Reconstruction Overshadows Plight of Small Nations

As an Assyrian-American and UC Berkeley alumna, I was both thankful for the exposure and saddened by the one-sided perspective given on Assyrian opinion of the current war in Iraq ("Students With Ties to Iraq Hopeful for Regime Change," March 20).

Assyrians comprise the largest portion of Iraq's Christian minority. Unique from Iraq's small minority communities, Assyrians are distinct from Iraq's population by language, ethnicity and faith. They have suffered as much as every other segment of Iraq's population under the current regime and their attempt to take refuge in the "safe haven" created in Northern Iraq has brought just as much hardship to them at the hands of Kurds. The Kurdish infringements on Assyrian rights, from land appropriations to targeted killings, are well-documented.

The "safe haven" is portrayed in the media as the Kurdish democratic experiment and self-rule, but most observers note that the Kurdish Regional Government has hardly met the challenge, short of meeting their obligation under the mandates to share the pie created by the oil-for-food program. The Assyrian Democratic Movement, the political voice of Assyrians in the enclave in Northern Iraq, has moved quickly to harness this opportunity; rebuilding villages and creating schools and universities with curriculum instruction in Syriac, the Assyrian language.

The Assyrian minority in Iraq is vulnerable whatever the political arrangement in Iraq, and their fate is no different from other small minority groups within Iraq, including the Yezidis, Turkomen and Mandeans. The only formidable minority that can assert its rights are the Kurds. And ironically, if a democratic Iraq were established, the smaller minorities are likely to be marginalized further if they are not explicitly protected.

Assyrians have been well-represented in the post-Ba'athist Iraq working groups that are hammering out the policies and framework to be implemented once the current regime is removed. Whether their participation will extend to actual participation and involvement in the implementation of those plans is yet to be known. Many of these Assyrians have lived outside Iraq (like many of the Iraqi exiles that the Bush administration is trying to bring together) for decades and do not have the incentive to return to Iraq for the unpredictable challenge of nation-building.

The plan for a post-Ba'ath Iraq has not been unveiled, and that should leave us all uneasy. Iraq is critical in the Middle East regional balance. It is heterogenous in population, secular and carries enormous economic potential.The Bush administration calculates that these are great ingredients in creating a model democracy for the rest of the Middle East.

But any experiment will be conducted within full view of Iraq's neighbors, all of whom are wary of any sort of fledgling democracy developing on their doorstep. And all of Iraq's neighbors differ on what an ideal Iraq looks like. However pretty the picture drawn, the reality in Iraq in 2003 is one that will have to account for a population that is largely young, under-educated and heavily indoctrinated by fear.

Our government has taken on the greatest challenge in this war. The true effort will come as the Ba'athist regime is toppled and a new Iraq is created. Whether the rights of Iraq's indigenous minorities is protected from the outset or that the chaos creates a free-for-all land grab between the Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish populations remain possibilities.

So perhaps the fate of the Assyrians and Iraq's smaller minorities will gauge the success of the Iraqi democratic experiment.

After all, if the rights of the under-represented minorities are safeguarded from encroachment, the ideals touted as the war's purpose will be realized and perhaps some of the sacrifices of this war will be redeemed.

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