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Just Imagine...
By Gerald A. Honigman
April 12, 2003
Some 30 million proud, abused, and beleaguered people, still not in possession of one state let alone 22 others, are thus simply disregarded in a grotesque display of moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy by the very same circles promoting an Arafatian state...
Just imagine if Israel was to say that under no circumstances would a another Palestinian Arab state be permitted to be created.
Could you envision the outcry around the world? Yet this is precisely what our friends, the Turks, have stated over and over again regarding the Kurds. The Washington Post reported on April 9, 2003 that the Turkish military was on the verge of making important decisions regarding such prospects, and this was previously echoed in Thomas Friedman's March 28th article in the New York Times as well. Friedman advised that the Kurds should be told point blank, "what part of 'no' don't you understand? ...You Kurds are not breaking away." Nauseating. This is the same Friedman who, like many of his colleagues, has written volumes espousing the creation of a 23rd Arab state, and second Arab one in the original 1920 borders of mandatory "Palestine." Yet when it comes to the subject of the Kurds, with few exceptions, they're simply regarded--at best--as "separatists."
While the Turks' nervousness over such a thought is understandable, their position (as well as Friedman's) is morally indefensible...if that means anything these days.. We'll return to this issue a bit later on. At this time, however, we need to take a good look at the plight of some 30 million perpetually used and abused Kurds. Think about all of the journalistic, political, and other energy which has been devoted to the creation of that 23rd Arab state. Now ask yourselves how much has been devoted to the plight of stateless Kurds.
For several decades now, in the study of Middle Eastern Affairs, some subjects have appeared to be taboo while others never seem to leave center stage. Perhaps one reason for this state of affairs lies in the perpetual quest for Arab petro-dollars by financially hungry academic institutions. Israel, constantly in the spotlight's glare, is frequently picked apart (all in the name of "objective scholarship" of course), and every real and/or imaginary sin is repeatedly exposed for all to see and pass judgment upon. Indeed, many academics have taken the lead recently to single Israel out and treat it as a pariah in their attempts to have their institutions cut all ties to it.
The mere suggestion that Pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism has problems with Jewish nationalism/Zionism for at least some of the same reasons it has had similar problems elsewhere--Berber North Africa, Lebanon, Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan, the Sudan, etc.--can elicit harsh rebuke.. In the classroom, however, such subjects are more often than not simply not dealt with at all. Rare is the classroom, for example, that gets into a discussion of the "other side" of the Middle East refugee problem, the one half of Israel's Jews who fled Arab/Muslim lands as a result of the war Arabs launched against the nascent Jewish State. Even more rare is the class that puts the 1947 partition plan for Palestine into the broader context of another partition going on at the very same time between Hindus and Muslims over the Indian subcontinent. The double standard frequently reigns supreme, and while students are often left with the impression that one national movement holds a monopoly on evil and injustice, the other is in line for imminent canonization.
Not surprisingly, therefore, revealing and provocative subjects such as Arab treatment of the Kurds have, until recently, simply been ignored. It took Saddam's gassing of them a little over a decade ago in Desert Storm to finally get some interest aroused...but not much. Yet these same voices, mostly silent on the decades' old subjugation and slaughter of Kurds, loudly protest that Arab nationalism has been eternally wronged because it has manifested itself to date--largely via conquest and forced arabization of other peoples and their lands--on "only" twenty-two states, including one on over 80% of the original Mandate for Palestine issued to Britain on April 25, 1920 and today known as Jordan. Some thirty million proud, much abused, and beleaguered people--still not in possession of one state let alone two dozen others--are thus simply disregarded in a grotesque display of moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy by the very same circles promoting an Arafatian state. What's even worse, outside of academia, an Arabist-dominated State Department perpetuates this problem for its own largely oil-tainted reasons. And most of the media engages in this double standard as well.
The story of Kurdish nationalism is a depressing one when compared with that of other nationalisms in the Middle East. Arab and Iranian nationalisms, for example, are replete with events causing anger, frustration, setbacks, and the like, but their futures remain alive with the promise of a better tomorrow. Not so, however, for the Kurds...That is, not until recently. While great forces are still working against this--not the least being those at Foggy Bottom-- the coming storm over Iraq has the potential to, at long last, right an historic wrong. It is time...
The Kurds are a native, non-Arab people who have lived in the Middle East for thousands of years. Their name derives from the ancient Guti (Guti-Gurti-Kurdi), conquerors of Babylon. They were the non-Semitic Hurrians of Mesopotamia and the Medes of Persian history. Their home covers mountainous regions now part of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and other countries as well. But the heartland of ancient Gutium, the domain of later autonomous Kurdish mirs, had been in what is now-- thanks to the British-- Arab Iraq..
The area around Mosul and Kirkuk, vast in petroleum deposits, was traditional Kurdish land. It has recently fallen into Kurdish and American hands...driving the Turks to the verge of invasion themselves. They fear that the oil wealth of the area could give the Kurds the finishing touches to what's needed to create their own independent state. And Turks, unfortunately, feel--like the Arabs--that Kurds should not be allowed such a thing. How dare Kurds want what Arab and Turkic peoples already have many times over! Jews, especially, can relate to this tragic situation...It's the exact position they find themselves in vis-a-vis Arabs.
Now add to this an ironic twist. While Syrian Arabs (as well as Saddam) like to sing praises to the medieval warrior Saladin's name, Saladin was, in fact, a Kurd who joined in the fight against Christendom's advances in the Middle East. Had he known what would be in store for his people at the hands of Syrian Arabs centuries later, he might have had second thoughts.. A reading of the Kurdish nationalist Ismet Cherif Vanly's book, The Syrian 'Mein Kampf' Against The Kurds (Amsterdam 1968), gives some good insight into how Arabs have dealt with any and all potential rivals in the region. The Ottoman Turks controlled most of the Middle East for over four centuries. With the pending collapse of their empire, numerous peoples had their dreams for independence once again reemerge. President Wilson encouraged this himself in his famous Fourteen Points and his calls for self-determination for all former subject peoples. The Kurds were among those whose aspirations were addressed.
The best and most reasonable chance for Kurdish independence was sacrificed, however, in the immediate post-World War I era on the altar of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. The odds against a favorable outcome to such aspirations grew immensely from then on. Among other things, Arab nationalists feared that if such a state arose it would become the focus of immigration for millions of Kurds living in Turkey and Iran. Arabs also wrote that they would see the birth of an independent Kurdistan as equivalent to the creation of another Israel, i.e. it would permanently separate lands from what Arabs claimed solely for themselves.
In order to maintain any credibility in the strategically important Arab world, the British--who had recently switched from a coal to an oil-powered imperial navy--decided that they had to ignore previous promises made to the Kurds and included the oil-rich Kurdish areas in what was being formed as Arab Iraq instead. Britain decided that its long-term interests required keeping the Arab world as friendly as possible. Besides backing off from promises to the Jews in Palestine (including chopping off all of the land east of the Jordan River and handing it over to the Arabs in 1922 with the creation of the Emirate of Transjordan), this also meant passing another litmus test, the abandonment of the Kurds.
A newly invigorated Turkish Republic under Ataturk and Iran's Reza Shah Pahlavi ruled out, respectively, the potential western and eastern options as well--despite numerous and continuing revolts in the former and the brief Mehabad experience in the latter. Rebellion in these areas represented/represent acts of desperation by a repeatedly exploited and abandoned people. In an era in which former victims of imperialism and oppression were struggling for recognition and gaining national rights, the Kurds were alternately tantalized with intimations of independence and crushed by the withdrawal of these promises at the very moment their realization appeared to be within reach. The explosive results were inevitable. Even more troubling for those of us who truly love America and care about what our nation represents to the world, the United States replaced Britain as the primary user (abuser?) of the Kurds, using them to hammer away at our own enemies in the region, and repeatedly abandoning them to their own fate when our own immediate goals were reached.
So, that brings us up to the present and our current problems with Saddam's Iraq.
We hear from columnists, academics, and the folks at the State Department that Iraq must not be dismembered because it will lead to instability in the region. Funny, that these same folks don't think twice about what the creation of a second Palestinian Arab state will do to both a miniscule, 9-mile wide Israel and a Jordan whose majority population is Palestinian Arab. Repeated partitions are legitimate for Palestine, but not even one is permissible for Mesopotamia/Iraq. What's wrong with this picture?
The real reasons for our State Department not wanting this, of course, are quite different. One of the main ones is the same one that Britain had when it aborted an independent Kurdistan in the first place: fear of angering the Arab world. But think of what could happen if Mosul and Kirkuk's oil became part of a long overdue, friendly Kurdish State with America as its main ally...
The other major concern is more noble and has to do with our good friends, the Turks. With the collapse of their empire after World War I, when the dust finally settled, Ataturk pulled together a reinvigorated if much constricted Turkey. The eastern portion of what was left of the Turkish domain largely consisted of Kurds. The Turks had drawn their line in the sand, however, and were not about to permit the dismemberment of any more of their territories due to a Kurdish nationalism frustrated with the loss of the one best chance it had at independence in Mesopotamia. About 20% of Turkey's population is Kurd...about the same fraction of Israel's population that is Arab. Turks say they fear that if they allow an adjacent Kurdish state to arise in northern Iraq, their own Kurds will likewise be infected. Now think about that for a minute...Turkey is a huge country compared to Israel. Yet a pre-'67, armistice line-imposed, 9-mile wide Israel is expected to allow a good cop/bad cop murderous Arafatian/Hamas state to arise in its own backyard...and Israel's front is the sea, with virtually no wriggle room. Still, under the right circumstances--i.e. Arabs really agreeing to form their 23rd state alongside of Israel instead of overwhelming and replacing it-- Israel is prepared to accept such a state. Certainly there are risks involved...more so for miniscule Israel than for Turkey. So Turks, Arabs, Foggy Bottom, or anyone else have no right to declare that Kurds must remain forever stateless pawns of other peoples' periodic whims.
Here's our current challenge-- if we can overcome the Arabists who too frequently call the shots at Foggy Bottom. We now have a chance to right an historical wrong. If Arabs can, after all, have twenty-two states, and very possibly a 23rd in the future, on lands mostly conquered and forcibly arabized from other, non-Arab peoples, how can thirty million Kurds be forced to forever remain stateless and usually at someone else's mercy?
While Turks fear that an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq will cause and/or support a similar move to independence in the adjacent Turkish lands, this is, in reality, extremely doubtful. More likely--and with proper cultivation most probably--what will occur is that those Kurds ( like those Greeks or those Jews or those Armenians, etc.) who wish to live in an independent state of their own will migrate to that state in northern Iraq.. Indeed, Turkey stands to lose many of its own potential "problems" this way. The odds of that new state--born as a result of American and possibly subtle Turkish assistance by dismantling Saddam's Iraq--purposely biting the hands that fed it are not very likely. Turkoman tribes in the north and Sunni and Shia Arabs in central and southern Iraq will have a loosely federated state as well, and a formula can be reached whereby the oil wealth can be shared--including with the Turks who feel that they lost the Mosul fields due to Britain's earlier influence with the League of Nations after World War I. This is, allegedly, the main concern addressed by the April 9th Washington Post article. In a way it was good that the Turks said "no" to our using their border with Iraq as a springboard for our troops. Part of the price tag for such permission would have likely been granting the Turks permission to occupy Iraqi Kurdistan....a moral nightmare.....again, if that means anything these days.
Since we felt that we must once again go to war and called again upon our strangely loyal friends, the Kurds, to assist us in ousting Saddam, we have to be sure that this time we hold the moral high ground. We have a chance to finally deliver justice for this people. We've not done this before. Indeed, after President George Bush (senior) called on them to revolt against Saddam in Desert Storm, he watched and did nothing while these people were gassed to death by the thousands. Remember that the full force of America's war machine was nearby and could have acted....but didn't. And this was not the first time we abused them this way. It is time to right a long overdue historical wrong.
(***Gerald A. Honigman's earlier extensive study of this topic, "British Petroleum Politics, Arab Nationalism, and the Kurdish Struggle For Independence," appeared in the Fall 1982 edition of the academic journal, the Middle East Review)
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