RUTHFULLY YOURS

With this grim statement, Kurdistan Regional Government Representative to the United States Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman opened a Sept. 10 panel at the Washington, D.C.Heritage Foundation to discuss the horror inflicted on Iraq by the Islamic State.

Fellow panelist Hudson Institute religious freedom expert Nina Shea described in detail a “religious genocide directed against the various religious groups that do not conform to ISIS’ vision of Sunni Islam” – factions such as Christians. Heritage national security expertSteve Bucci agreed, saying that his findings during an extensive study of the Islamic State provided the “clearest example of genocide that I have ever read or seen since World War II’s Nazis.” “We should not be afraid of using that word,” Rahman said, of the term “genocide.” While she acknowledged lawmaker concerns regarding the political drawbacks to utilizing such strong wording, she adamantly declared, “We should call a spade a spade.”

Shea spoke about the Islamic State’s rise in the context of Saudi education’s intolerance of the religious other that has created “immeasurable damage throughout the Sunni world with this brainwashing and these directives of hatred.” She referenced Quran 9:29’s traditional three choices for Christians and other monotheists subjugated by Islamic conquest: death, conversion to Islam or payment of the humiliating jizya poll tax, and pointed out that with ISIS, the latter option is a “bogus kind of arrangement, because the tax keeps rising.”

The panel spent much of its time focusing on the Islamic State’s practice of sex slavery, and showed a screening of the PBS Frontline documentary “Escaping ISIS.” The Islamic State is known to tout a revival of sexual slavery according to Islamic precedents, with the most recent example being a Ramadan Quran recitation contest in the ISIS capital of Raqqa, Syria, which offered slave girls as prizes to the participants.

Rahman called for an increase of foreign aid to help alleviate the “immense pressure” felt by the 1.8 million refugees who fled before ISIS to the Kurdistan Regional Government, swelling the KRG’s population by 30 percent. Many of these expats from minority groups such as Christians and Yazidis do not wish to return to their homes after they were so deeply traumatized by their neighbors’ collaboration with ISIS atrocities. Shea asked that when and if the United States and other Western countries consider admitting refugees from the region, they make a point to prioritize those who have been targeted with genocide.

Bucci, a former United States Army Special Forces officer, warned that the “longer we wait, the worse it’s going to get,” and termed ISIS a global and not just a regional threat. “Just by existing, they are winning,” he said, pointing out that the Islamic State’s defiance against a global coalition continues to inspire jihadists around the world. He recalled the U.S. military expression that “there are some people who just need to be killed.” Speaking for those who are already doing everything they can to combat this dangerous militant group, Rahman stressed the KRG’s need of military aid – including basic medical training – for its Peshmerga fighters confronting ISIS along a 1,500-kilometer front.

Rahman also criticized the Western media for showing its viewers the image of ISIS that the Islamic State itself creates: videos in which marching, black-clothed ISIS members exhibit an “aura of power.” Saying that those images “are just aphrodisiacs” for the Islamic State’s followers, Rahman called for increased exposure of ISIS fighters “when they are dirty rats” – such as after a humiliating capture.

The KRG representative publicly condemned the Islamic State’s totalitarian regime, which she said hides beneath the umbrella of Islam, claiming to be true Muslims – “their version of Islam.” Rahman translated for a visiting, emotion-filled member of Iraq’s Shabak minority, who said that “ISIS has no religion. ISIS is not Islam. It has no humanity.” Explaining how he believes human beings should treat each other, the Shabak said, “If he is not my brother in religion, in faith, he is my brother in humanity.”

After the panel, Rahman spoke about the struggle between Kurdistan’s indigenous Muslims and the ISIS-recruited foreign jihadists. For Kurds who have often battled against the suppression of their culture by non-Kurdish Muslim neighbors, “our national identity has always been at the forefront.” Today, the devout faith of many Kurds has mostly remained between the individual and his or her god. “We haven’t seen it as a political movement,” Rahman said, adding that Islamist parties have remained small in comparison to the dominant nationalist parties.

Reflecting an opinion raised more and more often in the public sphere, Rahman said she felt that it is next to impossible for Iraq to return to being a centralized state. Following that country’s current sectarian violence unleashed by the Islamic State, “there is a very thin thread keeping Iraq together – and any moment, that thread can snap,” she said. “The best that one could hope in terms of keeping Iraq united in the future would be a very loose federation analogous to Bosnia.”

Iraq’s Sunni Arab community remains in turmoil following the 2003 American-led invasion that ended Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime and the Sunnis’ decades of ruling Iraq. According to the panel, many Sunnis still cannot accept that their group is no longer in power, and this bitterness has led former Hussein Baath Party loyalists – including many military officers – to align themselves with ISIS jihadists against a common enemy in Iraq’s Shiite-dominated central government. Thus, the Islamic States foreign fighters become cannon fodder for masterminds in a combination of the Baathist ideology with this warped view of Islam.

In contrast, Iraq’s Shiite Arabs consider current circumstances as their opportunity to rule Iraq after decades of repression. Rahman said that she believed a lack of Shiite magnanimity prepared the ground for ISIS to take advantage of Sunni resentments. After experiencing Hussein’s brutal repression, the Kurds then saw Iraq’s Shiite-dominated central government reduce their governmental support.

Rahman expressed both hope and concern for the future of the international fight against ISIS. When asked about developing possible Sunni political alternatives to ISIS domination, she said that the “Sunni community is very fragmented” and lacks cohesive leadership in contrast to Iraq’s Kurds and Shiites. In contrast, “the Kurds are not going to tolerate another dictatorship, and would remain steadfast against ISIS.”

Referencing the Kurdish slaughter of Hussein’s Anfal campaigns, which included the use of poison gas against civilians, she asked, “What’s the worst thing that can happen? Genocide? We have already been there. We will fight.”