Lincoln Yazidis reflect on end of Hussein regime in Iraq as US conducts present-day air strikes in Iran

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – For one group of people in Lincoln, the growing uncertainty that follows the end of a regime is nothing new.

The Yazidi people are considered an ethno-religious minority in Iraq, and due to this, they experienced genocide by the terrorist group ISIS after the US captured Saddam Hussein in 2003.

This period motivated the Yazidis to help the American military fight for order in the region.

One Yazidi, Nawaf Haskan, first moved to Nebraska in 2019 to complete a master’s degree at UNL and to run the Yazidi cultural center in Lincoln.

Before that, he was pushing for bills in Washington, D.C. that aimed to stop the genocide of his people in Iraq.

It’s something he witnessed firsthand during his time as an interpreter, helping the US military in Iraq after Hussein’s capture.

“We, as many other Iraqis, felt very happy that the fall of Saddam marked the beginning of a new democratic era that will be followed by stability, security, good service, and a good life,” said Haskan.

He says he can imagine Iranians feeling the same, but from his experience, what follows periods like this is a period of instability and conflict for the most vulnerable groups, like the Yazidi people, along with Christians and women.

“They fell victim to all that conflict going on,” he said.

During that time, President Bush addressed the American people, saying, “Helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable, and free country will require our sustained commitment. We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people. We will bring freedom to others, and we will prevail.”

This week, President Trump emphasizing a similar message, saying, “We’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces, and no longer use their IEDs, or roadside bombs as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans. And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It’s a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Haskan says, “It may sound easy to topple down a regime or to destroy a dictator, but it’s very hard to bomb an ideology.”

He also mentioned that any security changes should be paired with a long-term plan for stability and security.