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A window of opportunity for an independent
Kurdistan?
11.8.2012
This is a cross post by bananabrain from The
Spittoon |
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August 11, 2012
I must start by declaring an interest here, not only
as someone who supports a fair and equitable end to
the Arab-Israeli conflict in which Israel’s future
is secured and a wider lasting peace in the middle
east for all its peoples, but also as someone many
of whose ancestors came from Mosul and Kirkuk in
Kurdistan. I have met many talented Kurds and they
have invariably been the sort of people who I could
get along with and do business with; reasonable,
rational and sensitive to the realities of history
and politics.
For all these reasons, the issue of Kurdistan has
been close to my heart for a number of years; it
felt very much to me as if it was a pipe-dream,
given the geopolitical status quo. the basics are
this:
There are something like 40-50 million Kurds, spread
over mountainous territory which is probably some of
the most geopolitically sensitive in the world:
eastern Turkey, northern Syria, Iraq, Iran and a
small part of Armenia. Kurds have their own
Indo-European language, although their society is
highly tribalised and split between Sunni Islam of
the Shafi’i school (about 3/5), mainstream Twelver
Shi’ism, a number of sects such as Alevis and a
couple of ancient indigenous religions, of which the
most famous is Yezidism. They are the largest ethnic
group without an independent nation.
The Kurds are also oppressed, marginalised and
brutalised in Turkey, Iraq and Iran. in Turkey, even
the word “Kurd” and their language is banned, Kurds
being forcibly described as “mountain Turks”. In
Iraq, the Kurdish autonomous area is probably the
least of the post-Saddam basket cases – they have
plenty of oil and the memory of the atrocities at
Halabja give them reason to fear and suspect their
southern neighbours. In Iran, repression of all non-Shi’a
religion is de rigeur, with a hefty dose of ethnic
prejudice.
There has never been an independent Kurdistan in the
modern period, largely because of the geopolitics.
The Kurds sit on a volatile faultline, between the
Turks and the Russians in the Caucasus, between the
Turks and the Iranians in Syria and between the
Sunni and Shi’a in Iraq. Given the interest of the
Russians in maintaining their influence in the area,
they would rather maintain the status quo. Given the
importance of Turkish influence in the Levant and
the 10+m Kurds that live within Turkish borders, any
loss of control along that faultline is ruthlessly
resisted from Ankara. similarly, in the Iranian
attempt to extend the “Shi’a crescent” from the gulf
to the Mediterranean, the Assad regime, as is
already common knowledge, is a key component of
grand strategy. Since the Syrian rebellion, the
Kurds have been allowed to assert themselves, which
is presumably intended to unsettle the Turks and
draw them into the field, as they fear an resurgence
of the Marxist PKK, a violent group considered
terrorists by the EU and NATO as well as Turkey, but
often supported and encouraged by the Assad regime
for their own ends as and when it suited them.
The geopolitical balance in the region has long been
between Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The
Saudis have an interest in anything that upsets
Iran, as well as anything which undermines a
resurgence of the historic primacy of Turkey and
much of the funding for the Syrian rebellion is
coming out of the gulf. To the extent that the Kurds
upset both Turkey and Iran, they will be likely to
support an increasingly assertive Kurdish nation.
The interesting thing here is the Israelis, who have
never been in conflict with the Kurds as opposed to
the Iranians and Arabs. However, any support for
Kurdish self-determination was overruled by their
friendly relations with the Turks, far more powerful
and influential and far more worrying to the Arabs
and Iranians. However, since the Turkish government
began pursuing a more Islamist and anti-Israel line,
culminating in serious international incidents from
the IHH flotilla to insulting and immature
diplomatic behaviour on both sides, many have begun
to speculate as to whether Israel can maintain
friendly relations with turkey in the long-term. If
Turkey is determined to break with Israel, it would
be logical for the Israelis to look elsewhere for
friends. With Egypt going Islamist and chaos in
Syria and Iraq, Kurdistan would be an obvious choice
for Israeli support in advance of their interests,
with the ability to project power into Syria, Iraq
and Iran and as leverage with Turkey.
The international powers are another factor – Turkey
has been much cultivated as a potential recruit to
the EU, but with the Euro in crisis, the Turks have
gone cold on this particular opportunity. they are
now looking at extending their power east and south,
as the north is blocked by Russia and the Caucasus.
In the aftermath of the Iraq war and with jihadism
largely a spent force in geopolitical terms, the
United States will be less interested in
counterbalancing Iran, a regional player at best, if
they can rely on the Turks to do so. On the other
hand, with the Russians eyeing their southern
border, a non-Arab, non-Iranian influence with
forbidding, mountainous territory could be ideal for
the Americans to garner influence, particularly if
they can use the Israelis to that end and have
learned the lessons of the last forbidding,
mountainous area where they used tribal power to
combat Russian influence.
If the Kurds are smart, they will take this
opportunity as a chance to change the strategic
logic. The last time this kind of strategic
realignment was possible was in 1990, when the Turks
and the Syrians were part of the anti-Saddam
coalition – their price being a free hand for him to
deal with the Kurds in the north, for which he
needed to be left in place – otherwise, he could
have been removed easily enough at the time. It is
not hard to conclude that this was not done at the
time because it was still thought that Iraq could be
maintained as an integral state, rather than the
three regions controlled by Sunnis, Shi’as and Kurds
that it actually is. The break-up of Iraq in 1990
would have led to calls for an independent Kurdistan
and that would have been fatal for the coalition.
This is no longer the case – Iraq and Syria are
disintegrating, the Iranians are exerting themselves
and the Turks are turning away from their former
allies and friends. while Turkey and Iran are
distracted with Syria and with the Israelis on the
outs with Turkey and looking to pressurise the
Iranians, now is a golden opportunity. Britain also
has strong links with Kurdistan through a vibrant
and hard-working Kurdish community, particularly in
London; we have made few friends in the middle east
since the 1990s – support for an independent
Kurdistan would change the balance of power in the
middle east and it is hard to see how the righting
of a historic injustice could do anything but
improve the situation.
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