fbpx

‘Vicar of Baghdad’ says nothing short of US ground troops will halt ISIS

Nothing short of the deployment of American ground troops is going to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, according to the Reverend Canon Andrew White.
[additional-authors]
October 21, 2014

This post originally appeared on themedialine.org

Nothing short of the deployment of American ground troops is going to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, according to the Reverend Canon Andrew White.  Blunt and insightful, the 50-year old British national is the vicar of Baghdad's St. Georges Church, Iraq's only Anglican church, and a player in the region's delicate balance of power for years through his various positions in the Iraqi capital.

The enigmatic “Vicar of Baghdad” as he is known, also holds a medical degree and hands-on experience in overseeing  life-and-death negotiations in the region as he did when the Palestine National Fund's director was kidnapped; and as he did when he mediated the stand-off between the Israeli army and Palestinian gunmen hold-up in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity in 2002. In 2007, White, who served as the special envoy to the Middle East for the Archbishop of Canterbury, raised the ransom and negotiated the release of his church's kidnapped lay leader. Today, he is president of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, a relief program that he proudly points out is run by a Muslim woman.

Not surprisingly, through the courses of these trying situations, the vicar himself became a target and was forced to flee for his life from Iraq on a number of occasions. He recently spoke to The Media Line in the Jerusalem apartment belonging to Christian friends only days after leaving Iraq on a moment's notice following the beheading by ISIS of children attached to his Baghdad church and a warning to flee from his archbishop. 

Asked whether the Islamic State (ISIS) can be talked to or reasoned with, White answered with an unequivocal, “No,” but went on to explain that “ISIS is driven by that passion that Iraq has gone very very wrong. Among terrorists, often they have lost something big. And the Sunnis have lost ultimately their power, their responsibility, and their significance. Under the Saddam Hussein regime they had essence; now they have nothing.”

Echoing the assessment of many military experts, Vicar White rues that, “We can kill a few ISIS people from the clouds; we can kill some of our innocent civilians; but we can't really bring about change” until the ground troops enter the fray. “American ground troops,” he clarifies.

The mistake America made, he says, was pulling out of Iraq before its own army was ready to guarantee the safety of its people. “ISIS are going around causing their chaos with American weapons, in American tanks, in American armored vehicles and their Humvees because that man Obama left us. And we are seeing our people killed because of that mistake,” asserted White, who says he predicted the fall of Iraq into chaos as soon as the US administration announced it was pulling out.

Upon hearing the news, “I told my wife it's not going to be easy going; it's going to be harder. I can guarantee that in three years time we'll have a major war on our hands. And we could see the country starting to fall into pieces on that day.”

“You can't just pull out,” he recalls telling his wife. “You can't just remove your people from the ground.”

“But what will happen if the US ground forces do not come?” he was asked. “Radical Islamist extremists will increase in authority and power. They're already ruling much of the country. What they will not be able to rule is areas in the south because the Shiites will not allow them to because that is where their holy shrines are. Religion means they will not let their most holy places be destroyed.”

Vicar White singles out Canada as a nation with the correct intentions if not the strength necessary to do what the Americans will not. “The Canadians are very good people,” White told The Media Line. “They did have a presence in the International Zone, based in the British Embassy, and were certainly doing what they could and we trusted them a lot. In a way, they had a better understanding than our American colleagues,” he said, explaining that, “The Canadians and British and Iraqis have more history together. There are more Iraqis in Canada now than almost anywhere…except Chicago, which has the biggest Iraqi Christian community in the world.”

Although despite being stricken with multiple sclerosis at the age of 33, White has never been accused of being anything less than optimistic. Yet, while he insists that he “will return to Baghdad the moment my bishop says I can,” he is lacking in inspirational predictions for the Middle East.  Besides not seeing any shift in American policy that will come to the rescue of the Iraqi and Syrian people besieged by ISIS, White sees no silver lining in the Israeli-Palestinian track.

What is lacking, according to the vicar, is “the willingness on both sides to actually move forward. Both sides are acutely aware of the dangers they face in the negativity and the fact that there are people who don't want them to move forward. There was a time they could move forward, but now, I really don't know,” White said.

That White is a frequent visitor to the Jewish state is really not surprising for a priest who studied at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and checked himself into an ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary in Israel because his religious studies at Cambridge were “boring.” With that knowledge, even the bizarre role he plays vis-à-vis Baghdad's six remaining Jews makes sense.

“On Friday nights [the Jewish Sabbath] I recite the 'Kiddush' [sanctification over wine] for them and discuss the weekly Torah [Biblical] portion of the week,” White said, explaining that until they fled persecution in the 1950s, “Baghdad was the most vibrant Jewish community in the Middle East.”

White has not given up hope, but sees few scenarios that spell relief for the Iraqi and Syrian people. He insists the answer lies with the international community [he quotes an Iraqi soldier who when asked what the army will do when ISIS arrives answers “We'll run.”]

“They're killing us,” he pleads. “We need the international community to stand with us. We need help to provide for our people.”


Felice Friedson, President and CEO of The Media Line news agency, (themedialine.org) can be reached at editor@themedialine.org

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.