Thank you so much.
I'm so delighted to see you. I recall with great pleasure that you hosted us. The Stimson Center and CIGI, the Canadian think tank, organized meetings with Iraqis in Ottawa. We used the conference rooms of your Parliament to talk in some detail about federalism.
Let me just say a few words about what may evolve when cooler heads can prevail in the Arab world, about whether several of these artificially constructed countries will need to devolve power to regions—those regions may be somewhat more ethnically homogeneous—and whether we are looking at a gradual evolution to some decentralization of power and authority if, in the end, a country called Syria and a country called Iraq still exist. I presume, odds are that they will still exist 50 years from now, but maybe they will be governed quite differently. I do think the Canadian model of federalism is sometimes a way of managing, and I know that Canada has offered this advice to other multicultural countries.
The Iraq story is a very complicated mix of success and failure. The autonomy of the Kurdish region in a way is still a positive story, on balance, both for Iraq and for the Kurds. They have managed to demonstrate that they're self-governing and yet they are still part of an Iraqi state where there is an exchange of revenue.
Certainly, the Kurds behaved very honourably in trying to push back ISIL and were successful. They did need help. They needed help from.... Well, as they would say, apparently there's a story out that Barzani said, “I called the Americans; they couldn't get there fast enough. I called the Turks; they said no. I called the Iranians and they were there in eight hours.” So there is still some question about who is their best partner.
I still think the United States plays a special role in the relationship with the KRG, but I cite this as an example that we have a slightly simplistic view that the government in Baghdad today is almost as bad as it was under Maliki. I would argue that it's a bit better than being under Maliki and that there is at least some recognition of needing to take a more inclusive approach. Nonetheless, whether we need Baghdad, for the future stability of Iraq, some decentralization of power and some recognition that perhaps federalism is part of the solution....
Just on education, again, it's not up to us to tell them how to run their ministry of education. What I think Canada, the United States, the Brits, and others can do is offer scholarships and at least save a few promising young people. Let them come out to be educated and exposed to more tolerant multicultural societies. Even though the numbers in scholarship programs are usually so small that you might ask how this can possibly affect the whole country because the numbers are too small, the impact on individual lives is sometimes huge in regard to what happens when those people go home and learn to be better citizens than they would be had they been educated at home.