Iraq FM: ‘Third World War’ has begun

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jafari stated that the world was in the throes of a “Third World War” against international terrorism.

Speaking on Wednesday to an audience at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, Al-Jafari drew comparisons between Iraq and Britain, stating that Iraq’s current turmoil is similar to the birth pangs suffered by Britain when it adopted democracy.

Clarifying his comments regarding what he believes to be a third World War, Al-Jafari explained that although “terrorism has not reached this level of violence around the world”, it was now unparalleled in its degree of totality.

“We do not ask for the world’s nations to send their sons [to fight Daesh], but we do ask them to send as much support as possible”, Al-Jafari said, adding, “Iraq is fighting terrorism on behalf of, and instead of, the world’s nations.”

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jafari speaking to the audient at RUSI

Al-Jafari cast the net of blame for Daesh’s previous successes and resilience far and wide, singling out oil-rich “regional actors”, a euphemism for Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as Turkey.

“Turkey entered Bashiqa illegally”, Al-Jafari said of his country’s northern neighbour, referring to a town in northern Iraq where Turkish troops are currently engaged in the training of Kurdish Peshmerga.
Noting that the Turkish presence in Bashiqa was “unhelpful” and “destabilising”, Al-Jafari suggested that diplomatic efforts asking Turkish military units to withdraw had borne some fruit: “For the first time in its history, the Arab League unanimously agreed to issue a communique requesting that Turkey withdraws from Iraqi territory.”

According to Turkey, however, its forces are on Iraqi soil due to a request from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in order to assist in the fight against Daesh. Both Turkey and the KRG in Erbil are part of the US-led international coalition against Daesh.

When asked why Iraq did not view Iranian military deployments and its use of Iraqi territory in order to wage its war in support of the Assad regime in Syria, Al-Jafari failed to respond to MEMO’s query, only saying: “Syria is an open arena that has regional, as well as superpower involvement. However, we maintain that Iraq does not interfere in the affairs of its neighbours.”

In his discussion on regional powers and their involvement with Daesh and instability in Iraq, Al-Jafari concluded by calling on the international community to help his government to “target the nations that finance, train and ideologically educate the terrorists”.

Sectarian cleansing of Sunnis

Al-Jafari was keen to repeatedly stress that Iraq was now a “democracy with institutions” and that he wanted “to reassure the Iraqi people that the government is serious about reform”.

However, even before the war against Daesh began in 2014, there were widespread reports that Sunni Arab areas have been subjected to sectarian cleansing campaigns by militias supported by Iraq and Iran, creating millions of internally displaced refugees.

For example, in March 2015, Human Rights Watch released a scathing report against the Shia militias aligned with Baghdad. It provided what it said was evidence that these militias had razed the homes of Sunni civilians in order to prevent their return.

The forcible displacement and removal of a civilian population is illegal under international law, and can also constitute a war crime.

Iraq’s top diplomat did not respond to questions about the involvement of Shia militias in the uprooting of entire communities of Sunnis from the Iraqi provinces of Diyala, Salahuddin, Anbar and others. Instead, he claimed that the Sunnis are predominantly supportive of the Iraqi authorities.

On the question of the refugees fleeing persecution and sectarian violence, Al-Jafari alluded to his own past as a political refugee: “I myself fled from Iraq in order to escape the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. However, modern Iraq is a democracy and people are fleeing Daesh, not the government.”

Al-Jafari suggested that Iraqis, and mainly the Sunni Arabs, preferred Baghdad to Daesh due to the government’s provision of “infrastructure, such as hospitals, and other vital services.”

These comments did not address the almost total destruction of the western Iraqi city of Ramadi and its infrastructure earlier this year, leading to the ongoing displacement of the city’s predominantly Sunni Arab population.

Ibrahim Al-Jafari was prime minister of Iraq in the Iraqi Transitional Government between 2005 and 2006. He has been the Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2014, and is one of Iraq’s most senior Shia politicians who came to prominence following the US-led invasion in 2003.