Mission to Iraq lacks support

All things considered, New Zealand troops have probably never been sent on a military mission overseas with a weaker mandate than the military mission to Iraq.

For weeks, doubts have lingered as to whether this deployment has the necessary authority and support (a) among the government of Iraq that we are trying to help and (b) among Parliament and the public here at home.

The long delay in announcing the sending of our small troop detachment to Iraq has been because the legal status of our troops while in Iraq has been somewhat unclear.

The so-called ‘‘status of forces ’’ agreement between the two countries has struggled to include such things as a formal recognition that our troops are on Iraqi soil as guests, and not as foreign occupiers.

Such an agreement would provide our troops with some legal immunity if any harm should result to local people, or property.

Even the ability of our troops to wear uniforms and carry weapons depends on this agreement.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi Parliament has been in no fit state lately to ratify such a document.

The assassination by Shi’ite militia of a prominent Sunni sheikh and the kidnapping and beating of his nephew, a Sunni MP – not to mention the killing of their bodyguards – has caused the entire Sunni bloc to withdraw from the Iraqi Parliament in protest.

All along, one of Prime Minister John Key’s rationales for our military involvement has been that the new Iraqi political system is more inclusive than the Shiadominated regimes of the recent past.

In reality, however, Iraq has become more polarised along sectarian lines, not less so.

‘‘The bullet that shot Sheikh Quasim,’’ a Sunni MP told the Washington Post last week, ‘‘ has shot at the heart of national reconciliation.’’

A different kind of polarisation about Iraq has been evident within the Parliament.

Probably, no military mission we’ve sent into a combat zone has faced such a broad degree of parliamentary opposition.

Even though our troops will be sent to train Iraqi troops on how to fight the Islamic State – and not to combat ISIS directly – the Government has only the narrowest margin of parliamentary support.

On the eve of the deployment announcement, Labour, the Greens, United Future, New Zealand First and the Maori Party had all expressed their opposition.

The government of the day is not compelled to hold a binding parliamentary vote when it sends troops overseas.

Yet if Parliament was allowed such a vote on the Iraq deployment, the likelihood is that the

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Zealand Key Government – now that Northland MP Mike Sabin has resigned – would require the support of the Act Party, which earned less than 1 per cent of the vote at the last election.

Abhorrent as the excesses of Islamic State are, many New Zealanders still feel misgivings about this deployment.

Will it make any difference to the Iraqi people, or to the fortunes of Islamic State?

Will it put our soldiers in harm’s way for no winnable cause and with no exit timetable in mind?

Should we be training the Kurds to fight against Islamic State, rather than the Iraqi Army? Will New Zealanders now become a target of terrorism?

The Iraq deployment could have consequences for all of us, for years to come.