IRAQ: Moving Forward

Derived from EPIIC's 2006 forum,"The Politics of Fear", the Institute's “Iraq: Moving Forward” Symposium (January 2007) evolved into closed facilitations, Helsinki I in September 2007, Helsinki II in Finland in April 2008, and is now continuing in Badgdad Iraq. Iraq is convulsed with indiscriminate killings and rampant sectarian violence. Whether Iraq is in the throes of a civil war or heading in that direction is moot (and it is really only a debate that is more about the semantics of body counts than a contribution to a fuller understanding of the dynamics that drive the cycles of vengeance and retribution). The only certainty is that unless all the parties to the conflict can pull themselves and the communities they represent back from the brink of self destruction, Iraq will disintegrate and its people will be devoured by a war in which people kill because they fear that if they do not kill first, they will be killed. This stark statement of where Iraq is provides the context for the Institute for Global Leadership’s Robert and JoAnn Bendetson Global Public Diplomacy Initiative. The three-day program brings together key international players from several divided societies, the United States and the Middle East, including both participants in the conflicts that at one time consumed their own countries and the practitioners of conflict management who have explored the dynamics that underpin reconciliation. The purpose of the program is to bring the lessons of their collective narratives of violent confrontation and subsequent efforts to mediate differences through peaceful means to bear on the situation in Iraq. Read the Boston Globe Article on this initiative