

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More than 250,000 Armenians
were massacred in the
pogroms of 1894-96.
Armenian Genocide Museum

How many times have you heard it said that the current crisis in the Middle East is “unprecedented”?

Well – I’d like to suggest that it is not the least bit unprecedented. 

Read up on the last century of the Caliphate: that is, through the 19C to the Armenian Genocide [1915-23]. The threat to minorities is not unprecedented. We have seen all this before!

Read up on the influence of the rabid anti-Semite Haj Amin al-Husseini the Mufti of Jerusalem, who aligned with the Nazis and incited violence against Jews throughout the Balkans and the Middle East. Today the Arab lands are proudly judenrein (free of Jews). So even the elimination of an entire ethno-religious group would not be unprecedented.

Today we lament Western silence in the face of genocide. But this too is not unprecedented. Western governments have routinely abandoned the minorities to their fate and stood idly by in silence as they were driven from their homes and slaughtered.

Why?

1. Western powers have long believed their “vital interests” are best served by maintaining pro-Arab, pro-Muslim policies.
2. Western powers have great faith in democracy (reduced these days to elections and majority rule). The trouble is, as Western efforts to democratise the Middle East have converged with Islamic revival, the result, for the minorities, has been catastrophic.

Yes – minority rule might be brutal – but a minority cannot eliminate a majority.

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I believe the Australia government should stand with the persecuted and maintain a foreign policy committed to advancing religious liberty and aiding vulnerable, existentially imperiled minorities.

Concerning those [existentially imperiled minorities] who want to stay in their homeland: I believe we should help them by providing aid directly to them, and by working with regional governments to secure safe havens – particularly a safe haven in the Nineveh Plain, the historic homeland of the Assyrian nation. If safe havens could be made secure – then displaced families could at least get on with educating their children.

Concerning those [existentially imperiled minorities] who just want to leave, because they desperately want their children to have a future: I believe we should help them too by guaranteeing them places in Australia.
Let’s encourage our government to do something really unprecedented and for once, put the plight of existentially threatened minorities ahead of economics, geo-politics and political correctness.

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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012).