A man sweeps up rubble in preparation for Christmas Day mass at the Mar Hanna Church near Mosul, Iraq, on Dec. 22, 2016. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
ishtartv.com - foreignpolicy.com
By Rhys Dubin, Dan De Luce January 17,
2018
he
Trump administration has decided to steer humanitarian aid funding to Christian
and other minority communities in Iraq, against the advice of some officials at
the State Department and others at the United Nations, who initially feared the
move could backfire.
The
administration, prompted in part by Vice President Mike Pence’s strong links to
Christian advocacy groups, recently clashed with the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) over how to spend aid funds in Iraq, insisting more resources
be channeled to Christian communities and other minority groups in the Nineveh
Plains. The administration rejected UNDP’s assessment — and that of some
officials at the State Department — that the aid should be focused on more
populated areas around the war-damaged city of Mosul.
In
the end, the two sides struck a compromise. A portion of UNDP funds will be
redirected away from Mosul and other areas where U.N. and U.S. officials feared
the Islamic State might return and transferred to villages in the Nineveh
Plains, home to Christian and other minority groups.
“In
counterterrorism terms, there’s no question — Mosul is the highest
priority. Many of us are worried that violent extremism could emerge again in
the city if the areas that have been destroyed aren’t stabilized as quickly as
possible,” a senior Western official told Foreign Policy. “If this happens, the
military gains that have been won by the Iraqis and coalition are at risk — in
fact, they could be lost altogether.”
Even
before the recent disagreement with UNDP, proposed aid for religious minorities
had sparked a fractious debate inside the administration. Some State Department
officials, and others at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),
disagreed with the administration’s initial approach, fearing that an
increasingly direct and public emphasis on religious minorities, and Christians
in particular, could fuel sectarian divisions in the country and single out
already at-risk communities.
Since
Donald Trump entered office a year ago, the issue has gotten high-level
attention. Vice President Pence has spoken frequently about the importance of
direct U.S. support for religious minorities in the Middle East, and current
USAID Administrator Mark Green — long an advocate for minority communities —
has made these efforts a centerpiece of his tenure.
U.S.
leaders have also increasingly targeted the United Nations for specific
criticism. Last October for instance, at an event organized by the advocacy group
In Defense of Christians, Pence announced that the State Department would no
longer fund “ineffective” U.N. relief efforts and would instead funnel aid
directly through USAID.
“Christianity
is under unprecedented assault in those ancient lands,” Pence said. “While
faith-based groups with proven track records and deep roots in these
communities are more than willing to assist, the United Nations too often
denies their funding requests.”
Shortly
afterward, USAID unveiled plans to provide additional aid to minority
communities in northern Iraq over and above the funds committed to the United
Nations. This separate effort calls for up to $35 million in assistance for
minority communities in the Nineveh Plains, as well as an additional $20
million in humanitarian and other funds from the State Department.
The
issue pits the Trump administration’s desire to take more assertive action to
safeguard Christian communities in the Middle East against its broader goal of
bolstering stability in Iraq after the defeat of the Islamic State. If the
policy backfires, current and former officials say, it could undercut
Washington’s already limited influence in Baghdad at a time when it is keen to
counter Iran’s role in the region.
“Christians
make up a tiny percentage of the population, and if they get a disproportionate
percentage of aid, that’s going to look bad,” said Kenneth Pollack, a former
CIA officer focused on Iraq and currently a fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute. “It looks like the U.S. isn’t committed to the general rebuilding
and stabilization of Iraq. It will look like it’s more committed to its own
special interests.”
The
administration’s feud with aid officials over the past two months centered on a
proposed tranche of $150 million in stabilization funding for the UNDP in Iraq.
Originally designated as a blank check to be spent as the agency saw fit, U.S.
officials intervened to renegotiate the terms, eventually settling on a deal
that forced $55 million to be used explicitly for minority religious communities.
A second tranche of $75 million would then be contingent on new monitoring and
evaluation measures.
The
move raised eyebrows throughout the aid community. “Taking $55 million and
putting it into an area where there’s no chance that the Islamic State is going
to come back doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” the Western official said.
With stabilization funding — designed to address the potential resurgence of
the Islamic State — “what you want to do is focus on the areas where they might
come back,” the official told FP.
Others
within the administration and some members of Congress, however, argued that
Christian and Yazidi communities in the country faced an existential threat
that the United States had a responsibility to address. The Christian
population in Iraq has dwindled dramatically, from an estimated 1.4 million
people before 2003 to fewer than 250,000 in 2016.
The
Islamic State in particular singled out minorities for especially brutal
treatment. The group’s fighters systematically expelled Christian communities
from their territory in Iraq and massacred and enslaved thousands of Yazidis —
a small community based in northern Iraq and Syria whose faith is a mix of
Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam. Activists and human rights monitors
described the campaign as genocidal.
“These
communities were hit the hardest,” said Philippe Nassif, the executive director
of In Defense of Christians. “[The Islamic State] didn’t just kill
people — they dug up olive groves and removed the roots of the trees. They
wanted to wipe out any presence of Yazidis and Christian communities so people
couldn’t come back.”
GOP
congressional leaders and White House officials eventually grew frustrated at
what they considered to be a slow and insufficient response from diplomats and
aid workers, despite the Trump administration’s publicly stated goal of helping
Christians and minorities on the ground. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill came
to believe that, barring a direct legislative effort from Congress, the State Department
and USAID would refuse to change course. “I would say in the past year or so,
the pressure has increased further,” said Sarhang Hamasaeed, the Middle East
program director at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “There are direct questions
about how to show in measurable terms what specifically has been done for
minorities.”
Rep.
Chris Smith (R-N.J.), for instance, introduced the Iraq and Syria Genocide
Emergency Relief and Accountability Act of 2017. The bill, which passed the
House but eventually stalled in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was
designed essentially to remind agencies of their legal authority to designate
aid for “ethnic and minority individuals and communities with the greatest
need” in Iraq and Syria.
Smith
and like-minded lawmakers have pushed the issue heavily in Congress. “This has
been a steady drum beat with this crowd,” said a Democratic congressional aide.
For
their part, former aid officials say there are no statutes or regulations
barring agencies from funding religious groups, as long as aid is not used to
proselytize or discriminate based on faith. “USAID has been dealing with
faith-based groups for a while — it couldn’t do its work without them,” a
former senior USAID official told FP.
After
months of combat in Iraq that razed towns and displaced millions of people,
Washington’s aid effort is designed to cover a wide range of needs among
civilians and is not focused on only one community, said Thomas Staal, a
counselor at USAID. “What we’re seeing is that there is a need for a holistic
approach.”
Nevertheless,
Staal, who traveled to Iraq in December, acknowledged that Christian
communities had expressed concern about preferential aid policies. “A
significant amount [of aid] is going to Nineveh but not all of it,” he told FP.
“If the U.S. focuses all their assistance on Christians, that puts a target on
their back.”
Despite
the strident rhetoric from Pence and some lawmakers, in the end the
administration’s approach does not represent a radical departure for
humanitarian aid programs, said Jeremy Konyndyk of the Center for Global
Development, who worked as director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster
Assistance under the Barack Obama administration.
“There’s
not an indication that it’s compromising program integrity in some way,”
Konyndyk said. “It’s not setting off red lights for me.”
Still,
a perception that America is favoring one religious community over another
could antagonize the Iraqi government and further damage U.S. credibility,
former officials said.
“We
best serve our own interests and Iraq’s interests when we don’t engage in
accentuating sectarian divisions,” said Jon Alterman, a former State Department
official and now director of the Middle East program at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies.
Alterman
said he was not privy to the details of the aid program, but the approach could
carry risks. “Explicitly supporting Christian communities in Iraq because they
are Christian would accentuate those divisions,” he said.
(Map designed by C.K. Hickey. Source: Dr. Michael Izady, Columbia University)
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