Chapter Twenty-One

Talabani’s Test

The insurgency, the surge, and the future

On September 13, 2005, President George W. Bush welcomed President Jalal Talabani to the White House for a series of private strategy meetings. When they were finished, the two leaders held a formal press conference.

“I’m proud to stand with a brave leader of the Iraqi people, a friend of the United States, and a testament to the power of human freedom,” Bush began. “Mr. President, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your courage. President Talabani has dedicated his life to the cause of liberty in Iraq. As a lawyer, journalist, and a political leader in northern Iraq, he stood up to a brutal dictator because he believes that every Iraqi deserves to be free. The dictator destroyed Kurdish villages, ordered poison gas attacks on a Kurdish city, and violently repressed other religious and ethnic groups. For President Talabani and his fellow citizens, the day Saddam was removed from power was a day of deliverance. And America will always be proud that we led the armies of liberation. The past two years, the Iraqi people have made their vision of their future clear. This past January, more than 8 million Iraqis defied the car bombers and the assassins and voted in free elections. It was an inspiring act of unity when 80 percent of the elected national assembly chose the president, a member of Iraq’s Kurdish minority, to lead the free nation.”515

The Iraqi president beamed. “It is an honor to represent the world’s youngest democracy,” he said graciously. “In the name of the Iraqi people, I say to you, Mr. President, and to the glorious American people, thank you, thank you. Thank you because you have liberated us from the worst kind of dictatorship. Our people suffered too much from this worst kind of dictatorship. The signal is mass graves with hundred thousand of Iraqi innocent children and women, young and old men. Thank you. And thanks to the United States, there are now fifty million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq liberated by your courageous leadership and decision to liberate us, Mr. President. We agree with Mr. President Bush that democracy is the solution to the problems of the Middle East. Mr. President, you are a visionary, great statesman. We salute you. We are grateful to you. We will never forget what you have done for our people.”

Talabani continued by declaring Iraq “partners” with the American people in the fight against the Radicals. “We are proud to say openly and to repeat it, that we are partners of the United States of America in fighting against tyranny, terrorism, and for democracy,” he said without apology. “That’s something we are not shy to say, and we’ll repeat it everywhere, here and in Iraq and the United Nations and everywhere. Iraqis and Americans alike in the war against terrorism. Our soldiers now fighting side by side with your brave soldiers, now and every day. We have captured many senior elements of Al Qaeda. We killed many of them. And we had also many of them in our prisons. . . . Now Iraq is a free country. . . . With your support, we [will] create a society enjoying democracy for the first time of the history.”516

What a remarkable moment. The world was watching the president of Iraq, of all countries, stand before a cynical White House press corps to thank the American people for their commitment to democracy and to suggest that Iraq could one day be a model of reform for other Middle Eastern countries.

More Troops, or Fewer?

To his enormous credit, the new Iraqi president was not just talk. As his entire life to date had demonstrated, he was a man of principle and a man of action. When he was tested, he rose to the challenge.

The first test came as the Sunni and Shia insurgencies accelerated. More and more Iraqis, Americans, and other Coalition members were being killed each and every day. A growing number of U.S. and foreign political leaders were urging President Bush to withdraw American forces and let the Iraqis fight on their own.

Talabani could not have disagreed more vehemently.

In November of 2006, Talabani met in Paris with then French president Jacques Chirac, who had strongly opposed the liberation of Iraq from the outset. Some may have expected Talabani to try to ingratiate himself to Chirac by agreeing with the French leader’s sharp criticisms of American leadership and his insistence that President Bush pull U.S. forces out of Iraq as quickly as possible.

But Talabani would have none of it. He not only reiterated his gratefulness for the U.S.-led regime change in Baghdad but added that he wanted U.S. forces to stay at least three more years. “We need time,” said Talabani. “Not twenty years, but time. I personally can say that two to three years will be enough to build up our forces and say to our American friends, ‘Bye bye with thanks.’”517

Behind the scenes, Talabani went further, urging the White House and Pentagon to send more U.S. troops to help defeat the Radicals in Iraq. He was not alone. One of his key allies in Washington, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, was also pressing the White House to implement a “surge” policy, putting an additional fifteen to thirty thousand U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq—and deploying them more effectively—despite the fact that polls showed only 15 to 18 percent of the American people supported such a policy.518

On January 10, 2007, President Bush formally embraced and announced his support for a surge, telling the American people that “it is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. . . . Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States. The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.”519

Bush noted that “our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents, and there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. This will require increasing American force levels. So I’ve committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them—five brigades—will be deployed to Baghdad. . . . Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad’s residents.”520

Battle over the Surge

The Bush-McCain surge policy unleashed a torrent of opposition in Washington, and the attacks came from both Democrats and Republicans.

Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, immediately went on MSNBC to declare his belief that the surge would make life in Iraq worse, not better. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq [are] going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”521

Later that night on CNN’s Larry King Live, Obama discounted the entire concept of creating a healthy, functional, representative government in Baghdad. “We know we are not going to have a Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq,” the junior senator insisted. “We have to have a more realistic and constrained view of what’s possible. . . . I don’t think we advance that task [securing Iraq]—in fact, I’m certain we don’t advance it—by putting more American troops at risk. . . . For us to simply think that by adding 15,000 or 20,000 more troops, as opposed to beginning a phased withdrawal, that we’re sending that message, I think we’re making a very bad mistake.”522

Talabani, by contrast, strongly and publicly supported the surge, insisted in numerous interviews in the Muslim world as well as in the West that he was an optimist about the future of his country, and adamantly refused to surrender to the Radicals by encouraging the U.S. to cut and run. In an interview with an Arab newspaper in Damascus just days after Obama’s comments, Talabani unleashed his fury against Islamic Radicals. He said he felt deep “resentment” toward them, especially toward al Qaeda, which he charged was “waging a war of extermination against the Iraqi people.” He said al Qaeda does not “respect Islam” because they are “targeting innocent civilians.”523

Talabani went on to reveal that in 2006, at least four thousand foreign-born terrorists—upward of 90 percent of whom enter his country through Syria—were killed inside Iraq by Iraqi and Coalition forces. Such terrorists were causing horrific damage inside his country, he said, noting that in 2006 some thirty-four thousand Iraqi civilians had been killed by Radical Islamic terrorists. “This is a form of genocide against the Iraqi people, carried out by people who came from outside Iraq,” Talabani charged.

“Al-Qaeda has announced that the Shias are Rafidites [infidels who reject legitimate Islamic authority and leadership] and therefore it is legitimate to kill them,” he added. “It has also announced that the Kurds are traitors; therefore it is permissible to kill them, and that the Arab Sunnis, who do not follow them, are apostates whose punishment is also known. . . . This is a declaration of war on the Iraqi people.”

Talabani was then asked by the Arab reporter conducting the interview, “Mr. President, are you afraid that there will be no way out of this situation?”

“No, I believe there is a way out,” Talabani replied confidently.

First, he argued that as more Iraqi security forces were properly trained and equipped and able to take the leading role in defending their country, the Reformers would be able to crush the Radicals.

Second, he argued that as the population watched the horrific explosion of Muslim-on-Muslim violence—and, just as important, as they watched the Reformers showing courage, fighting back, and actually defeating the Radicals—many more Iraqis would start to feel a measure of hope, would begin participating in the political process, and would help the Iraqi security forces hunt down the terrorists and uncover arms caches. In fact, he argued that this was already beginning to happen.

“The people of the terrorism-plagued areas have begun to resist the terrorists,” Talabani noted. “In certain areas, the people are completely ready to work with the government forces to put a lid on terrorist acts. This is a good phenomenon.” Just as exciting, he said he was watching “a change in the mindset of almost all the Sunni community” who once thought that U.S. military forces were the enemy and that Iranian insurgents and their money and weapons were a blessing because they were helping kill the “infidels.” But, Talabani said, “they now believe that Iran is the main danger, not the Americans,” and “they have already started secret negotiations with the Americans” about how to work together to stop the Iranians from killing so many Iraqis.

Worst-Case Scenario

A year after the new surge policy was announced and set into motion, I sat down with Mala Bakhtyar, Talabani’s spokesman, and asked him point-blank if the president still believed things were moving in the right direction.

Bakhtyar’s answer was an adamant yes. He noted that all the evidence at that point reinforced the Iraqi leader’s confidence that the surge was working. He said Talabani and other Iraqi leaders—including Prime Minister Maliki—believed Iraq was finally moving in the right direction, despite all the critics and naysayers in Washington.

“President Talabani is optimistic about the future of Iraq,” Bakhtyar told me unequivocally. “He believes the forces of extremism will be defeated. He believes we will solve most of the problems Iraqis are suffering with and that democracy will go forward. . . . We think Iraq will eventually emerge as the central democratic country in the region. Other Middle East countries will look to Iraq as the model.”

He added that Iraq could ultimately be more influential in the region than other moderate, pro-Western countries like Jordan, Morocco, the Gulf States, and the like “because of the revenues” from accelerated oil exploration, production, and export over the next few decades that will give Iraq the ability to invest in other moderate states and strengthen the hands of fellow Reformers.

“What does President Talabani worry about most?” I asked.

“The worst-case scenario is a civil war,” he said, one that is full-blown, engulfs the entire country (not just specific villages, cities, or regions), and leads to genocide. “If civil war had broken out, five hundred thousand to one million people would have been killed. . . . Many terrorist groups have worked and planned hard to create a civil war, supported by neighboring countries. . . . If the U.S. was not here, the civil war would have already happened. As a patriot, I hope foreign soldiers will not be in my country for long. But the reality is, they are necessary for now.”

He quickly added that Talabani and his senior advisors fear that if the U.S. and Coalition military forces pull out of Iraqi too early or too recklessly, democracy could collapse, and a true, full-blown civil war could still erupt, leading to wholesale slaughter and chaos in the region. Having seen genocide happen to his people before, Talabani has no intention of letting it happen again.

During our conversation, Bakhtyar was very careful not to discuss the American presidential campaign that was well under way at the time. He knew full well that Senator McCain had been an early proponent of the surge strategy, while Senators Obama and Clinton—among many other American politicians—had been strong proponents of leaving Iraq as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, Bakhtyar made it clear that leaders at the highest levels of the Iraqi government had grave concerns that the U.S. might abandon the Iraqi people in their time of need.

“President Talabani thinks the relationship with the United States is strategic and related to Iraq’s destiny,” Bakhtyar told me. “But a part of American public opinion is mistaken. They think Iraq is facing struggles because of the presence of American forces. On the contrary, 80 percent of those problems have been contained by U.S. and British forces. Look, Iraq has been around for eighty-plus years. We have fought against Israel four times. We fought Iran for eight years. We occupied Kuwait. We were under international embargo for thirteen years. There has been continual fighting throughout Kurdish history. From 1938 to 1945, there were three uprisings in the Barzan region. From 1961 to 1975, there was even more fighting in Kurdistan. From 1976 to 1991, there were many military operations and revolts. So what is Iraq? Is it a country or a butcher house? No one has experienced peace or happiness here. It’s a country of bloodshed. So why do we blame America for our troubles? Terrorists are fighting against the democratic process in Iraq. The terrorists are frightened of what will happen if democracy wins in Iraq. They know the age of terror and [Radical Islamic] fundamentalism will be over.”

“Aside from civil war and genocide,” I asked, “what else concerns the president about what the terrorists could do to derail the creation of a new Iraq?”

“Joel, 8 million weapons were distributed by Saddam before he fell,” Bakhtyar explained. “At the beginning of the insurgency, we estimated there were some eighty to ninety thousand volunteers to fight the U.S. Now we think that’s down to between four and five thousand. This is still a big menace. The assassination of Talabani or al-Maliki would have a huge effect. . . . Talabani is not just the president of Iraq. He is, in many ways, seen as the real leader of Iraq, because none of the rest of the Iraqi politicians right now has the trust and confidence of the Shias, and the Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds, and the leftists. This is the courtyard of President Talabani, because he is most wise and experienced leader Iraq has had in a long time.”

“Are you personally optimistic about the future of your country?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said with a smile. “I believe the democrats in the Middle East will win this war in the next ten to fifteen years.”

Stunning Results

Not everyone has been so optimistic.

In the spring of 2007, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, marked the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Iraq by declaring that “this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything.”524

In the spring of 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton marked the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Iraq by denouncing the entire effort—a war she voted to authorize—as “a war we cannot win.”525

That same spring, former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who served in the Clinton-Gore administration, insisted that “Iraq will go down in history as the biggest disaster in American foreign policy.”526

Talabani and his senior advisors say the exact opposite is true. They say the “surge” has proved a stunning success. They say the war in Iraq not only can be won but is being won. Moreover, they say that Iraq will go down in history as one of America’s greatest success stories. And they say they now have solid and compelling evidence to prove their claims.

As far as the “surge” is concerned, in just the first nine months of 2007, the number of U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq increased from 132,000 to 168,000. More troops and better tactics and strategies in using those troops had an immediate and powerful impact. During those first nine months, Iraqi officials note that 4,882 insurgents were killed by Iraqi and Coalition forces. That was a 25 percent increase from the same period the year before. It brought the overall total to nearly twenty thousand insurgents killed in Iraq in the first five years after liberation. More than twenty-five thousand insurgents were captured in the first five years as well.527

Over the course of the following year or so, the results were even more impressive. In August of 2008, Moqtada al-Sadr—the Radical Shia firebrand—effectively surrendered. He ordered his fighters to lay down their arms and transform their Mahdi Army into a social services organization. This was a dramatic development and is a key reason why violence levels continue to drop.

Could al-Sadr reverse course at any moment and launch a new and even more violent insurgency? Yes. Could Iran decide to invest even more heavily in such a revived insurgency? Absolutely. So Talabani and his team remain vigilant. But they certainly do not believe al-Sadr would have folded if the U.S. had unilaterally surrendered and left the country as many in Washington and European capitals were strongly recommending.

By the end of August 2008, even the New York Times had to acknowledge how much progress was being made. “The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now,” wrote Times correspondent Dexter Filkins. “Violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures [U.S. General David Petraeus] provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq—13—than in any month since the war began.”528

Bremer’s Perspective

In July of 2008, I called Ambassador L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer, who was appointed by President Bush as presidential envoy to Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, and asked him for his assessment of the situation in Iraq. Bremer had been there essentially from the beginning. He knew Talabani well. He had seen the horrific violence al Qaeda, the Mahdi Army, and others had unleashed in the country over the previous several years. So I asked him, “Looking back on your time in Iraq and considering all that has happened since you were there, whom do you believe is winning—the Radicals or the Reformers—and why?”

The long-time diplomat—Bremer served in the State Department for twenty-three years—and confidant of the legendary Henry Kissinger thought about the question for a moment. Then he said he was finally cautiously optimistic that Iraq was going to turn out well. There had been a number of very painful years, he readily acknowledged, but now he believed there was light at the end of the tunnel, and it was not an oncoming train.

“The Sunni extremists are on the way to losing what they themselves define as the central battle—the battle in Iraq—after being thrown out of power in Afghanistan,” Bremer told me. “They really have come close to losing in Iraq. This could certainly still change. But I think the Sunni Radicals overplayed their hand in Iraq.”529

When I asked him to explain, Bremer said first that in his view, al Qaeda leaders and other Sunni extremists have overplayed their hand by talking incessantly about creating a Sunni-led Islamic caliphate. “When they talk about reestablishing the caliphate, average Iraqis,”—60 percent of whom are Shia Muslims—“hear, ‘Gee, they’re talking about Sunni domination. Didn’t we just get rid of a thousand years of Sunni domination?’”

Second, Bremer said he believed Al Qaeda in Iraq had overplayed their hand by instigating Muslim-on-Muslim violence that Iraqis saw on their televisions—as well as in their streets—day after day, night after night, week after week. “The Sunni Radicals have killed so many innocent Shias, and almost succeeded into setting off a full-blown sectarian war,” said Bremer. “But Iraqi Sunnis are now pushing back. The Anbar awakening was impressive, seeing tens of thousands of average, everyday Sunni citizens band together against al Qaeda.”

Bremer also noted a third trend he found positive. He recently had a meeting with Sunni tribal leaders in Washington who told him, “We’re close allies with you [the U.S.] because of our common enemy—Iran.” After that meeting, Bremer concluded that “Sunni Arabs who were very hesitant to welcome us overthrowing Saddam [who himself was a Sunni] are finally coming to see they have a major stake in us succeeding because of what they see as the serious threat posed by Iran.” Iraqi Sunnis do not want to be controlled by the Shias of Iran, and many have come to realize that if Sunnis force a civil war with Iraqi Shias, they could drive those Shias into the arms of Iran once and for all, a prospect they do not find appealing at all.

Confronting the Cynics

Not everyone, of course, believes it is possible to build a Jeffersonian democracy in the Muslim world, much less in a country as challenging as Iraq.

Barack Obama put it this way during his 2008 presidential campaign: “We were told this would make us safer and that this would be a model of democracy in the Middle East. Hasn’t turned out that way. . . . This Administration’s policy has been a combination of extraordinary naivety—the notion that, you know, we’ll be greeted as liberators, flowers will be thrown at us in Iraq, we’ll be creating a Jeffersonian democracy, that it’s a model.”530

Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, the Delaware Democrat, readily concurred, dismissing President Bush’s “wholesome but naive view that Western notions of liberty are easily transposed to that area of the world. . . . I think the president . . . thinks there’s a Thomas Jefferson or a (James) Madison behind every sand dune waiting to jump up, and there are none.”531

The Obama-Biden ticket was hardly alone. Anthony Zinni, the retired Marine Corps general who once led the U.S. Central Command, argued that “the Bush administration’s idea that you could transplant a Jeffersonian democracy to Iraq and christen it with a single election and a lot of fingers dipped in ink was ridiculous. . . . Civics 101 should have alerted you that the region wasn’t ready and that we first needed viable government structures, functioning political parties that everyone understood, and an educated electorate.”532

Despite such critics, however, Jalal Talabani remains undaunted. He believes to the core of his being that Iraqis want freedom and democracy. He believes Iraqis are capable of creating a society of peace and prosperity. He also believes Iraqis are making great and steady progress. He does not claim it is easy. He does not claim there will not be setbacks. But one thing is clear: he is willing to live and fight and die, if necessary, to accomplish what is for him a lifelong dream.

In a sea of sadness and cynicism throughout the epicenter, I have to say, Talabani strikes me as a man of impressive integrity, courage, and hope for the future. As best as I can tell, he is a Reformer who is getting results, and that is no small thing anywhere in our world, but particularly in the heart of the Muslim Middle East.

A Conversation with Qubad Talabani

After these two chapters on President Talabani were largely completed, I was invited to meet with and interview Qubad Talabani, the son of the Iraqi president, on October 10, 2008, in his Washington, D.C., office. Naturally, I accepted without reservations.

Born in London in 1977, Qubad—whose name has Zoroastrian origins and means “upright and strong”—currently represents the Kurdistan Regional Government in Washington and serves as a personal advisor to his father, particularly on U.S.-Kurdish and U.S.-Iraqi relations. I found Qubad very engaging—intelligent, sophisticated, good-humored, passionate about his people and his country, and as optimistic as his father about the future. I also found him to be a strong believer that building a Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq is both possible and the right thing to do, no matter how long it takes.

“It would be unwise for the United States not to finish the job [in Iraq],” Qubad told an American journalist in 2006. “It is half complete. You are still democratizing society in America after a few hundred years. We cannot expect to turn from tyrannical dictatorship to Jeffersonian democracy in two or three years. We have been ruled by personalities for decades. We need to create institutions of government, with checks and balances within the political system that can protect people’s civil liberties. A premature disengagement would lead to the collapse of our fledgling government, and would turn the situation into a full-scale civil war.”533

To that I would simply add, “Amen.”

What follows are excerpts of my conversation with Qubad Talabani.

JOEL C. ROSENBERG: For many years, your father was really a guerrilla leader, wasn’t he, fighting for Kurdish liberation from the Ba’ath Party and the Saddam regime?

QUBAD TALABANI: He was, but he was never a terrorist. His party, the PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan], never attacked civilians. Their sole target was Saddam’s military. In 1983, my father told the leaders of the PKK [a Kurdish militant faction in northern Iraq and southern Turkey fighting for liberation from the Turks] that they had to lay down their weapons and stop attacking civilians. But they didn’t listen. . . . In 1991, during the Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein, the PUK forces had at one point captured 120,000 Iraqi troops. Not one of them was killed. All were treated humanely. They were fed, and eventually they were released and sent back to their homes. Compare that to the tens and tens of thousands of Kurds that were massacred by Saddam’s forces.

ROSENBERG: Did you or your father ever imagine a Kurdish president?

TALABANI (laughing): No, I never imagined such a thing. Nor did my father. In fact, when I see him on TV and hear him introduced as the president of Iraq, it still makes me look twice. It sometimes doesn’t seem real. It’s even more remarkable when you realize that in 1983, Saddam Hussein gave amnesty to all the members of the Kurdish resistance movement—everyone except Jalal Talabani.

You should talk to Zalmay Khalilzad.534 He will tell you about a meeting in 2002 in London. It was a conference of Iraqi opposition leaders. There was lots of squabbling going on. The meeting was completely disorganized. But finally my father pulled seven or eight key people in a room by themselves and calmed them down, and they were able to make progress on whatever issue was troubling them. At the end of the meeting, Zalmay took my father aside and said, “You know, you’re the only one in this room who could be the president of Iraq one day.” My father laughed. It was very kind what Zalmay said, but I’m not sure my father took it very seriously at the time. Years later, though, when my father was, in fact, elected president, one of the first calls he got was from Zalmay saying, “See, I told you so.”

ROSENBERG: Where were you when you learned the news that your father had been elected president?

TALABANI: I was in D.C. I was alone. It was a very emotional moment for me. I could hardly believe it. I poured myself a glass of cognac, and I thought about Frank Sinatra’s famous song “I Did It My Way,” because that is exactly how my father has lived his life and risen to power—doing it his own way. And now he had succeeded.

You have to understand, I never saw my father until I was four years old. After I was born, my mother and I lived in London to be safe from all the troubles in Iraq. My father was back in Kurdistan and traveling constantly. And one day there was a knock at the door, and I opened the door and then I went running to mother, and I said, “Mom, there’s a man at the door.” And she said, “That’s not just a man. That’s your father.” I was shocked. So I went back and let him in. But then I was being a little plucky and I said, “Where’s my gift?” And he said, “Well, I don’t have a gift. I’m sorry.” And I said, “What kind of father comes to your door and claims to be your father and doesn’t bring a gift?”

ROSENBERG: Now, at least, your father has given you and all the Kurdish people a gift—an Iraq free from Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party.

TALABANI: That’s true. I called him that day and I said, “Mr. President, congratulations.” He got choked up, and he said, “Mr. Ambassador, congratulations.” It was really quite a remarkable moment. After all, very few political [opposition] parties actually achieve the objective for which they were created. But my father’s party has. They were founded in 1975 to remove Saddam Hussein from power and to create a federal, democratic Iraq. And against all odds, they have succeeded.

ROSENBERG: What would you say are the biggest signs of progress since your father became the president of Iraq?

TALABANI: I think the biggest sign of progress has been that people have actually turned against the extremists—against al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army. In part, the extremists have brought this upon themselves with all of their attacks against innocent civilians. Eventually Iraqis said, “Enough is enough.” And, of course, the surge policy [of more U.S. troops assisting Iraqi forces] has been very effective. Al Qaeda is now on the run. The Mahdi Army is laying low. So by and large we have a dramatically improved security situation

Things are still fragile, of course. We still don’t know how long things will stay quiet. But there’s no question that right now the fact that Iraqis feel safer and more secure and want the Iraqi government and the Coalition to succeed in defeating the extremists is the single biggest sign of success since 2005.

ROSENBERG: Are there other successes you would point to that have occurred on your father’s watch?

TALABANI: There are. I would call them mini successes. None are as important as crushing the terrorists, but they are still very important. The state of the Iraqi media is one success story. The media is very open now. There has been a proliferation of newspapers and radio stations and satellite TV channels and Web sites and blogs. Lots of Internet cafes have opened. News is being reported openly. People are able to voice their opinions openly about everything. That is a huge, positive change from life in Saddam’s police state.

Another success has been the lifting of the [international economic] sanctions. Goods and services are now moving between Iraq and other countries. Iraq is no longer isolated from the international community. This is also in sharp contrast to the Saddam era.

A third success, I would say, would be political pluralism. There are many political parties operating freely in Iraq today, and they represent many different ideas and points of view. This is quite a change.

And then, of course, this is the first time in Iraqi history that we’ve seen the peaceful transition from one government to another—no coups, no bloodshed, no conspiracies. Well, maybe a little conspiracy (laughter).535

ROSENBERG: What are some of your major concerns going forward?

TALABANI: One of my concerns is that while there is more openness to discuss political ideas in Iraq, there hasn’t emerged a real tolerance of different religious beliefs. As you can imagine, this is a real challenge in Iraq because we are so divided along sectarian lines—Shias, Sunnis, Christians, secularists, and others. I believe it is vital that we are able to develop a culture where people have strong religious views but can respect someone who disagrees with them without becoming violent. And we need to find ways to encourage religious tolerance at the national level as well as at the local and regional levels.

Let me give you an example of one way we should be doing this. The parliament recently debated the provincial elections law, but during the process they dropped Article 50 from the bill, which was a very important article. This article would mandate the representation of different ethnic and religious minorities in the local governments so that all religious groups have a voice and a say in local decisions. President Talabani and a number of his colleagues have sent the bill back for reconsideration, insisting that Article 50 be reinstated to protect minority religious views. The KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government, representing five of Iraq’s eighteen provinces] is also pressing for Article 50 to be put back into the final bill.

ROSENBERG: Well, this raises a very interesting point to me, Qubad. Because during all of my research about Iraq and my travels in the country, I have been struck by how tolerant the Kurdish people—most of whom are Sunni Muslims—are of Christians. When we drive through Kurdish military checkpoints, if the soldiers find out that we are Christians, they smile and wave us right through. There are many churches operating openly and safely throughout Kurdistan. Christians are able to freely talk about their faith in Christ. In fact, several colleagues and I had the opportunity to attend a conference of some 640 Iraqi pastors and Christian leaders near Lake Dukan, within sight of your family’s presidential home. I personally cannot think of any other country in the Muslim world where hundreds of Christian leaders could openly gather for worship, prayer, and Bible teaching so close to a president’s house.

TALABANI: You would be brave to have 640 pastors and Christians holding a meeting in front of King Abdullah’s house in Jordan—and he’s a very nice guy. You couldn’t have such a gathering in Baghdad right now. You all would have been massacred. And this is what I’m talking about—we need to create a culture of true religious freedom and tolerance.

ROSENBERG: I absolutely agree. But why are the Kurdish people and President Talabani not just tolerant of Christians but actually supportive of them and even protective of them?

TALABANI: We [as Kurds] were always an oppressed people. Now that we’re not, it’s unthinkable to us to oppress a minority.

ROSENBERG: Well, you certainly could oppress other minorities if you wanted to. Many groups throughout history have found their freedom only to turn against those who previously oppressed them.

TALABANI: Well, we simply can’t do it. That’s not who we are. It’s just not possible for us to turn against the Christians, for example. We’ve seen what the Christians have done in Kurdistan—helping grow the economy, bringing tourism, investments—and we’re grateful for that.

One thing you should note, Joel, is that we as Kurds put our ethnic identity before our religious identity. The fact that most Kurds are Sunni Muslims never protected us as a minority under the Saddam regime. He was a Sunni Muslim, as were all of his advisors. But they never treated us well just because we were Sunnis. Just the opposite. He attacked us constantly. He used weapons of mass destruction against us. He killed thousands of Kurds despite the fact that we were the same religion as him.

I want American Christians to know that Jalal Talabani is the biggest champion they have in Iraq—more than the leaders of the Christian political parties—not because he cares more than the Christian [political] leaders but because he’s able to use his authority more to ensure the rights of Christians. He’s helping to protect churches. He’s doing everything he can to protect and advance religious freedom for Christians. And he hopes that someday all of Iraq will be as safe and free for Christians as Kurdistan is today.

ROSENBERG: Qubad, do you believe Kurdistan could serve as a model for the rest of Iraq? After all, you have a sixteen-year head start, right? After the first Gulf War, the U.S. imposed a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, keeping Saddam’s forces from being able to attack the Kurds. That newfound level of freedom led to the passage of a democratic constitution, the creation of a parliament, free and fair democratic elections. It certainly hasn’t been easy for the Kurds. There were violent battles between various Kurdish political groups, including the one headed up by your father and another headed by the Barzani family. But eventually you all seem to have figured things out.

Your father is now the first truly democratically and constitutionally elected president in the history of Iraq. Massoud Barzani is the democratically elected president of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Nechirvan Barzani is the prime minister of the KRG. You are operating as an ambassador or representative of the KRG in Washington. The Kurdish economy is growing steadily. New homes are being constructed. New office buildings are being constructed. Foreign direct investment into Kurdish businesses is rising. Americans feel safe there. Christians feel safe there. Isn’t it possible that Kurdistan looks today like what the rest of Iraq will look like in another ten to fifteen to twenty years?

TALABANI: I think Kurdistan could serve as a model. We went through the mistakes that the rest of Iraq is going through now. But we were able to figure things out eventually. We were able to set aside our political differences when we saw a larger goal—overthrowing Saddam. It did take time. And it did take the U.S. to bang our heads together and insist that we come together. But we finally saw the benefits of a united Kurdish front, and we have made an enormous amount of progress over the last sixteen years or so, and specifically over the last four or five years.

Will the rest of Iraq follow our lead? I don’t know. There’s still a lot of political immaturity in Iraq at large, much like we had in the nineties. But the fact that there is a Kurd serving as the president of the country—that, I think, is a hopeful sign.

In the winter of 2010, Iraq held a new round of national elections, as prescribed by the constitution. Violence in the country was way down. Turnout was strong at 62.4 percent. But the race for prime minister was too close to call. In fact, the vote was so close that month after month went by without the country knowing for certain whether Nouri al-Maliki and his party (the Shia religious party known as the State of Law Coalition) would once more gain control, or whether one of the rival parties (such as Iraqiya, run by Dr. Ayad Allawi, a secular Shia leader who served as an appointed prime minister of Iraq just after the liberation in 2003 and before full national elections had been held) would gain control instead.

Even as President Obama pulled U.S. combat forces out of Iraq by August 31, 2010 (due to the enormous success of the “surge” policy), it still was not clear who would lead the fledgling Iraqi democracy into the future as prime minister. After recounts and close election scrutiny from all sides, al-Maliki’s party appeared to control 89 seats. But Dr. Allawi’s party appeared to control 91 seats. However, both were vigorously asserting their right to form a new government, and neither showed any interest in compromising or forming a national unity government.

One thing was clear, though: despite Jalal Talabani’s serious health issues, he was going to receive a second term as president. He was, therefore, going to be the first democratically reelected president of Iraq. Such an accomplishment was a testament to how widely trusted and admired Talabani was throughout the country and across political, religious, and ideological lines. He was broadly perceived as a consensus builder and a man all sides could trust, in large part because of his reputation as an indefatigable Reformer. His future, and the future of Iraq, will be worth watching closely.