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Diplomatically Pursuing Stability and Security in Iraq
House of Representatives - November 18, 2005

Mr. Speaker, I come to the well tonight after a long day of debate on whether or not we should redeploy our troops from Iraq.

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A careful reading of the gentleman from Pennsylvania's resolution, had we debated it, would have pointed out that the fourth point that he raised was that we have to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq. It is that issue I want to talk about because the question is always raised, If we leave, will it not get worse? Will it not just explode into civil war? We have already got that. And the question must be answered as we talk about deployment from out of the country.

At the same time, we have to decide to call on the Arab League or the Egyptians, to call together all the members of the community of Iraq: the Sunnis, the Shiias, the Kurds, the Turkomens, the Assyrians. All of them need to come together in a conference to resolve this. We have the idea that we can go with a Western idea of a constitution and that because it works here, we can just insert it into an Arab culture that has never worked under those circumstances.

What we need to do is recognize how Arabs have resolved problems for hundreds, thousands of years, if you will. It is called reaching an atwa.

If two villages, and this story was told to me by an iman, a high ranking Iraqi, he said many years ago two villages had a brother and sister and they married across these two towns. One went to one village, the other went to the other village. In one village the wife was fertile and quickly had three children. In the other, the wife was barren and had no children. The village made fun of her. They ridiculed her. They said she was a terrible woman, and the social pressure was so great that she killed herself by throwing herself into the village well.

Now under Arabic custom, that village that lost this woman has a right to go and extract blood within 24 hours. As those two villages came together for this bloodletting that was going to happen, they called and got them all to sit down and they decided how they were going to resolve this situation.

The decision was made that the village that had the young woman die in it would give $20,000 to the other village and that there would be no contact between those villages for 20 years. They reached an atwa, A-T-W-A.

What that is in the Arabic culture is an arrangement, not a peace treaty. In the West we think of peace treaties where I agree with you and you agree with me, and we sign a bunch of pieces of paper. In the Arab culture where there is honor, people say I will stay here for 20 years and you will stay there.

The gentleman who told me the story said I was there 20 years later when the money was brought back from the first village back to its original place. He said within 2 years, there were marriages between the young people from the two villages. Even though they were 6 kilometers apart, for 20 years there had been no contact.

Now, Arabs have been resolving these kinds of things for thousands of years in the desert. There is a way for the Sunnis and the Shiias and the Kurds and the Turkomens to come together, but it cannot be driven by the United States. We cannot say you come over here and come to this conference that we are going to have in some hotel somewhere. It has to be called by the Arab League.

This same thing could have prevented the gulf war back in 1991. When Saddam Hussein went into Kuwait, the Arab League said before the Americans attack, let us settle this among the Arab community. This is a fight among us. Saddam Hussein thought he had fought in Iran because he was defending Kuwait and the Saudis, and he thought that they owed him something. He said give me some money, and they said no. And so he said all right, then I am going to move in and take Kuwait.

It could have been resolved if we had the patience to let this happen and the mentality in the White House that can allow Iraq to develop its own peaceful society. We have removed Saddam Hussein. We are all glad, but we now must let the Arabs resolve the situation in a way that makes sense to them.