Kaine reflects on trip to Iraq
A six-day trip to Iraq, Kuwait and Turkey left Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine encouraged about what’s happening in the region, but also recognizing the challenges ahead.
Kaine returned home over the weekend after leading a congressional delegation to the area, focusing on how the Iraqi government is operating and the battle against the Islamic State.
What the group found was an improvement over where things were in Iraq a year ago, Kaine said. Portions of the Sunni and Kurdish populations felt isolated and ignored by the previous government, which created problems when Islamic State fighters entered the area, as people gave up rather than fight.
In 2014, Haider al-Abadi took over from Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister. Kaine said his group saw people willing to consider working together now, something that wasn’t common before.
"Abadi has convinced the leaders in Kurdistan and the Sunni area he’s sincere," Kaine said. "That doesn’t mean there’s not lingering distrust. It’s very much a work in progress. But when the Sunni governor of the Anbar province says to us that ‘we can work with this government,’ that’s a dramatic difference."
The delegation spoke with members of the Iraqi government, Kurdish and Sunni officials, as well as U.S. service members and people from the area, to get a well-rounded look at the state of Iraq. Although people support Abadi’s intentions, for the most part they told the group they are still cautious.
"We spent time with tribal, civil and governmental leaders," Kaine said. "They gave the first year of the Abadi government a mixed grade. They give a relatively high grade on intention, but a lower grade on implementation."
Because of bridges burned by the way Iraq was run under Maliki, Kaine said, it’s harder to get groups to work together. That’s led some to question if the best solution might not be to split the country up, giving people like the Kurds their own regions. The problem with that idea, Kaine said, is that he doubts it would solve anything.
Mixed emotions
While the Kurdish fighters have had success against the Islamic State, that caused both support and concern, in the region and also here in America.
"The Kurds have proved to be very formidable fighting partners against ISIL and extremely appreciative of American support," Kaine said. "They’ve been able to hold on to territory and take more."
What Kaine had to explain to Kurdish leaders, however, is why the U.S. Senate voted against arming them directly, rather going through Iraq’s central government. Kaine was one of those who voted against arming the Kurds, which he said was a decision about trying to promote a unified Iraq.
"We are strongly supporting the Kurds; it’s just we feel the effort is best routed through the central government in Baghdad," Kaine said. "That serves the purpose of trying to promote a message of unity rather than division, and the [Kurdish] leaders we talked to understood that."
One area where the Kurds have had success fighting against the Islamic State is near and across the border with Syria. That has members of the Turkish government concerned, Kaine said, about what happens if the Kurds are able to drive Islamic State fighters out of the areas.
"There is definitely tension," Kaine said. "Turkey has been a strong supporter of the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, [but] the Turkish government has some significant concerns about what an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria might mean. One positive is that the recent parliamentary elections in Turkey produced a large number of Kurdish representatives, for the first time in recent history." That means Kurdish residents in Turkey have representation now and both sides have a way to work things out, Kaine said.
"I view that as a very salutary thing," Kaine said. "It means you can solve problems within a political process rather than the alternative."
While visiting in Turkey, Kaine and other members of the delegation also visited an urban center for Syrian refugees, met with local and national leaders, as well as members of the Syrian opposition and Syrian media. It was the senator’s first visit to the country in two years and he observed the refugee problem has exploded.
"In 2013, the vast majority of Syrian refugees were in camps and numbered in the hundreds of thousands," Kaine said. "Now there are over 2 million, and about 25 percent are in camps. Most are living in communities."
Kaine and the others toured parts of Gaziantep, a city near the border that houses a large number of refugees.
Kaine said he felt it would help ease the burden on neighboring countries if the international community worked to establish a safe zone inside Syria, a place near the border for refugees to run from the fighting.
Overall, Kaine said he came back seeing the damage caused by the Islamic State and that he plans to continue to push Congress to authorize military action against the terrorist group.
"We came with a lot of questions, and we left with a lot of questions," Kaine said. "I came away with a stronger feeling that the 35,000 troops [stationed in the region] deserve to know whether Congress is paying attention."
