On Wednesday 20 May, a conversation between Emma Sky and The Guardian’s Middle East editor, Ian Black, drew a packed house to the Frontline Club. Interested audience members and former colleagues of Sky were present to listen to the highly-regarded Iraq expert, and to celebrate and discuss her latest book, The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq.

Black was struck by a headline from The Sunday Times describing Sky as “the petite British peacenik who tamed America’s Ghengis Khan,” referring to General Raymond T. Odierno, and asked her if that was an apt description. She laughingly responded, “I don’t think I’m petite. I think I’m average height for Europe.”

Sky did however vocalise her admiration for General Odierno, who she believed “learned and changed during the Iraq War – like many of us.”

Sky spoke briefly about how she achieved her position as Governorate Coordinator of Kirkuk, a city north of Baghdad with a large natural supply of oil. In 2003, the British government requested volunteers to travel to Iraq and administer the country before handing it back to the Iraqi people. Sky thought, “Here’s my opportunity to go out to Iraq to apologise for the war.” What was intended to be just a three-month stint became a decade.

Black mentioned the frequent comparison of Sky to the illustrious Gertrude Bell, best known for her part in the founding of the country of Iraq. The comparison, however, remained a double-edged sword for Sky.

“For Iraqis, Gertrude Bell is probably the only name they remember from the British era, and they remember her with fondness… But when I went up to speak to [former President of Iraq] Jalal Talabani, he was like, ‘They call you Miss Bell.’ Eventually I said to Jalal Talabani, “I would like to apologise on behalf of the British government for creating the state of Iraq and putting the Kurds in it. He said, ‘Thank you very much.’”

Despite her anti-war stance, Sky developed a mutual respect for the American military with whom she worked so closely. Black commented: “She came to admire them greatly, especially General Odierno.”

Sky said, “I have to understand these guys as they see themselves, their own perceptions… So many of them saw themselves as protectors, not of America but protectors of all the poor and marginalised people around the world… As time went on, for many it became about giving the Iraqi people better hope for the future. To see how dedicated these soldiers were was quite extraordinary.”

Emma Sky: “Only between 2007-9 did we/Iraqis have the right strategy for the country. Violence down, progress up” https://t.co/3elCno7Ic4

— Natasha Dyer (@nrlcadyer) May 20, 2015

A member of the audience asked Sky whether she saw a future for functioning democracy in Iraq.

Sky said, “It’s very difficult to have a system of government that Iraqis are happy with. Democracy can work if the people there want it to work… But Iraq has shown that democracy cannot be produced overnight. Democracy requires political parties and Iraq didn’t have political parties. It had groups with their militias, but it didn’t have what we would recognise as political parties with platforms. But don’t give up on Iraq.”

Click here for more information on The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq. 

In a bloody coincidence with Frontline’s First Wednesday talk about the divisive issue of international intervention in Syria, yet another massacre of women, children, civilians has been charged at the Assad regime.

Less than a fortnight after the Houla massacre in the Homs province of Syria, in which 108 people were killed, opposition activist report that a further 78 people were killed on June 6 by pro-government forces in Qubair and Maarzaf in the Hama province.

Media reports increasingly talk about Syria’s ‘tipping point’ – but last night’s talk illustrated the variety of perspectives on this contentious fulcrum.

Chaired by the Guardian’s Ian Black, the panel began by explaining their own perspective on the country’s current crisis. Charles Glass, recently returned from Syria, began by telling the  audience about the striking polarity in opinions he heard advocated by ordinary Syrians – “either dramatically for or dramatically against the regime.”

Rim Turkmani, founder of secular opposition group Building the Syrian State, said that the Western powers had contributed to such polarity, whilst underestimating the complexities of Syrian society. She said that all too often, external powers had ignored “how to help Syrians”, focusing instead on “how to harm the regime”.

Christopher Phillips, of Queen Mary’s University reminded the audience that ‘we’ the international community are already involved in the Syrian conflict as the past year has seen the externalisation of conflict and a reliance on the outside world for resolution.

Ian Black introduced the final panelist, Nadim Shehadi, an associate fellow of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme, as “openly interventionist”. Shehadi qualified this by saying that at the moment the international powers are paralysed because they are falling into the trap of Bashar al-Assad’s mind game – that it’s either him or civil war.

The evening quickly moved to audience questions: What kind of deal can really be done? What kind of intervention can occur? What is the role of the external actors? But the issue to which the panellist kept returning was raised by Dr Ghada Karmi: Foreign media coverage has too often relied upon “so-called spokesmen for the opposition without any critical analysis of … who they are”.

As yet the opposition groups in Syria have remained, in Shehadi’s words, “leaderless”. Perhaps it is this lack of leadership, organisation, and the presentation of a viable alternative to the Assad regime which has delayed the ‘tipping point’. Is this the regime narrative succeeding over the opposition?

Shehadi said:

“There is an information war… The revolution started as a non-violent, peaceful opposition to the regime… and now it’s perceived as a violent civil war with bad leadership. The perception now is something the regime is very comfortable with. The regime can do violent civil war for the next ten years – it will win and flourish… The regime is winning the mind game and most of what you see in the press is buying that regime narrative.”

More questions included the threats of ethnic cleansing and of sectarianism, the pivotal role of Russia, and the failing Anan plan. Jonathan Steele asked about another tipping point: “At what point do you think the opposition will be willing to talk to the regime?”

It was an evening that posed far more questions than it answered. Despite some cautious optimism that negotiations and resolutions should not be discredited and dismissed as futile, the talk’s conclusion echoed Ian Black’s own question: “Fifteen months and 15,000 dead; can [that compromise] still happen?”

Watch the full event here:

By Alan Selby

Much has happened since this time last year. The 15th of February 2011 saw the first Libyans take to the streets of Benghazi against a brutal dictatorship which ruled over them for 42 years. The events that followed sent shockwaves around the world, led to a NATO intervention and culminated in victory for the Libyan people, albeit at a heavy cost. An estimated 30,000 people lost their lives during the campaign and the dust is still settling following Muammar Gadaffi’s death four months ago.

A panel came together at the Frontline Club to discuss how far Libya has come, as well as what the future holds. A tone of cautious optimism prevailed as each member of the panel delivered their own frank assessment of the work of the National Transitional Council (NTC), as well as its ability to uphold the promise of democracy for the people of Libya. Ian Black, The Guardian’s Middle East editor, steered a discussion which exposed differing views on the NTC’s work to date.

Ahmed Gebreel, deputy head of the Libyan embassy in London, suggested that “The NTC has been established for less than a year, with limited resources, and they’re doing their best.”

However, Khaeri Aboushagor, a Libyan writer and spokesman for the Libyan League for Human Rights, made his view that the NTC has a lot of work to do abundantly clear:

The reality sometimes hits us in the face. The ex-prime minister recently said that Libya is not a functioning state, has no proper army, no proper police and that the militias run the show… Democracy is not just elections. It’s much broader and deeper than that. We have to recognise this, if we deny that problems exist it won’t work.”

Carsten Jurgensen, Libya researcher for Amnesty International, echoed this view as he made reference to human rights abuses which have taken place in detention centres:

“What struck us was that those who committed the abuses were quite open about it… No investigations are conducted. The judiciary is totally weak. Prosecutors say that they can’t go and interrogate the chiefs of the militias. It’s quite worrying.”

The panel also suggested that post traumatic stress is now a real issue facing many of the young men who must now try to re-integrate with society and rebuild their country. However, Dr. Faraj Najem, a Libyan writer and historian, made it clear that the damage runs much deeper than at first glance:

I was horrified when I heard that 400 women were raped, but then it was announced that 8000 women had suffered. We need help from psychologists and social workers. We need to reinvent a culture where we can talk openly about the sexual violence that these women suffered for no reason.”

The panel largely agreed that it will be a long road to recovery, as Rana Jawad, a Tripoli-based BBC journalist and author of Tripoli Witness, observed:

“Overall I am optimistic of the journey Libyans will take, but I don’t doubt for a second that it will be extremely difficult. Anyone who thinks it will happen in the next year or two is quite delusional. It’s a very long process and it’s going to take a long time, but ultimately Libyans are striving for it.”