Urgent Situation in Iraq Demands Action

The world’s democracies should embrace America’s decision and offer the Kurdish army humanitarian and military support, write Soran Ismail, Dilsa Demirbag-Sten, Özz Nûjen and Sakine Madon.

The world is currently witnessing attempts at genocide, targeting Christians and Yazidi Kurds in Iraq. The memory of Halabja, when the former dictator Saddam Hussein’s army – with the help of nerve and mustard gas – murdered thousands of Kurds, is fresh. This time it is the Islamic State group that is murdering and persecuting people in Iraq.

In the future, the world won’t be able to say that we didn’t know what was happening because there wasn’t enough information or proof. It is often said that the first casualty in war is truth, but in contrast to many other wars, the slaughtering of Christians and Yazidis is happening with the curtains open. The murderers are proud of their onslaught and harbor no intentions of beautifying or rewriting history.

With the help of modern technology and effectively updated social media, the Islamic State group has successfully driven a propaganda war that has spread terror in the whole region. Fear is a powerful weapon that provides an effective psychological advantage; pictures and video clips of the slaughter of Kurds and Christians evoke thoughts of medieval sacrificial rites, and these images of mass murder are spread on the net as a warning to the region’s non-Muslims.

The Islamic State group’s goal is to build the Islamic caliphate on the ground of human bodies, and it is working purposefully, as mentioned above, to attract an audience to its horrific offenses and murders. Witnesses describe how people are buried alive, cut into pieces, raped and enslaved. The terror organization, which largely consists of jihadis from countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, has already forced hundreds of thousands to run. The mass exodus of desperate people fleeing to Iraq’s neighboring countries is escalating, and the portion of the civilian population that hasn’t succeeded in escaping risks being taken captive or murdered by drugged men who will stop at nothing to spread fear in Allah’s name.

The country’s Christians are fleeing for their lives but have few places to go. Tens of thousands of Yazidis, who are called devil-worshippers by Islamists, have in the past few days been chased up into the mountains where they face a choice between dying of thirst or trying to leave and being slaughtered. At this time of year, the temperature in the Kurdish Mountains reaches up to more than 100 degrees in the shade, and it’s impossible to find protection from the heat. The civilian population needs and is pleading for the world to help.

There seems to be agreement among Iraq’s neighboring countries: The Islamic State group needs to be stopped. Condemning words have been expressed by the countries’ respective leaders, but we aren’t seeing any action. Time is running out, and more lives are claimed every day. Geopolitical games are given priority over people’s lives, and the region’s Christians that live outside of Iraq fear local pogroms inspired by the Islamic State group’s victories. The American initiative to provide humanitarian and military help is therefore very welcome. France and Great Britain have also made the decision to help the Kurdish military, and more countries will hopefully take part in various ways.

The Kurdish army, peshmerga, has – together with Iraqi forces and foreign friends – a demanding task before it. The Iraqi army has fled Baghdad and other Arab-dominated cities, and abandoned armories now lie in the hands of the Islamic State group. Its ever growing army has, through the plunder of the abandoned Iraqi armories and vehicles, gained access to the best military equipment and the most effective weapons – the situation is bad.

We, in Sweden, are far away from the war in Iraq but have every opportunity to show our solidarity and our support for the threatened ethnic groups. The events in Iraq, naturally, touch and shock many people in Sweden who have friends and family still in the country. In this difficult moment it is time to act as fellow human beings and support all powers that are trying to hinder the Islamic State group’s continued land conquests; work for a democratic Iraq where religious and ethnic groups can feel safe once and for all.

Assyrians, Yazidis and other groups that are on the run have found their way to Kurdish areas and are getting as much protection and help as is possible. Continued support to the Kurdish forces, which are standing up for the people when the Iraqi army isn’t capable, would therefore be stabilizing for the whole region. At the moment there needs to be immediate solutions to relieve human suffering of this humanitarian catastrophe, but it is important that a Kurdish statehood is raised as a long term solution in continued political dialogue and negotiations. The fundamental principle must be that the people will be able to decide on their own independence.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, together with Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, is appealing to the U.N. Security Council to unite. In the best of worlds, the U.N. would have acted strongly a long time ago – unfortunately, we aren’t there right now. President Barack Obama’s message that the U.S. will support the Kurdish and Iraqi forces currently fighting the Islamic State group didn’t come a day too early. As fellow human beings, we can all provide assistance. The world’s democracies should join together and embrace America’s decision to offer the Kurdish army humanitarian and military support.

As Obama says, “…when many thousands of innocent civilians are faced with the danger of being wiped out, and we have the capacity to do something about it, we will take action. That is our responsibility …”