Iraqi Hunting Club, Baghdad

When I arrived, a client picked me up at the airport. Though I had flown in and out of Baghdad four times previously, I never had entered the civilian airport and never had been in Iraq in a civilian car, just driving around the way 30 million Iraqis do. I got in the pick-up truck and put on my seat belt. The driver immediately requested I remove the seat belt. The game of low profile travel is defined by their inability to know that I am foreign. And Iraqis do not wear seat belts.

Now, a couple of weeks later, I wear my seat belt. Based on the driving here, the risk of being out-ed as an American, often in a car careening down a road at speeds well over 80 miles per hour, pales in comparison to the risk of a car accident. So I fasten up.

But unfortunately there is no seat belt for second-hand smoke. Iraqis smoke. I believe every Iraqi man smokes. Inside. Outside. On the other side of the room. In my face. The misty haze of business meetings that disappeared from American bars and board rooms over the past few decades is very much alive here.

Many Iraqis with whom I speak yearn for a return to 1950s Iraq, politically and economically. Driving and smoking habits seem to be leading the way.

A minor verbal fracas ensued, and I ultimately left his shades on a window sill and ran away.

After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, the US attempted to simultaneously do three things, each of which was revolutionary. We tried to rebuild Iraqi Security Forces and create a democracy. The slow success of the security and political systems has been reported closely. But we also tried to dissolve a state-owned economy and re-create it as a market economy.

While government leaders in Baghdad often speak of Iraq’s market economy of tomorrow, Mosul business leaders are less clear. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam asserted increasing state control over nearly all aspects of economic life. Iraqis received their food, their land, their salaries from the state. They banked with state banks and took business loans from those state operated banks. Iraq’s professional class today, including all the seven private bankers with whom I regularly meet, was trained in that state owned economy. And amidst all the complaints we hear about Saddam’s Iraq, I have heard none about the economic system. To the contrary, most are nostalgic, even adamant, that Saddam did it better than the Americans. Open-ended discussions with private bankers on how to grow consumer lending ultimately focus on the need for the Iraqi central government to give more low- or no-interest loans to citizens.

The Eastern European, Asian, Latin American and Sub-Saharan African experiences suggest that, though transition is painful, a market economy is a must for sustained economic growth. But is it?

The Mosul region, like much of Iraq, currently has inefficient state owned industries that employ a lot of people, a bloated bureaucracy and a budget with revenue due to double in coming years as oil revenue increases. It also has a rapidly growing economy. Mosul bankers say the state should continue to subsidize the inefficient industries with oil money. Our conversations do not discuss bank profitability or drivers of financial sector growth; rather, they suggest additional government subsidies for the economy.

Insofar as the goal is an efficient, modern state, the bankers are wrong. But if the goal is stability, to keep employment high and avoid the pain of market transition, with black gold rising out of the land, Iraq may be able to maintain an inefficient state-run market for another generation. Assuming efficient distribution of state resources, the Saddam-type economy that many Iraqis remember so fondly could work. Based on what private and state-owned bankers tell me, the majority of the people of the Iraqi democracy yearn for the stability of the Saddam state. The Iraqi democracy and security forces have taken major steps forward. A market economy may lag many years behind.

Iraqi Shiite Muslim women from the Sadr movement light candles for Sayidat al-Nejat Catholic Cathedral victims

Today I am Jewish in a Muslim country on Christmas. It is not an easy time to be Christian in Iraq. Every few days there are reports of attacks in this region, attempted murders or kidnappings of the Christian minority. Two months ago a dramatic attack in a Baghdad church killed over 50.

Iraqi Christians, who trace their lineage here back to the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, say that there were nearly 1.5 million Christians living peacefully in Iraq prior to 2003. Today they believe there are less than 500,000.

Please keep in your thoughts and prayers today the Chaldean, Assyrian and Syriac communities of Iraq. In the face of terroristic violence and caught in the middle of ethno-religious conflict, it is unclear whether they can or will remain here.

There is no religious war in Iraq. Iraqi Sunni Arab, Shia Arab, Christian and Kurdish leaders state a clear commitment to protecting Christians against violence. We have seen numerous individual Muslim acts to protect, to honor and to mourn Christian Iraqis. They are acts that the world should see on this Christmas. It is a war of lunatic murderers, and Iraqis are uniting against it. In whatever way we can, we should join them.

Mosul Airport

There is one regular commercial flight to Mosul, arriving Sunday afternoon from Dubai. If you arrive with a visa, please bring something to sleep in, as you likely will spend the night at the immigration counter at the airport. Iraq immigration officials, in an abundance of caution, confirm all visas by phone with the head office in Baghdad. Though Sunday is a work day in Iraq, Mosul Airport officials say that immigration authorities attending to the phones in Baghdad have gone home by the time of the 3 or 4 pm. arrival of the Dubai flight. Once the Baghdad office opens Monday morning, the visas can be confirmed, and you will be welcomed warmly into Mosul.

For those who prefer not to spend a night at the immigration counter, you may be able to call ahead to the Mosul Airport and have your visa pre-approved. And once you arrive, don’t forget to begin processing your exit visa immediately. That process can take weeks, and you need it to leave.

A Ninewa farmer and his hoop house

I spent an afternoon in Al Qosh, a hamlet nestled beneath the Bayhidhra mountains of northern Iraq, in a Kurdish-controlled disputed border region in Ninewa province. The town sits in a region that, from a distance, is all about the Arab-Kurd rivalry, all about the potential for violence along a highly contentious swath of land in northern Iraq. The Chaldean and Assyrian Christians and Yezidi, Shia Turkmen and Shabak peoples largely report that they are caught in the middle of the Arab-Kurd dispute, trying to live in peace amidst the richly diverse disputed areas running many miles west, south and east of Al Qosh. When asked what province they are in, what country they live in, residents provide different answers. The US government is taking steps to stimulate the economy in these disputed areas, to persecuted minorities and under-served Iraqis throughout the divided Ninewa region.

Our trip to Al Qosh was about chickens and micro-loans and hoop houses. Hoop houses, large, temporary greenhouse structures that have become a popular means of more efficient crop yields among farmers throughout the Middle East, now dot the landscape of Ninewa. We expected to meet a few association leaders to discuss the US-funded hoop house and chicken agricultural initiative, in which my colleagues have collaborated with community-based associations and cooperatives throughout Ninewa province to enhance the livelihoods of thousands of subsistence farmers. I have attended a few of these agricultural meetings now, and my colleagues are accustomed to hearing complaints about our US program, which works with local government, Iraqi national agricultural officials and non-governmental associations to select a diverse range of subsistence farmers to receive the program’s benefits. Invariably, someone is unhappy.

When we arrived in Al Qosh, a group of about 15 greeted us, much larger than anticipated. They were all familiar faces, farming association leaders from across the eastern section of the province. There were leaders from Chaldean and Assyrian communities, from Shabak and Yezidi communities and from Arab and Kurd communities. But one thing was different. We had always seen these leaders separately. We were not accustomed to seeing all the different people of Ninewa gathering together. It was an unusual site, in a land loosely divided into parochial enclaves. When we sat down, after the standard hospitality and greetings, the leaders eagerly introduced their primary order of business. The leaders came to thank us. They believe we, with our innovative US program that channels resources directly through subsistence farmers, are on the right track now.

More important was the discussion that followed. These associations are keen on working together, on collaboration. If you are following the news in Iraq, you read of a deeply divided nation. Since 2003, in northern Iraq — as in all of Iraq — there has been significant segregation of populations, as sectarian violence caused families to retreat to their own communities, both socially and economically. Kurd. Sunni Arab. Shabak. Christian. Yezidi. They cannot live together in peace. But these farmers, leaders of thousands of their farming colleagues, are eager to work across the religious divide. They want to see their government, the Iraqi government, play a role in bringing them together. And they want to learn from each other, to market products together and cooperate. The farmers we met with in Al Qosh last week sounded eager for economic engagement with different communities.

Some times politicians lead the people. Other times it is the people who provide the leadership, with the political elites following. If the latter, from my seat last week beside a farm in northern Iraq’s disputed border region, Iraq’s future is bright.

To say Sheikh Abdi embraces democracy is an understatement. As we discussed private sector agricultural programs and a banking initiative that are generating significant excitement in his community, Sheikh Abdi was eager to discuss politics. In the election this weekend, who do we support as Americans? Who should he support?

Nearly everyone here wants to talk politics. It is a bit stunning to see the openness of expression, just a few years following the fall of a regime that for decades made freedom of expression a capital offense. It is even more stunning as open expression, for many, is still a capital offense. Sheikh Abdi organized a local town council shortly after Hussein’s departure. The council had six members. Between 2004 and 2006, insurgents murdered five members. He was the sixth member. As one banker in Mosul told me last month: “We have a big problem here. If you do anything that is smart and successful, you will be threatened and probably killed. Better to do nothing.”

You talk to Sheikh Abdi about the past, and he, like many, points fingers at the Saudis or the Americans or the Iranians, the Shia or Kurd. You talk about the present, and he tells you of unemployment and poor leadership. “We have one problem here in our town,” he told me through a translator, “Jobs.” You talk about the future, and Sheik Abdi, like the Shia, Kurds, Christians, Yezidi and Shebak I have met, offer up images of a wealthy Iraq. An oil rich Iraq. And a democratic Iraq. Rodney Dangerfield once said he went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. I feel like I came to a walled, heavily militarized, violent, near civil war patchwork of a nation. And democracy has broken out. My guess is that it will not come across in Western media reports. Nearly every Iraqi I have met here is drunk with democratic processes. “Peaceful and exciting,” Sheikh Abdi reported to us by phone about today’s preliminary vote.

But there was that house that exploded today. And the two around it that collapsed. And a grenade that was thrown and a few more car bombs. Real people. Real families. This is not democracy as I know it. It is democracy as full contact sport, one where innocents die and assertions of authority and economic resource grabs occasionally do trample democratic institutions. The institutions have nearly unanimous public support. But either those few that oppose them are intent on destroying these infant institutions or, in many cases, those that oppose them are willing to pay someone to have them destroyed.

In spite of such risks, as pamphlets circulate that the Iranians or the Kurds or Sunni extremists will execute those who vote or those who do not vote in certain ways, Iraqis are clearly running to the polls. There is a celebration of freedom here, millions so eager to risk their lives to exercise what they recognize to be a precious right of self rule. I believe the first election, in 2005, showed a nation emergent from Saddam Hussein. I believe this election will show a democratic populace so eager to emerge from violent ethno-religious-economic legacies and escape neighbors intent on manipulation.

In other words, all peaceful and without incident. Except for those incidents.

So I followed him out. Dust storm. It was beautiful, actually. The world had literally turned red.

A normal day

Today

The National Holiday Act of 1971 moved all holidays worth anything to Monday and enshrined in law the three day weekend. I am still trying to figure out how that should apply to us.

We work every day but Friday here. On Friday many of our Iraqi counterparts go to the mosque, so we do not work. In Baghdad, they do not work on Friday or Saturday. So the Embassy has applied the spirit of the three day weekend law and moved all Monday US holidays to Sunday here. So on Sunday Americans across Iraq paused to celebrate George Washington and Abe Lincoln.

So here in Mosul we took Friday off, worked Saturday and then had Sunday off. Out of respect for the spirit of Washington and Lincoln, however, with elections approaching and the hope for societal divisions bridged, I think everyone on our post here in Mosul put in a few hours at the office.