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How is policy made and what is the importance of individuals? International Relations students are sometimes asked to assess if or how a bad breakfast or a domestic argument affected the foreign minister's mood before an important meeting.
Other explanations of how decisions are made focus on the larger economic and political context of such decisions. That is best summed up by Karl Marx who famously opined that men make their own history but not always under the circumstances of their own choosing.
That is true as far as it goes but it is also true that the individual often counts decisively. Take the phrase - the fish rots from the head down - or turn it around and, for example, study how a good Head Teacher provides inspiration that can either generate a healthy educational culture or a school that has to be rescued. Almost if not entirely regardless of resources, leadership and analysis are key to making the right decisions.
I was thinking of all this when I saw the new British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee to be quizzed on his views and priorities. I remembered a similar session with the last foreign secretary, Boris Johnson in which he unadvisedly and inaccurately said that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British hostage in Evin jail, was teaching journalists - she wasn't and this slip fuelled hard-line elements of the regime. Johnson also argued that Kurdistan was seeking to bust out of Iraq. He was a journalist before becoming a politician and could not help but find a striking, but inaccurate, phrase.
By contrast, Hunt was a model of moderate thought and reflection just four months into his term of office. His tour d'horizon encompassed two simultaneous major processes affecting the UK: Brexit and that "the world order is dramatically changing, certainly from the post-1945 settlement, but most specifically from the post-1989 settlement. We have had a period with one superpower and we are moving now, decisively, to a period with two."
He defined his job as maximising British influence in the pursuit of British interests and British values through soft power - the UK is the third biggest aid donor in the world and "we seem to get relatively little credit for that" - and hard power to back up its words. The UK should neither overstate nor understate its potentially decisive role. The largest economy, China will not be a democracy and "we will be having to make the argument for democratic values in a much more assertive way..."
Hunt added that the UK is "using our huge web of connections in the world to be a kind of invisible thread linking the democracies of the world and preparing us all for the challenges we are going to face in the decades ahead."
The discussion ranged from China to Russia, Saudi and Yemen, Turkey and America but there were no specific questions about Iraq and Kurdistan, although there is a separate inquiry into the role of the Middle East minister.
Hunt answered a question about dealing with Saudi after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by referring to a very challenging situation in the Middle East and specifically a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Yemen, which could escalate into a much bigger and more dangerous conflict, and the continuing risk of Iranian nuclear weapons. This context, and the experience of other interventions in the Middle East in the last 20 years led him to conclude that "we have to be very careful about the unintended consequences of any action we take."
A recent motion from Mary Glindon MP, for instance, expresses relief that relations between the Kurds in Iraq and the federal government in Baghdad appear to be improving after the failed attempt to blockade and dissolve the Kurdistan Regional Government following its people's overwhelming support for the principle of negotiated independence in a referendum in September 2017.
It also accepts that Adil Abdul-Mahdi is a more emollient figure who fought alongside the Peshmerga against Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and resigned on principle when his plans for a sustainable deal between Erbil and Baghdad on oil and gas was rejected by the then Iraqi Prime Minister. The motion supports the implementation of the federal constitution that protects the rights of the Kurds which, if it had been done from its acceptance in an Iraqi referendum in 2005, would have forestalled a vote on independence. It backs a fully federal Iraq with a strong Kurdistan Regional Government.
Friends of Kurdistan should respond forcefully if Baghdad breaks its promises, or worse. But let's hope that we can focus on less kinetic but vital matters such as further improving the visa system, persuading the UK to send an official trade mission once the new government is formed, and encouraging British entrepreneurs to look at projects from solar power to pomegranate exports.
The menu of Anglo/Kurdistani partnership would be beefed up by an official visit by the KRG Prime Minister to meet the UK Prime Minister and others as quickly as possible. And I'll happily leave the choice of breakfast dishes to others.
Gary Kent is the Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
Other explanations of how decisions are made focus on the larger economic and political context of such decisions. That is best summed up by Karl Marx who famously opined that men make their own history but not always under the circumstances of their own choosing.
That is true as far as it goes but it is also true that the individual often counts decisively. Take the phrase - the fish rots from the head down - or turn it around and, for example, study how a good Head Teacher provides inspiration that can either generate a healthy educational culture or a school that has to be rescued. Almost if not entirely regardless of resources, leadership and analysis are key to making the right decisions.
I was thinking of all this when I saw the new British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee to be quizzed on his views and priorities. I remembered a similar session with the last foreign secretary, Boris Johnson in which he unadvisedly and inaccurately said that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British hostage in Evin jail, was teaching journalists - she wasn't and this slip fuelled hard-line elements of the regime. Johnson also argued that Kurdistan was seeking to bust out of Iraq. He was a journalist before becoming a politician and could not help but find a striking, but inaccurate, phrase.
By contrast, Hunt was a model of moderate thought and reflection just four months into his term of office. His tour d'horizon encompassed two simultaneous major processes affecting the UK: Brexit and that "the world order is dramatically changing, certainly from the post-1945 settlement, but most specifically from the post-1989 settlement. We have had a period with one superpower and we are moving now, decisively, to a period with two."
He defined his job as maximising British influence in the pursuit of British interests and British values through soft power - the UK is the third biggest aid donor in the world and "we seem to get relatively little credit for that" - and hard power to back up its words. The UK should neither overstate nor understate its potentially decisive role. The largest economy, China will not be a democracy and "we will be having to make the argument for democratic values in a much more assertive way..."
Hunt added that the UK is "using our huge web of connections in the world to be a kind of invisible thread linking the democracies of the world and preparing us all for the challenges we are going to face in the decades ahead."
The discussion ranged from China to Russia, Saudi and Yemen, Turkey and America but there were no specific questions about Iraq and Kurdistan, although there is a separate inquiry into the role of the Middle East minister.
Hunt answered a question about dealing with Saudi after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by referring to a very challenging situation in the Middle East and specifically a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Yemen, which could escalate into a much bigger and more dangerous conflict, and the continuing risk of Iranian nuclear weapons. This context, and the experience of other interventions in the Middle East in the last 20 years led him to conclude that "we have to be very careful about the unintended consequences of any action we take."
MPs on the APPG keep Kurdistani issues on the agenda through regular cross-party motions, questions and meetings with the minister — a debate on our latest report is being sought. The point they often make is that Kurdistani success can do much to stabilise Iraq, a pivotal nation in the Middle East, and that a reformed Kurdistan can show others show to change their ways.
A recent motion from Mary Glindon MP, for instance, expresses relief that relations between the Kurds in Iraq and the federal government in Baghdad appear to be improving after the failed attempt to blockade and dissolve the Kurdistan Regional Government following its people's overwhelming support for the principle of negotiated independence in a referendum in September 2017.
It also accepts that Adil Abdul-Mahdi is a more emollient figure who fought alongside the Peshmerga against Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and resigned on principle when his plans for a sustainable deal between Erbil and Baghdad on oil and gas was rejected by the then Iraqi Prime Minister. The motion supports the implementation of the federal constitution that protects the rights of the Kurds which, if it had been done from its acceptance in an Iraqi referendum in 2005, would have forestalled a vote on independence. It backs a fully federal Iraq with a strong Kurdistan Regional Government.
Friends of Kurdistan should respond forcefully if Baghdad breaks its promises, or worse. But let's hope that we can focus on less kinetic but vital matters such as further improving the visa system, persuading the UK to send an official trade mission once the new government is formed, and encouraging British entrepreneurs to look at projects from solar power to pomegranate exports.
The menu of Anglo/Kurdistani partnership would be beefed up by an official visit by the KRG Prime Minister to meet the UK Prime Minister and others as quickly as possible. And I'll happily leave the choice of breakfast dishes to others.
Gary Kent is the Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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