COMMENTARY
Donn Esmonde: Passion for Iraq takes its toll
He remains caught between two countries, his passion matched by equal parts frustration and fear. He will only be at peace when Iraq, his native land, is free. He will only be at peace when America, his adopted home, is safe from terrorists.
No wonder that worry lines mark Steve Sharrif’s brow and frustration fills his heart.
“My fear is of an Iraq in the hands of Islamic extremists,” Sharrif said recently, over dinner of grape leaves and chicken at his brother’s Amherst apartment. “They will use the $70 billion surplus and Iraq’s other resources to empower Iran and other enemies of America.”
It is two decades since Sharrif — dark-eyed and bulldog-intense — escaped to Buffalo. He came soon after his father was killed by Saddam Hussein’s thugs. Sharrif built a life here — got married, ran a motel, headed an Iraqi refugee center. But a part of him never left his native land.
When the war started, he went back, to translate for — he speaks Farsi and Kurdish — and help the Americans sent to save his homeland. He feared — justifiably — that we would bungle the chance to unite Iraq after the dictator was dead. To his frustration, we misplaced trust in frauds like Ahmad Chalabi, mindlessly put corrupt officials in power and failed to win Iraqi hearts by restoring water, sewers and electricity.
Working with Homeland Security and later the Department of Defense, Sharrif spent the last few years advising U. S. officials. He stood at the side of generals and earned a 2006 Army commendation for “personal efforts [that] resulted in countless lives being saved.”
I met him six years ago, when he sat on a panel at UB on the coming Iraq War. The focus of his fears has morphed from Saddam to Islamic and Iranian extremists wrapping their hands around Iraq’s neck. Their puppet politicians denounce the U. S. from the floor of Iraq’s parliament.
Sharrif’s frustrations with our current president’s policies have devolved to concern for Barack Obama’s ability to separate America’s friends from the extremists’ pawns. We have people in Iraq who know the difference. Unlike Bush, Obama has to listen to them.
“The elections of 2009 are the key,” said Sharrif, referring to the provincial elections in January and general elections late next year. “We cannot let Islamic extremists gain control. We have to help the secular [candidates] win political office. We have people [in Iraq] who know who they are.”
Sharrif was in town recently for a family visit, warning that — unless we are careful — the country will become a quagmire. “The extremists want to turn Iraq into a battlefield for different ideologies,” he said. “They are waiting for America to pull out, then [Iraq’s] money and resources goes to Iran and Hezbollah. . . . But most Iraqis do not want to sell their souls to extremists.”
Sharrif is an exceptional guy who is consumed by a cause that seems cursed. Imagine having your heart and soul tied on a short leash to Baghdad. It is tough to keep a song in your heart when your laptop computer contains images of your countrymen being beheaded by fanatics.
My feelings for him range from admiration to regret. Fate has tied him to a forsaken land. The passion he feels for it has come at family sacrifice and the loss of his business.
It was not as if he had a choice, not really. Conscience would not let him choose comfort. He could not turn his back on his homeland, no more than a duck could stay away from water.
Sharrif soon is headed back to Baghdad. He is a prisoner of his passion. Until his homeland knows freedom, he will not be free. The day seems barely closer now than it did six years ago, when a tyrant ruled.
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