A Thriving American Legacy in Iraq

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 13 June 2013 | By FOUAD AJAMI

[MinorityRepublican]

Kurdistan Region, Iraq

The weather has cooperated and the commencement ceremony, held outdoors, proceeds as planned—jubilant students, speakers straining for humor and advice, the awarding of diplomas. The campus, a modern structure of tan stone sitting handsomely atop a hill, framed by nearby mountains, could be anywhere in the American Southwest. But this isn't America, it is the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani, in Iraqi Kurdistan's second-largest city.

Nearly all of Kurdistan's elite are on hand—former peshmerga military commanders, technocrats, businessmen, and two of the region's most influential younger politicians, Barham Salih, former prime minister of the regional government, and Nechirvan Barzani, the current occupant of that position.

The American University of Iraq-Sulaimani had been, as late as 2006, an impossible idea held by Mr. Salih, a devoted and driven modernizer with a doctorate of his own from the United Kingdom. Its first students attended classes in portable cabins. Today, in late May, a beautiful campus surrounds us, and degrees are being conferred in information technology, international studies and business administration.

The pride is palpable. Success and tranquillity have not been the lot of the Kurds, but now they are making, and safeguarding, their history.

The Kurds are not waiting on Baghdad. In May alone, 1,045 people were killed in Iraq, 2,377 wounded, and there were more than 560 episodes of violence. Several years back, a stranger venturing into Kurdistan was treated to tales of hurt and grief, the cruelty meted out by Saddam Hussein's Baath regime. The memory lives on, but there is in the air a sense of vindication—and practicality. On the ruins of that old, cruel world the Kurds are busy building a decent public order.

[headstamp 2]

“A member of the Kurdish political class lamented to me: “This world we have was bequeathed us by the United States, by the protection that Anglo-American air power gave us after the disastrous events of the first Gulf War of 1990-91. And now the troubles we have holding our own against Baghdad are the product of American policies as well.”

Of course, Obama is too busy embracing the lunatic Islamists to waste time with a proven ally. Damned fool.

[yldstrk]

As a former People to People sponsor of military officers to this country I can say the Kurds want nothing to do with the Iraquis

[McGavin999]

I know this is a funny thing to say but the Kurds really make you proud. They are exactly what a people should be. You give them a hand and they pull themselves up and work like crazy to keep themselves up. All you have to do is stand and let them know you are there if they need you, but they basically do it themselves. Too bad those in DC are such fools.