EDMUND GHAREEB, edmundghareeb at gmail.com
Available for a limited number of interviews, Ghareeb is an internationally recognized expert on the Kurds and on Iraq. His books include The Historical Dictionary of Iraq (co-authored with Beth Dougherty), The Kurdish Question in Iraq, The Kurdish Nationalist Movement and War in the Gulf which he co-authored with Majid Khadduri.
Ghareeb was the first Mustafa Barzani Scholar of Global Kurdish Studies at the Center for Global Peace at American University. He formerly taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University and the University of Virginia.
Ghareeb said today: “Where have people been? Certainly some of the recent reporting of the carnage by IS is sensationalized, but their brutality is all too real. But critically, it’s been happening for years in both Iraq and in Syria, where is should have been confronted. In Syria, ancient Christian churches were destroyed, nuns and bishops were kidnapped and priests were killed. In Syria and Iraq, many belonging to different religions, sects and nationalities were killed or forced to flee at the hands of extremists and criminals. This was widely ignored in large part because many in the region and in the west were so focused on attacking the Assad government.
“Similarly, we’re now finally seeing some denunciations of IS and its treatment of minorities and others under its control from establishment Islamic voices in the Mideast, but it’s very late. As for U.S. intervention, the danger is that it may further hurt the Iraqi people and fragment Iraq altogether in the name of this humanitarian intervention.
“There are of course other serious issues: Suppose, if 5 million Kurds in Iraq can have a state, then why can’t 22 million Kurds in Turkey and 9 million in Iran have one?”
See interview with Ghareeb by Dennis J Bernstein at Consortium News: “Iraqi Chaos May Give Kurds a State.”