Pinochle\u2026Iraqi Style <\/p>\n
by Gerald A. Honigman<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been decades since I played the game. <\/p>\n
I remember watching older college friends mastering the Pinochle deck, and then later becoming pretty good myself.<\/p>\n
Four-handed Pinochle, pitting opposing pairs of players against each other, was the most popular version, but I soon learned the far more personal three-handed variety as well. The latter involved each player working just for himself; inevitably, this led to two teaming up against the player in the lead\u2026for the time being at least. I recall my late father, of blessed memory, getting upset with me and my younger brother over this. We tried to explain that it was nothing personal\u2026but to no avail.<\/p>\n
Keep this in mind as we proceed. <\/p>\n
As promised, President Obama has pulled all American troops out of Iraq before the end of the year\u2026for good or for bad. Washington\u2019s war in Mesopotamia is now officially over.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written lots about this subject over the decades, and my work has been showcased in scores of analyses in print and web publications all over the world. Some examples include the heavily Nobel Laureate-sponsored, Fall 1981 academic journal, Middle East Review ; inclusion on the recommended reference list of Paris\u2019s acclaimed Institut d\u2019Etudes Politique (Sciences-Po); my interview in The Kurdistan Tribune; analyses in the Kurdistan Regional Government\u2019s own publication; dozens of op-eds in web publications such as ekurd.net. Kurdishmedia.com, the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, and others as well; major print newspaper articles; etc. and so forth.<\/p>\n
Before continuing, for the reader new to Iraqi politics, a review of the following sample articles should prove to be useful. I\u2019ll start out with the latest, before this current analysis, and then provide several earlier op-eds from different sources as well\u2026<\/p>\n
Iraq: What Not To Do \u2026 http:\/\/www.ekurd.net\/mismas\/ar…..cle110.htm<\/a> <\/p>\n State Department Math \u2026 http:\/\/www.krg.org\/articles\/de…..9&smap<\/a> <\/p>\n Why The Double Standards? \u2026 http:\/\/www.kurdmedia.com\/article.aspx?id=9279<\/a> <\/p>\n Who Won\u2019t Be Making Jokes About WMD \u2026 http:\/\/www.turkishdigest.com\/2…..aking.html<\/a><\/p>\n What\u2019s Your Plan B ? \u2026 http:\/\/www.israelnationalnews…….aspx\/5793<\/a> <\/p>\n Okay, enough of the background stuff\u2026let\u2019s move on. <\/p>\n The power-sharing plan in Iraq\u2019s post-Saddam, American-backed federal games gave representatives from each of the three major religious and ethnic blocks key positions in government\u2013Shi\u2019a Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds.<\/p>\n To no one with functioning neurons\u2019 surprise, no sooner did America exit the scene, there was a return to an upsurge in sectarian violence. Scores of Shi\u2019a were recently blown apart by Sunni suicide bombers.<\/p>\n At the same time that the above was happening, the Sunni Vice President, Tariq al-Hashemi, had taken refuge in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north\u2013a guest of Iraq\u2019s President, and one of the two main Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani. The Shi\u2019a Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, accused him of orchestrating hit squads against Sunni enemies.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve written often before, if ever there was a counterpart to the now extinct non-nation nation of Yugoslavia, Iraq is it.<\/p>\n Millions of diverse peoples who hated each other were brought together after the break-up of empires in the wake of World War I. And just as the glue which held together the former was manifested in a powerful, feared dictator (Marshal Tito), the same held true for decades in Saddam\u2019s Iraq. When Tito passed on from Earth, Yugoslavia\u2019s days as a unified state were numbered. Likewise, I wouldn\u2019t place bets on the long-term unity of Iraq with Saddam now gone either\u2026short of massive outside intervention, once again, to further others\u2019 interests.<\/p>\n Throughout millennia, Mesopotamia had been fought over by powerhouses to its east and its west.<\/p>\n During the past several centuries, Turks and Iranians faced off in this arena. Don\u2019t be surprised if they both make grabs on it once again. The Turks have already made intrusions into northern Iraq going after Kurds from Turkey taking refuge there.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that the Iraqi (Arab)-Iranian war of the \u201980s was largely fought over the oil-rich real estate to Iraq\u2019s east (Iran\u2019s Khuzestan\/\u201dArabistan\u201d province), and the Turks have long felt robbed because of the award of the oil-rich area of Mesopotamia\u2019s (Iraq\u2019s) largely Kurdish north to the British Mandate via the League of Nation\u2019s Mosul Decision in 1925. Add to this mix the fact that Kurds were promised independence after World War I in at least part of Mesopotamia\u2013until the Brits abandoned them and solely embraced Arab nationalism instead\u2013and the fire burns even hotter.<\/p>\n Given the right circumstances, anything becomes possible. <\/p>\n Back to the pinochle deck\u2026 <\/p>\n Sunni Arabs have been slaughtering Kurds in Iraq since the 1920s. <\/p>\n In just a few months in1988, Saddam Hussein\u2019s Sunni Anfal Campaign killed almost 200,000 Kurds. When his cousin was presented with this figure, \u201cChemical\u201d Ali Hassan al\u2013Majid protested, claiming \u201cit could not have been more than 100,000.\u201d Numerous other Sunni Arab genocidal blood baths against Kurds preceded Anfal. The late New York Times journalist, William Safire, for example, did a whole series in the \u201970s about an earlier American sellout of the Kurds and its horrific consequences. Another would follow in the \u201980s\u2026<\/p>\n In February 2004, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, of Sunni al-Qaida fame, wrote a letter that was intercepted by U.S. forces in Iraq. He\u2019s the guy\u2013until his own death\u2013who was believed responsible for the slaughter of Shi\u2019a in places like Baghdad and Karbala.<\/p>\n In the letter he listed four main enemies. America, of course, was No. 1. But No. 2 were the Kurds. Here\u2019s what he says about them\u2026<\/p>\n Kurds, these are a pain and a thorn, and it is not time yet to deal with them. They are last on our list, even though we are trying to get to some of their leaders. God willing.<\/p>\n Iraq\u2019s majority Shi\u2019a, long suppressed by the Sunni minority and fourth on al-Zarqawi\u2019s hit list, were basically handed Iraq as a result of America\u2019s defeat of Saddam.<\/p>\n While America has struggled to create a balancing act whereby Sunnis, Kurds, and others have equal rights in a united federal state, the reality is that centuries of bloody relations and memories between the various groups have taken their toll. There is little, if any, trust between them\u2013and for good reason.<\/p>\n Despite brief interludes in between despots and during the British Mandate era, in modern times Arab nationalism has always won out over a more inclusive \u201cIraqi\u201d nationalism\u2026and the latter is the only real hope for the success of a federal Iraq.<\/p>\n As for the Shi\u2019a, now largely in control of the new American-built military, the influence of the Shi\u2019a Islamic Republic of their Iranian neighbor is the looming question at hand. Given the artificial nature of the Iraqi state\u2013as discussed earlier\u2013this becomes even more serious.<\/p>\n Despite hating each other, Arabs of both major stripes still see Iraq as \u201cpurely Arab\u201d and have called the potential birth of Kurdistan \u201canother Israel.\u201d How this plays out in a post-Saddam, ascendant Shi\u2019a era in Iraq when confronting incursions by other non-Arab Iranians is yet to be seen. The Shi\u2019a are split regarding ties with Iran.<\/p>\n Since the fall of Saddam, Shi\u2019a Arabs have needed Sunni Kurds as a counterweight to Sunni Arabs\u2013who like to blow both of them up.<\/p>\n Kurds have worked closely with the Shi\u2019a in the recent past. But the Kurds\u2019 insistence on real economic and political autonomy in their own oil-rich region (Kirkuk, in particular) will be a major cause of friction as the Shi\u2019a Arabs increasingly come to run most of the show in Iraq. This was something that the Sunni Arab Vice President addressed recently as well from his safe haven among the Kurds in Sulaimaniyah. And the latter have not ruled out secession if the Shi\u2019a power grab continues.<\/p>\n The Kurds represent the party with the most to lose in this ordeal. <\/p>\n While there is a giant Iranian state to the east, a powerhouse of a Turkic state to the west (and a half dozen others in the adjacent area as well), and almost two dozen Arab nations in the neighborhood, the only place where some 35 million truly stateless Kurds have at least some semblance of autonomy\u2013not independence\u2013is in Iraq. And ironically, they predate their Arab and Turkish conquerors in the region by millennia.<\/p>\n So, the reality is that playing a game of 3-handed pinochle will obviously only get the Kurds so far if it\u2019s not completed.<\/p>\n At some point, it will no longer be two against the lead hand\u2026and that lead hand\u2013Sunni Arabs\u2013which massacred and terrorized both Shi\u2019a and Kurds, while still a serious threat, is now also on the verge of changing identities. While Sunnis, for now at least, still remain more of a physical threat to Kurds, the power in the country has definitely shifted to the Shi\u2019a.<\/p>\n If the Shi\u2019a Arabs opt for the same \u201cpurely Arab patrimony\u201d approach to Iraq that their Sunni Arab neighbors followed and bloodily adapted, then the Kurds must assert their own rights to full sovereignty. They lost this chance due to a collusion of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism in Mesopotamia almost a century ago. Providence has perhaps now delivered to them another opportunity. Who knows if it will ever come again\u2026<\/p>\n No doubt, many other players will be upset about this eventuality\u2013Turks, Arabs, and the Kurds\u2019 cousins, the Iranians, in particular. And if a federal, egalitarian Iraq survives America\u2019s departure, then a Kurdish secession may not be necessary (especially when considering the cost that will surely come with it).<\/p>\n But at some point in 3-handed pinochle each player must finally come down the home stretch and play to win.<\/p>\n Tens of millions of repeatedly used and abused Kurds finally deserve to win\u2026 <\/p>\n And finally, would it not be great to see others\u2013both in and out of the region\u2013at long last step up to give the Kurdish people the same support that genocidal Arabs\u2013bent on Israel\u2019s destruction\u2013routinely get from most of the rest of the world in their quest to create a 22nd state of their own?<\/p>\n www.geraldahonigman.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pinochle\u2026Iraqi Style by Gerald A. Honigman It\u2019s been decades since I played the game. I remember watching older college friends mastering the Pinochle deck, and then later becoming pretty good myself. Four-handed Pinochle, pitting opposing pairs of players against each … Continue reading