Policy Shift: Syrian Decisions and the Use/Abuse of the Kurds
by Gerald A. Honigman
President Trump’s decision regarding withdrawal of American forces from the fight against President Erdogan’s fellow Islamists in ISIS in Syria, along with that would-be new Turkish Sultan’s aim to partially re-create the Asiatic portion of the Ottoman Empire, have quickly led to disturbing consequences. More are sure to follow…
Over a dozen American troops and allies were blown apart by ISIS on January 17th in response to President Trump telegraphing this news. The aim, of course, was/is to further demoralize our troops and the Kurds who’ve done most of the fighting and dying for us (and not the first time either for a half century now).
The arena in which this is largely taking place is in part of geographical Kurdistan, encompassing mostly mountainous regions of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, in areas where Kurds–as the Hebrew Bible’s Hurrians; Gutian conquerors of Babylon; Kassites; (probably) Medes; and others as well–pre-date Arab and Turkish conquerors by millennia http://kurdistanwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Kurdistan-1.jpg.
The terror of the Crusades, Salah ad-Din, was a Kurd. He’s likely rolling in his grave knowing what has been done to his people in modern times by fellow Muslim–but ethnic Arab and Turk–subjugators and executioners.
Kurds have had their language and culture outlawed by both of those expansionist, colonizing, imperial conquerors, while hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered by them as well.
In the wake of the collapse of empires in the early 20th century and the late arrival of nationalism to the region, while Arabs would wind up with almost two dozen states (most forcibly Arabized from scores of millions of non-Arab peoples), some 38 million Kurds remain stateless to date–constantly being manipulated and at others’ mercy, and with their own internal divisions adding to the problem. And without a home base–in which to experiment and build upon in their own historic lands to work out the kinks–resorting to blaming the victim for his own victimization (as some are prone to do regarding the Kurds’ plight) simply won’t pass muster. What states did not have problems in their birth pangs–especially in the Middle East? One empire after the other had ruled there previously for millennia.
To place an otherwise reasonably good “thinking out of the box ” American leader’s unfortunate decision regarding Syria into broader context given the consequences it will likely have, especially involving our strangely loyal Kurdish friends, please allow me to provide some background…
On September 9, 2018, The Jerusalem Post reported a precision Iranian ballistic missile attack on Iraqi Kurds hit the exact building–perhaps exact room–where Kurdish leaders were meeting. No doubt, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was sending a message to others besides Kurds with this strike.
Like Tehran’s otherwise centuries’ old rivals for regional hegemony–Turks and Arabs–the one thing all three have agreed upon is the denial of political (even basic human) rights to tens of millions of native Kurds who pre-date at least Turks and Arabs in their region by millennia.
The latter two have periodically outlawed Kurdish language and culture. Some twenty-three million Kurds in Turkey–about a fourth of the total population–have been renamed “Mountain Turks” by Ankara (guess why?).
And besides Saddam Hussein’s genocidal Anfal Campaign in “Arab” Iraq in the 1980s, which took some 200,000 Kurdish lives (and many others in the ’70s and before), the title of the Kurdish scholar, Ismet Cherif Vanly’s book, The Syrian ‘Mein Kampf ‘Against The Kurds, says all you need to know about how Syrian Arabs have also dealt with these people. The Kurds’ cousins, the Iranians, frequently make a point to hang Kurdish dissidents. Together, all three nations have slaughtered some half million Kurds during the past century.
Please follow these excerpts from the above JP report…
“The big picture is an Iranian missile threat throughout the region… US allies have technology to confront the Iranian threat. Israel has a layered system of missile defense including Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Arrow program, while Saudi Arabia has used Patriot missile batteries to stop (Iranian-supplied) Houthi missiles. This has proven effective. It is also why the IRGC decided to test its missiles by targeting defenseless Kurdish groups in northern Iraq.” Those defenses, of course, could be overwhelmed by huge numbers of missiles being fired at the same time.
Note that very last line in the above quote about “defenseless” Kurds. That’s the tie-in to the problem with Trump’s Syrian withdrawal decision.
So, now let’s really begin…
My work related to this much used and abused people pre-dates my doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs over four decades ago, In those days, when you mentioned Kurds, most folks thought of Little Miss Muffet (and those were the wrong curds). Rarely were they mentioned by even experts in academia–for a variety of reasons…none good.
A major research project of mine became accepted, in much condensed form, by the heavily Nobel laureate-sponsored academic journal, the Fall 1982 Middle East Review…”British Petroleum Politics, Arab Nationalism, and the Kurdish Struggle for Independence.” From there it landed on the recommended reference list of Paris’s acclaimed Institute d’ Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), where it still sits today…and from there in bibliographies and footnotes of assorted scholars of the region https://www.google.com/search?q=%22british+petroleum+politics,+arab+nationalism,+and+the+kurds%22&filter=0&biw=1680&bih=858 .
Having been immersed in this truly stateless people’s ordeal for almost half century–and painfully witnessing how they have been too often ignored by the same academics and others so quick to demand a 22nd state for Arab nationalism, in its various subspecies, via the gross endangerment of the sole, resurrected, minuscule nation of the Jews–for quite some time, I’ve thus called for America to consider a radical shift in policy. Radical…
For too long we have let Turks, Iranians, and Arabs dictate–or at least greatly influence–our positions according to their own self-centered interests–no matter who else got shafted and/or slaughtered as a result.
While Iran champions, funds, and arms Arabs elsewhere fighting Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the like, it suppresses or slaughters those among some eight million Ahwazi Arabs in its own oil-rich western province of Khuzestan/”Arabistan.” The would-be nuclear mullahs have an annual “Jerusalem Day” so no one talks about an al-Ahwaz Day… https://ekurd.net/viva-arabistan-2018-01-03. Check out this short video https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=gerald+a.+honigman+you+tubes&view=detail&mid=A0BC9E8BBE19CB2B11D3A0BC9E8BBE19CB2B11D3&FORM=VIRE
Currently, with President Erdogan’s Islamist-oriented government in Turkey, the important American Air Base at Incirlik is now all but useless to Washington.
To replace Incirlik, I am proposing that President Trump continue to think out of the box...as he has done by sidelining the traditional anti-Israel (and, as archives show, anti-Semitic) and anti-Kurd Arabists at Foggy Bottom– who fought President Truman over Israel’s very resurrection in the first place.
Think about what a major American base, replacing Incirlik, in Iraqi Kurdistan–situated among folks who actually like America—might achieve.
Next, add another major policy shift…
Instead of just arming Kurds with the virtual equivalent of glorified pop guns in comparison to what their enemies possess, America needs to do for Kurds–proven in battle, America’s most effective fighting force against ISIS and others as well–what it has done for their subjugators and executioners: train and equip Kurdish tank and artillery battalions, aircraft squadrons, special forces, and the like.
Washington armed the mostly Shi’a Arab Iraqi military with sophisticated weaponry only to see it abandoned to ISIS or shared with forces in bed with Iran…Say hello to the likely second Shi’a Islamic Republic in the neighborhood.
It’s time to treat allies who, despite shortcomings, share many of our own ideals and vision, and provide them with the means to actually win–not just be a nuisance to–their/our enemies. We shamefully used them before this way in the ’70s when the Shah of Iran was fighting Saddam (yes, he was around that long).
As soon as Tehran’s Persians made temporary peace with Baghdad’s Arabs, Washington, via Secretary of State Kissinger, pulled the rug out from under their feet…resulting in thousands being slaughtered and displaced. The late, great New York Times’ William Safire wrote a series of op-eds about this, “The Sellout of the Kurds.”
Worse, we repeated this shameful scenario yet again under President George H. W. Bush’s watch. And even President Trump, despite his recent positive actions in the region, gave less than sterling support when over 90% of Iraqi Kurds voted for independence in a referendum and were subsequently subdued by American tanks and lost the oil fields of historically Kurdish majority Kirkuk and such to Iraqi Arab forces while Washington, again, did nothing…The likely, long term winners? Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ayatollahs.
Everyone next jumped on the Kurds, blaming them for their own misfortune.
“Timing was bad…you angered your non-Kurdish neighbors,” and so on. Again, keep in mind that this occurred while Kurds were doing most of the fighting and dying in the fight against ISIS and other assorted jihadis.
Bad timing…really?
Just what time would have been “good” for Kurds, who’ve been waiting almost a century, to finally receive their own share of justice in the age of nationalism, which arrived late in the Middle East, given the nature of the Turks, Arabs, and Iranians who’ve subjugated them all this time?
Blame the victim when you don’t have the backbone to take on the oppressor. After all, it’s much easier that way–and you won’t tick off Iranian and Arab oil potentates…and the latter’s American Big Oil partners in ARAMCO and such.
Recall The Jerusalem Post article speaks of Iran’s choice to test precision missiles against “defenseless” Kurds. So…
Why not drastically change this situation, create another bulwark against the feared Shi’a Crescent (Hizbullah’s Lebanon, Assad’s Alawi Shi’a Syria, Iraq, and Iran) –nightmare of Sunni Arabs–and give American influence in a boost at the same time?
But, again, won’t this anger the regional powers that be?
Sure will…but that doesn’t mean such a radical shift in policy shouldn’t be done and isn’t morally correct…like Trump defunding UNRWA, or finally making Arabs define the word “refugee” the same way scores of millions of other non-Arab refugees have had to from the get-go. Or recognizing the 3,000-year old capital of the Jewish people since the days of King David for what it is–Israel’s modern capital.
As for the refugee issue, at least as many, if not more, Jews fled from Arab/Muslim lands than Arabs did in reverse due to a war Arabs started with their attack on a tiny, reborn Israel in May 1948. Where’s the special world agency just set up for them?
Yes, Turks have been an important NATO ally, and they’re worried about how their own subjugated 23 million “Mountain Turks” will respond to happenings involving Kurdish brethren across the border.
But, my bet is that the Turks will remain allies. Ankara is already doing lots of business with Iraqi Kurdistan and has access to its oil. A newly-independent or substantially autonomous Kurdistan is not about to do anything stupid to further provoke the powerful Turkish military.
With a powerful American base in the KRG region, and a better-equipped official Kurdish army, the Kurds’ “loose guns” will be better contained. But that’s also up to the Turks. If they continue to suppress “their” Kurds, it will be hard to convince groups like the PKK to ignore this. Furthermore, with Putin’s new Vladimir the Great’s Russia having visions of recreating a Russian empire, unless Ankara has a bad case of amnesia, it will realize that it needs NATO and America more than the latter need it. Think of the would-be 21st century Czar vs. the 21st century would-be Sultan.
An independent (or even just substantially autonomous) Kurdistan???
“Destabilizing!” critics complain. Yet, those same voices who expect tens of millions of Kurds to remain forever stateless, demand a 22nd Arab state, run by Mahmoud Abbas’s latter-day Arafatians-in-suits or Hamasniks, both of which have openly-stated they will never accept a Jewish State as a neighbor. Now, that above eventuality wouldn’t be destabilizing–would it? Can you spell H Y P O C R I S Y ?
Kurds are already known for their military prowess. So, imagine what could be… like American/Kurdish precision missile batteries as close to Iran as vice-versa, and so forth.
By the way, I almost forgot…Most Kurds like Israel. A future alliance between Israel and Kurdistan? Stranger things have happened…
It’s relevant to recall that Kurds were promised independence in at least part of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia after WWI in the wake of the break-up of the centuries’-old Ottoman Turkish Empire. Their hopes were shattered, however, after London received a favorable ruling from the League of Nations in 1925 tying the oil of the heavily Kurdish north to their Mandate in the resolution of the Mosul Question. The Turks have felt cheated ever since–and who knows what Ankara may have in mind for the future following American withdrawal from the region, the collapse of a unified Syria, and so forth.
The dream of Kurdistan was aborted by a collusion of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism (open the second link down from the top), as a solely Arab-dominated Iraq was born instead in the entire territory–with the London actively assisting in suppressing the predictable Kurdish response. Repeated partitions and/or partition plans were okay for the smaller Mandate of Palestine, but not for Mesopotamia.
Powerful rulers in Turkey and Iran–Ataturk and Reza Shah Pahlavi–precluded Kurdish hopes in those areas, and with France imbedded in Syria as one of its two post-WWI Mandates, Mesopotamia was thus the Kurds’ best hope.
Back to the future…With Syria now in shambles, who knows what next might eventually happen–especially if an independent Kurdistan emerges next door in Iraq?
A partitioned or federalized Syria, into Sunni, Alawi Shi’a, and Kurdish autonomous states–as, perhaps, in Iraq as well?
Keep in mind that Iraq is as artificial a state as Yugoslavia was in Europe—both consisting of hostile groups put together mostly for other powers’ interests after the collapse of empires during the World War I era. When Yugoslavia’s “Strong Man,” Marshal Tito, exited Planet Earth, Yugoslavia broke apart not long afterwards…
Has anyone seen Iraq’s Saddam Hussein lately? We live in potentially very pregnant times, indeed.
Given all the above, President Trump’s continued thinking out of the box, along with a major shift in foreign policy, would thus also act to right a horrible historic wrong.
The score for justice in the region should not remain Arabs 21 to 0, involving Kurds (and others as well) into perpetuity–with Arabs demanding state #22, their second, not first, in the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine. Jordan and Arab nationalism were gifted most of the territory in 1922 from Great Britain.
Different, long antagonistic groups should not be forced together if some insist on besting others. Where is it written that the time period for the birth of new nations–especially ones which should have been born but were prevented–has come to an end? A very imperfect South Sudan was created not that long ago because of its peoples’ suppression by the Arab/Arabized north–as just one example.
As age-old ethnic and religious hatreds and rivalries doomed the unity of post-Tito Yugoslavia, similar if not worse problems between Sunni and Shi’a Arabs; both of the latter’s murderous and/or subjugating policies towards Assyrians and Kurds; and Ankara’s use of Iraqi Turkmen to further its (and their) own interests in the oil-rich, predominantly Kurdish north, never did–and now especially don’t–bode well for either a future unified Iraq or Syria.
It’s long past due for such an American foreign policy shift to occur, and that–at long last–an independent nation, for scores of millions of truly stateless people in the region, with their oil in historically, majority Kurdish Kirkuk to support it economically, to arise…
In closing, most of the Foreword to my book, [http://q4j-middle-east.com,/]http://q4j-middle-east.com, was written by the President of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria…Now, why do you suppose that might that be?