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LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Just outside the capital city of the Kurdistan region of Iraq on a hilltop above, we meet a man who not only has an expansive view of the city below from his sprawling home; he also has a long view of the history of U.S. military intervention in Iraq and its messy aftermath. Hoshyar Zebari was the first and longest-serving foreign minister of the Iraqi government that came to be after Saddam Hussein was deposed by U.S. forces 23 years ago.
HOSHYAR ZEBARI: Who is this?
FADEL: Hi.
ZEBARI: Wow. My goodness.
FADEL: It's been so long since I've seen you.
I first met Zebari in 2005 when I was covering the formation of this new Iraqi government, reporting on all the complications that came after regime change in an ethnically diverse country emerging from dictatorship. He was Iraq's representative to the world. In his entryway, there's a display of pictures that shows that history.
ZEBARI: This is the big boss.
FADEL: George W. Bush?
ZEBARI: Yeah.
FADEL: And here's Dick Cheney. Where's this?
ZEBARI: Dick Cheney. This was a soul-searching session. Ahmadinejad, the Iranian...
FADEL: In his way, he's a diplomat that has long engaged with all parties, even after leaving his position. Since the U.S. war here, Iraq's government has walked a tenuous path. That path was created by a U.S. military campaign, and it led to a flawed and factionalized democracy heavily influenced by a U.S. nemesis - Iran.
ZEBARI: Well, sit down, still. Let's have some...
FADEL: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Can I take your bag?
FADEL: Yeah.
ZEBARI: ...Tea, coffee.
FADEL: Why don't we sit here?
We speak over coffee, with a fire crackling in the background. His living room feels like an oasis, a place where it's easy to forget that the U.S. and Israeli war with neighboring Iran is dragging the entire region into its fight.
You know, there's been a lot - in the U.S., a lot of comparisons to this military intervention in this moment and the military intervention taken by George W. Bush here in Iraq when we...
ZEBARI: Yeah.
FADEL: ...First met. And you were the architect of the post-Saddam...
ZEBARI: Oh, yes.
FADEL: ...Foreign international relations...
ZEBARI: Yes.
FADEL: ...Rebuilding of this country. Is that a fair comparison?
ZEBARI: It's not fair. It's two different situation. Historically, they are different and objectively also. In Iraq, yeah, it was an invasion. It was a decision - deliberate decision to use ground troops to overthrow an entrenched regime. And the moment the regime was removed, the whole security system collapsed. Here, they removed the head of the regime, but the system remained fighting back.
FADEL: In Iran.
ZEBARI: Yeah.
FADEL: What did you make of President Trump's decision to bomb Iran?
ZEBARI: Well, this has been in the making for some times. We don't know, actually, the endgame is regime change or a reform change and so on. But for the Iranian, their fight is to be or not to be. So they're fighting back. And this war doesn't have clear lines as before. It is relying on air superiority, on technology versus ideology.
FADEL: Iran is retaliating against U.S. allies and assets, including here in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. This minority community was brutalized under Saddam Hussein. Now it governs itself in this semiautonomous region. Zebari says all their gains, they feel like they're at risk now from Iran.
ZEBARI: Because we are now being attacked, and they are making these threats public - you see, they are not hidden - warning the Kurdistan regional government with the physical security of your leadership, with your infrastructure, with your institutions. This is from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
FADEL: They are making those threats in the face of this news that Iranian Kurdish opposition groups might go in.
ZEBARI: Well, these reports that came out about activating or supporting the Kurdish Iranian opposition in Iran have been highly exaggerated, and they are aspirational statement, to be honest with you. And calling for the Kurds to lead the opposition or to ignite an uprising inside Iran without providing them with sufficient security assurances or guarantees, it would be difficult, extremely difficult, for them to go to the unknown. And again, we don't know the endgame. We haven't been part or consulted on this whatsoever.
FADEL: Kurdistan does have relations with both the United States and Iran.
ZEBARI: Yes. We have, indeed, with the United States. We are their ally. Also with Iran because it's our eternal neighbor.
FADEL: Yeah.
ZEBARI: So we have to deal with them also. We need to take their security concerns on board, that we will not be part of any campaign against them, but we are not part of this war. You should not - you tell they should not blame us.
FADEL: Do they?
ZEBARI: They do. We've literally been drawn into this by the Iraqi Shia militias who want to expand the conflict, as the Iranians are trying to expand it, to regionalize the conflict in the Gulf.
FADEL: What are Iran's chances - the Islamic republic's chances of survival in this moment?
ZEBARI: Well, they are cornered. They are isolated. They are fighting for their life. The government may not survive, to be honest with you. It depends on the outcome of this conflict, how longer they can sustain this pressure, whether the American, the Israelis and others are willing to take it until the end, despite of all the casualties. We don't know. But I think it's been damaged, this regime, a great deal. Really, Iran will not be the same as before.
FADEL: That was Hoshyar Zebari, the former foreign minister of Iraq. He's also an influential Kurdish leader here in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
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