It was part of the Ottoman Empire along with Syria, along with Jordan, and Saudi Arabia is also a new state, but the real issue is Iraq a nation, and when it was founded if you remember your history, the British [IB] and King Faisal to be the king and Faisal famously said, “I’m the ruler of the country called Iraq but I can’t find anyone who calls himself an Iraqi”. But I think over 90 years there is a distinct- certainly when I was there in the mid to late 80s for four years there was a distinct often strong feeling of nationalism among Iraqis and I think- it’s hard to see when you have the ethnic conflict and, you know, when a Shia Arab and Sunni Arab are trying to kill each other, it’s very difficult for them to remember that they’re both Iraqis, but when the violence dies down, I think the sense of being a nation has come back. I don’t want to exaggerate this point too much but I- there is certainly is a lot of ethnic and religious conflict whatever you wanna call it in Iraq but I think there is a sense of nation. Iraq is also an interesting place and if you look on this one, I think very interesting statistic, these statistics- the top of it show that Iraq and Afghanistan in many ways are quite similar but then you get down and you see some real differences and one of the first- the first one you see is urban population. Iraq is 67% urban yet Iraq is one of the most tribal countries in the Middle East and you have this urbanized tribalism in Iraq which is a strange phenomenon and you have almost two distinctive groups of people in Iraq. Iraq- when I was there certainly and perhaps the most moderate well-educated westernized even intermarried middle class of any Arab country.
At the same time the cities which have grown tremendously, at that time Bagdad was one quarter of the country in population, was full of people who would come in from the countryside and we’re still basically tribesmen even though they were urban. So, you have this kind of urban tribalism which is certainly exist in other countries but I think it is particularly strong in this country. Now, of course, the middle class didn’t have the weapons and many of them had fled, 3 to 4 billion have fled, but this tradition still exists and you can find many well-educated Iraqis. And you can see other great differences if you look on these statistics that shows Iraq is still a pretty well-developed country. Life expectancy – 70 years versus 45. Many few are children although the total fertility rate, of course, the number of children per woman of child-bearing age and per capita GDP five times, unemployment but less than half. These figures of course may not be accurate but the ratios are probably accurate. Look at electricity production 36 to 1 roughly. Iraq is a pretty well-developed country and the middle class has the ability to come back even though it’s pretty battered. I think you all know the ethnic make up pretty well of Iraq, the Shia Arabs 55 to 60%, Kurds 20% roughly, Sunni Arabs only 18%. Two percent- some of you may have heard different figures, I think the Iraqi Turkmen front to the figures are quite high, but the Turkmen’s are probably only about 2% in Iraq. The Christians are a couple of percent and they’re certainly shrinking. Some of those Kurds and Turkmen, of course, are not all Sunnis, some of them are Shia.