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Kurdistan - Paradise
4.9.2007
By Michael van der Galien |
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September 4, 2007
Thomas Friedman
writes for the
New York Times:
Iraq today is a land of contrasts — mostly black and
blacker. Traveling around the central Baghdad area
the past few days, I saw little that really gave me
hope that the different Iraqi sects can forge a
social contract to live together. The only sliver of
optimism I find here is in the one region where
Iraqis don’t live together: Kurdistan.
After that he goes on to describe the situation in
Kurdistan, he does so in quite a brilliant manner:
Imagine for a moment if one outcome of the U.S.
invasion of Iraq had been the creation of an
American University of Iraq. Imagine if we had
triggered a flood of new investment into Iraq that
had gone into new hotels, a big new convention
center, office buildings, Internet cafes, two new
international airports and Iraqi malls. Imagine if
we had paved the way for an explosion of newspapers,
even a local Human Rights Watch chapter, and new
schools. Imagine if we had created an island of
decency in Iraq, with public parks, where women
could walk unveiled and not a single American
soldier was ever killed — where Americans in fact
were popular — and where Islam was practiced in its
most tolerant and open manner. Imagine …
Well, stop imagining. It’s all happening in
Kurdistan, the northern Iraqi region, home to four
million Kurds. I saw all of the above in Kurdistan’s
two biggest towns, Erbil and Sulaimaniya. The Bush
team just never told anybody.
According to Friedman, Kurdistan is not fully
Democratic yet, but it most certainly on the right
path. For now, there is too much corruption and the
politics in the region are too much like those in
the “Sopranos” than in “West Wing,” but “it is
democratizing, gradually nurturing the civil society
and middle class needed for a real democracy.” In
other words, Kurdistan might become what the Bush
administration hoped Iraq would be like.
More, not only is Kurdistan a big success, it is
also a success “in the best way: we created the
opening and the Kurds did the rest.”
It seems that the Kurds living in Northern Iraq
never truly tried to develop their region because
they were afraid of Saddam Hussein. Once Saddam was
removed from power, however, Kurds understood that
they were safe and they started to invest bigtime in
businesses, cards, hotels, etc. Even those with
little to no money decided that the time for
financial action had come.
Friedman wonders why it is that the Bush
administration has kept the success of Kurdistan a
secret, or at least why it does not proclaim
Kurdistan’s success from the roof of the White
House. He gives the answer to these questions as
well: “the Bush team is afraid the Kurds will break
away.”
Quite an understandable fear but, according to
Friedman, unfounded nonetheless. According to the
NYT columnist, “the Kurds have no interest in
splitting from Iraq now. Iraq’s borders protect them
from Turkey, Iran and Syria.”
Although Friedman might be right about this - I have
never visited Kurdistan, nor do I have any contact
with Kurds living in Northern Iraq - I also
understand why Bush et al are not so sure about this
as Friedman is. The PKK has found a safe haven in
Iraq, and it is no secret that the goal of the PKK
is to create an independent Kurdish state. More,
Barzani - the leader of the Kurds - has basically
said in the recent past that the Kurds might indeed
pursue independence and that they are ready for it.
Whether he said this things just to satisfy the PKK
or whether he actually believes in it, the result is
that Turkey and America are both a bit suspicious,
to say the least.
All of this does not mean, however, that the US
cannot exploit Kurdistan’s success. The lives of
Kurds have greatly improved since the US went to war
against Iraq; Kurdistan has progressed tremendously;
this is a major accomplishment and, although many
things have gone wrong in this war, this part of the
war has gone mostly right.
There is, however, one ‘but’ not mentioned by
Friedman: the PKK might jeopardize the peace and
progress made in Kurdistan. Because of the PKK,
Turkey and Iran are more than willing to invade
Kurdistan, or at least to bomb some villages. In the
end, Kurdistan can only truly prosper when the PKK
decides to lay down its arms.
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