Master of the gaffe

By: Kamal Rajab

Jan 5, 2006

Looking like a bamboozled chimp has become a specialty for President Jalal Talabani. He delivers words so garbled that they take on a fame of their own; in Kurdistan and beyond, he is hailed as a master of the gaffe.

For someone famed for a faulting grasp of the English language, it’s an ambitious task - the slightest slip-up would be filmed on national television and beamed around the world.

These situations are complex, all require longer practice. But in the question-and-answer session, it matters less what you say, more that you appear honest and speak straight.

Some politicians can think broadsheet and talk tabloid: when Mr. Talabani steps away from the podium, he peppers his speech with earnest reactions such as "stooping the asker low" and “disgracing retorts ", and even "browbeating."  He can do public speeches, but can’t do public conversation. His unscripted remarks have too often strayed into rambling legalese: a weakness he should acknowledge by sticking to the text. His rare attempts at ad-libbing, normally in television interviews, have yielded such disastrous results that has gathered enough of them to make a small arsenal of weapons to attack him with.

Mr. Talabani’s binary view of life is what makes him reviled inside. "You’re either with PUK, or against us," he implies in his most assertions. My status and my party’s penchants over the nation’s “is another debacle in his tenure.  But at home, it’s what gets him elected: as a politician, it’s an enviable skill.

It is a political game of scissors-paper-stone: weapons are good in some arenas, useless in others. Complexities are good when writing laws; fancy words are good in speeches.

But in answering people’s questions, clarity is king. That is why the upcoming presidential election is tormenting for Mr. Talabani. In such an arena, intellect can, if anything, be a liability: verbosity is lethal. The fewer words the better.

Also debits abound to criticize the Talabani administration's approach toward foreign policy. Let’s browse through some. The first is:  he is both simple and simple-minded: Talabani is the foul being of collective interests, pursuing silky approaches merely to reward his rivals regardless of his national duties.  His assertion of Yes-always is creating intractable obstacles for his tenure. One would hardly see any defiance or disavowal answer to his political opponents ( the Sunnis and Shiites).

The second kind of criticism is more substantive. It holds that the costs of Talabani’s subjective doctrine—weakened our national identity from and international legitimacy viewpoint, fraying Kurdish alliances, increased global undermining of Kurdish rights—are greater than the benefits. His inability and inaction to rally the two-pronged administrations in concert is another patch. His overbid of concessions to the opponents is counter-productively bitter. Opportunism bears no identifiable animus in his angle.

A third babble has leisurely loomed in the wake of his election as a president. It agrees with the logic of Talabani’s grand strategy about the fate of Kirkuk, but questions whether the policy implementation has been up to snuff. This line of argumentation has less to do with substance and more to do with process. To sum it up, Talabani’s management of foreign policy has also been too detached for his own good. The president would proudly admit that he's not a detail guy, preferring to enunciate firm principles and let his subordinates hash out the specifics. However, this disengagement has encouraged bureaucratic rivalries to fester, diverting the attention of officials from the actual substance of foreign policy.

In the re-held selection, it all appertains to the bulk and size of prerogatives he is able to attain for his people to further rationalizes the longevity of his term. Mr. Talabani needs to portray more bleakness and sobriety to both his opponents and proponents.

Kamal Rajab is a student of international relationship in Preston University – Canada.