Archive for the ‘International Relations’ Category
Israel Needs a New Kurdish Policy
I have come accross this article today which is in line with what I commented only two days ago. Wanted to share with you..
pIsrael quite properly moved quickly to quash reports that in response to worsening ties with Turkey, it planned to start helping the PKK. Jerusalem has tried for years to persuade the world there’s no such thing as a “good” terrorist organization, and adopting a pet terrorist group of its own would completely destroy this argument. Moreover, […]/p
Is Israel alliable for the Kurds?
It was after 2003, when the USA once-and-for-all changed the status quo in the Middle East when it occupied Iraq and supported an almost independent autonomy for South Kurdistan, Northern Iraq that the Kurds thought of an alliance with Israel. They had the millenia lasting good relationship with the Jewish people in their bag and trusted that this never-forgetting people would remember this history. Besides rumours and conspiracy theories and to the dismay of Kurds, it did not happen.Not that only it did not happen, Israel continued providing all possible war machines and technology to Turkey for its fight against Kurds. Turks on the other hand continued to believe to an Israeli support to Kurds.
One needs to distinguish the Jewish people, the Israeli state and the Israeli citizens from each other. Kurds are among the rarest in doing so. Even though many Kurds, then in the far left Turkish movement, went to Lebanon to fight alongside the Palestinians to fight against the “western imperialist” Israeli state, none has ever become anti-semitist. This has something to do with the Kurdish culture they were born into and got their cultural codes about life. Almost none of them today are against an Israeli state.
In my parents village for example, one family is even today named after the land they occupy, the Jewish Ibrahim. The land belonged to a Jewish family. The family itself moved to another land according to what the elderly tells, now believed to be Israel. Their memory is saved in another family’s name, as a rememberance. Not that they occupy a particular part in the tellings of the old days, they were never really a part of the community, but the fact that their past presence is kept as a name itself is something to be said. There was never negative feelings among the Kurds against the Jewish people. This is what differentiates the Kurds from the rest of the Middle East. Anti-semitism is in the DNA in the Middle East so to say, including the Turks.
Returning back to what I was telling, the Kurds, apparently, based their political assumptions not on any political analysis but on many similar stories all around Kurdistan. Today however, an analysis has to be made in relation to future Israeli – Kurdish alliance for the Kurds themselves and also for the Israelis.
CAN THE ISRAELIS BE ALLIED?
In my opinion yes. Any Jewish Israeli citizen I met has no particular negative thoughts or feelings against the Kurds. Though I must say I have not met any Jewish Israeli citizen of Western immigrant background. They might have a different view of the Middle East and the Middle Easterns, even though they have also become Middle Easterners…
Israel’s ‘survival policy’ in the region is one important issue that Kurds need to understand if they want to gain Israel to their side. This ‘survial policy’ of Israel is how I analyse when I try to understand how the Israeli Statesman decide for their policies. On one hand, Israel is a last (and a first) and seemingly a successful homeland for the Jewish people. On the other hand, they have no where else to go. Here one needs to remember who the founders of Israel were, those who gave to today’s Israel its foundations: the survivors of holocaust, of the post World War II era Europe.
It was may be only Hitler’s 3rd Reich Germany that committed the genocide, but it was all over Europe that the Jewish could not live any more, and more importantly these people were not wanted in anywhere in Europe any more (Haven’t they lost their European citizenships when they left for Israel? Can they return?). The remainings of a genocide, the survisors of holocaust were simply expelled to today’s Israel. They had nowhere else to go. They still have nowhere else to go. That’s why Israel is so important to them, not any two thousand year old history. Two thousand year old history stories are fairy tales when it comes to the dynamics determining Israel’s political decisions.
Once this is understood I see no reason why the Kurds can not position themselves as allies with the Israeli state. The Jewish people globally being a separate story, the Israeli citizens can be taken as the starting point to disseminate the Kurdish cause. They can be told about the benefits of having the Kurds as a neighbouring state. At the same time, existing diplomacy channels can be supported with new HR and a new ideology. Such a team can try to establish a relationship with the Israeli state based on principles. Principles that can be put on paper and followed by both parties.
It can be said that the Israelis would have nothing to lose on the table, that they would not feel loyalty to any such document. I do not believe so if Kurds can position themselves according to what they can offer realistically. Of course this is not in the sense of selling oneself to the other. It would be prostituting oneself, not politics.
WHAT CAN THE KURDS OFFER? HOW CAN ALLIANCE BE FORMED?
There is not much at the moment the Kurds can offer to Israel other than being loyal to an agreement, though this has proven to be a historical mistake for the Kurds. They have been suffering from such an agreement they signed with the Turks about four hundred years ago. However, a future Kurdistan and its alliance could be the most valuable asset that noone else could offer to the State of Israel. For that, the Israeli politicians and the statesman and stateswoman need to show some effort to convince the Kurds to their reliability. Israeli politicians are not to be trusted with their current understanding and naming of the Kurds.
With the likes of Avidgor Lieberman no reproachment between two people can be possible. Ones who takes the Kurds as ever begging people like the African villager children asking for ‘whatever’ when you pass by their villages with the 4WDs. Israelis need to learn first to respect the Kurds. Second, they should stop providing arms to the enemies of Kurds, namely to the Turks. Turks, who do not like the Jewish people…
In short, there can be no alliance between Israel and various Kurdish factions unless Israel changes its view of the Kurds, develop a future vision with Kurdistan and changes its current Middle East policy based totally on this perception… no alliance not even in thoughts unless Israel starts seeing the Kurds and their future Kurdistan strategic to itself. Else, Israel will always want to use the Kurds much like Henry Kissinger did in the 70’s against Saddam in support of the Iran Shah regime…
A Letter to President Barack Obama on the recent Turkish-Iranian aggression against Kurdistan-Iraq
By Kirmanj Gundi
President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500 August 27, 2011 Dear Mr. President:
When America decided to invade Iraq and topple its tyrannical regime, America was in need of assistance from all of its friends in the region, particularly America’s long time ally, Turkey. To expedite the toppling of the regime, America asked Turkish authorities for permission for American ground forces to pass through Turkey and into Iraq. The American request was denied and America received a cold shoulder from Turkish authorities.
During that crucial period, to facilitate America’s success in toppling Saddam Hussein’s despotic regime, the Kurdish leadership put the Peshmarga forces under the US military command. Kurdish leaders have done their due diligence to promote America’s mission in Iraq whether through mediating between/among Arab political rivals to create better unity in Baghdad or by participating in the US military undertaking against militants. The people of Kurdistan embraced American forces and welcomed them with flowers while they were barraged with bullets in other parts of Iraq.
The stability that the people of Kurdistan along with their leadership have established during the past two decades has helped America to move forward in Iraq in completing its mission. Nonetheless, Kurdistan and its people have found themselves under a hybrid state of violence and political mistreatment by Baghdad, and occasionally have seen hostilities from Iran and Turkey through air and ground invasions. Consequently, many innocent people including women and children died. Villagers were forced leave their villages and became internally displaced.
The recent Turkish-Iranian joint air and ground onslaught against Kurdistan-Iraq under the pretext of going after the PKK and PJAK is a clear violation of International laws that support sovereignty of statehood, and violates the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and democratic principles.
Sadly enough, it was American-made jet fighters the Turks flew in their raids on Kurdistan, and murdered innocent people. In one incident, a whole family of seven was cut into pieces. This flagrant violation could not have happened without America’s prior knowledge of the Turkish raids. What is even more tragic is that the Turkish government, jointly with America’s archenemy, Iran, conducted this recent military operation against defenseless Kurds.
Mr. President, US made fighters were used to murder citizens of Kurdistan at a time when Kurdish people and their leadership have been the most supportive of Americans in Iraq, and one of the few in the larger Middle East. The people of Kurdistan have always looked up to America and expected America to provide viable support in the face of external aggression. Therefore, instead of being complacent about Turkish internal oppression of the Kurds and Turkish aggression towards the Kurds in Kurdistan-Iraq, America could play a better role in finding a political solution to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. America as an occupying force of Iraq is responsible for securing Iraq’s borders.
While Turkey uses the PKK as a pretext for its aggression against the peace-loving people of Kurdistan-Iraq, the reality is that there remain some twenty-five million Kurds in Kurdistan-Turkey, who, since 1924, have been faced with Turkish policies of constitutional genocide, which attempts to eradicate Kurdish identity as a different ethnicity. The Turkish Constitution in Chapter Four, I. Turkish Citizenship, Article 66 (as amended on October 17, 2001), vividly states “Everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk.”
This Article advocates constitutional genocide against all those who carry national identities other than Turkish identity. The fact is that the PKK is a product of this racist and inhuman Constitution. While it may be convenient for Turkey to declare those it oppresses as “terrorists,” others see it as a legitimate struggle for ethnic and national freedom. Under this Constitution, there is no place for the Kurds to claim their God-given “national and democratic rights” in Turkey. If they do, the intolerant Turkish mentality stigmatizes them as “Terrorists.” Interestingly, one could ask which side, through its acts defines the “definition” of terrorist, the Turkish state that constitutionally has a policy of systematic genocide against one of the ancient peoples in the world or the PKK that has a national agenda for its oppressed people? The PKK was forced into an armed struggle to stop the genocidal Turkish policies in Kurdistan-Turkey. Additionally, the PKK, occasionally, had ceased all its activities against the Turkish state to promote dialogue with The Turks. It has always been the Turkish stubborn stand that preferred military solution to the Kurdish cause in Turkey.
Mr. President, Turkey needs to realize the reality in which Turkey lives. The truth is that the issue is not the PKK, but rather it is an issue of some twenty-five million Kurds, who have been buried alive under the myopic Turkish Constitution. Let’s hypothetically assume the Turkish raids on Kurdistan eliminate the PKK, even then Turkey must realize that it cannot exterminate the Kurdish cause. Thus, it is wise for the Turks to come to terms with this reality and end the cycle of hate and distrust. They must accept the historical reality that the Kurds have been living in their ancestral lands, which were partitioned and made parts of the modern Turkish state (and other states), and have their own national characteristics that must be respected.
What the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria struggle for is totally in tune with the United States’ Declaration of Independence, to achieve “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Therefore, it is expected of America that America use its influence to help the people of Kurdistan especially in Turkey and Iraq where America can play a more effective role in finding a solution to the Kurdish plight. In Turkey, the Turks should be encouraged to look for a political solution to the Turkish-Kurdish uproar. In Iraq, America could do more to influence the implementation of the Article 140 to normalize the Arabized and sequestered parts of Kurdistan.
America’s support for Turkey has emboldened Turkish authorities to, under the US tutelage, violate international norms, and transgress human integrity. To end this succession of cynicism in Turkey, America can influence the Turks to amend their Constitution in which the Kurdish national and democratic rights are recognized and revered. As long as Turkey adheres to the Turkish “status quo,” it would be difficult for the people of Kurdistan in Turkey, or Kurds in other parts of Kurdistan to live in peace.
Mr. President, in your speech in the Turkish Parliament on April 6, 2009, you applauded the Turkish reform for greater democracy. You encouraged the Turks to have dialogue with the Kurdish leaders in Iraq, which indeed made a noticeable difference in Turkish behavior vis-à-vis the Kurds in Kurdistan-Iraq. However, you put Al-Qaida and the PKK on the same scale without referring to the inherently racist Turkish Constitution. Therefore, we ask you Mr. President, to call for a similar stand you displayed in your speech for the Kurds in Iraq by encouraging Turkish authorities to establish dialogue with the Kurds in Turkey so the Turkish-Kurdish bloodshed ends. In view of the fact that there exists conflict between the Turks and Kurds in Turkey”the region may never be able to see peace and tranquility”and Turkey may continue its internal oppression of the Kurds and trespass internationally recognized borders and violate the rights of Kurds beyond Turkey’s borders.
Further, since “unfortunately” Kurdistan is still a part of Iraq, it is the US responsibility to protect the people of Kurdistan. Thus, any violation against Kurdistan should be considered as a violation against Iraq. Particularly, with regard to the Iranian aggression, we ask that America protect its Kurdish friends in the face of America’s die-hard enemy, Iran.
In conclusion, we implore that the US provide protection for the people of Kurdistan from external aggression. Further, we ask that America help the Kurdish leadership to strengthen democratic institutions in Kurdistan, and promote principles on which the Kurdistani society could be transformed into a functioning civil society in which human integrity is preserved and freedom of speech including freedom of the press is respected. May God continue to bless America and Kurdistan with His love and wisdom.
We shall continue to pray for your success.
Sincerely yours,
Kirmanj Gundi
Professor
Department of Educational Administration and Leadership
Tennessee State University
Kurdish lobbyists in Washington and southwestern Kurdistan
Leon E. Panetta was in Turkey in April for five days to discuss the details of a possible US intervention to Syria. David Petraeus is visiting Turkey starting from today, according to Firat News Agency. There is no doubt that the visit is about Syria. It should be clear that the US wants to secure Turkey before going into its yet undisclosed Syria intervention plans. We do not yet know what is in the basket for Kurds in Syria, the southwestern Kurdistan.
Turks do not want the Kurds in Syria to gain rights. This is their main agenda in Syria and this is almost the only subject Turkish columnists write about when it is Syria and a possible US intervention. For this reason alone, they will participate actively at any stage to the events in Syria and want to be a major player. Their fear is that if the Kurds in Syria gain similar rights to those of Iraq the ones in Turkey will be unstoppable in their requests of autonomy. That the world will recognize such a request legitimate This, being the Turkish nightmare for no reason, will eventually lead to a Kurdish indepedence.
There is no doubt from a military and political point of view for the US will want to secure Turkey before going into the Syria file. However, there is the best scenario, and then there is the not-best-scenario and in between everything is negotiable. The Turks negotiate. What about the Kurds? Do we negotiate?
If the Turks follow their agenda, so should do Kurds their own. If we agree that there is one Kurdish nation under heavens, then there is no ‘separate’ Kurdishness between the politically separated Kurds. This is to say, it falls onto the Kurdish lobbyists in Washington to lobby and promote for the protection of and more freedom for their fellow brothers and sisters in Syria.
It is time we lobby for our own rights and support wholeheartedly the awakening in the southwest.
David Petraeus’ appointment as the new director of the CIA
How will it affect the Kurds?
David Petraeus hands over command of US forces in Afghanistan to Lt Gen John Allen. He replaces the incoming US defense secretary Leon Panetta to be the new director of the CIA. This is an important event for Kurds all over Kurdistan and needs to be analyzed together with the nomination of Ray Odierno as the Army Chief of Staff of the US.
Petraeus and Odierno are both smybolic names for Turks in their relationship with the US. Odierno, nicknamed “Çuvalcı Paşa”, the Sacking General by Turks for the famous Hood Event in 2003 in the town of Suleymaniya in South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). David Petraeus was his boss in Mosul at the time.
WHAT WAS THE HOOD EVENT
The Turks had a liaison office in Kurdish town of Suleymaniya and Kurdish Peshmerga reported to the Americans that they were planning to assassinate some Kurdish high ranked officials. Soldiers from Petraeus’s air brigade under the command of Odierno detained Turkish soldiers and while doing put their heads into sacks. Turkish soldiers, the so-called special forces who showed no resistance or whatsoever, were treated in humiliation and photos of them with sacks on their heads were served to the media.
Here we talk about two very high American officials at key posts in Washington. They both served in Iraq and in Iraqi Kurdistan and they both know the Kurds and the Kurdish issue very well. Although the new Secretary of Defense of the US, Leon E. Panetta is not a known figure by me, I have hopes that these two generals are advantageous for Kurds in their uprisings in any part of Kurdistan.
In my reading of the events, there is no solid fronts here and there. There is always the political game, the ethics of the commanding generals as well as the conflicting interests of the individuals. There is always enough space for people like us, the Kurds, to look for allies in pursuing their causes. In short, no grounds should be left empty for the enemy.
Kurdish lobbyists should develop and maintain good relationships with these two very important American generals. Not necessarily to ask them to favour the Kurds, no such thing will happen, but to fight back the Turkish propaganda.
* * *
The memory of 1974 betrayal of the US orchestrated by Henry Kissinger is still alive for many Kurds. To prevent similar incidents, keeping memories is one thing, but having friends at the right seats is another thing.
Here is what Christopher Hitchens, a monumental friend of Kurds, wrote about US’s betrayal of the Kurds:
Thus, I might have mentioned Kissinger’s recruitment and betrayal of the Iraqi Kurds, who were falsely encouraged by him to take up arms against Saddam Hussein in 1972-75, and who were then abandoned to extermination on their hillsides when Saddam Hussein made a diplomatic deal with the Shah of Iran, and who were deliberately lied to as well as abandoned. The conclusions of the report by Congressman Otis Pike still make shocking reading and reveal on Kissinger’s part a callous indifference to human life and human rights. But they fall into the category of depraved realpolitik and do not seem to have violated any known law.
Christopher Hitchens and the Kurdish flag on his jacket.
What’s going to happen in Syria?
by M. Husedin
The bomb blast in Cyprus chose itself an interesting date (July 11th). Greek president was in Israel tightening the newly formed Israeli – Greek friendship. The explosion was mostly talked of its effect on the energy supply system of the island. However, what exploded had to be more interesting: 98 containers full with munitions dispatched two and a half years ago from Iran to Syria. It was the same day the American Embassy in Damascus were attacked by ‘protesters’. The whole thing and more seems a bit unusual to be called coincidal incidents.
Syria is a particular country for Eastern Mediterranean. Not because it’s an Arab country. That’s not my opinion. It would be way too narrow look to see Syria as one of the many Arab states. Syria is more than that.
The map does not reflect the demography fully but is good enough
Many will read but pass without paying much attention to Syria’s multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual society. There are Arabs; the Alewite being the ruling elite, the Sunna muslims as the majority and the Christians. Then there are the Druze as a religious minority; Arab speakers but not very much interested in Arab nationalism. And then there are the Kurds.
The Kurds live in northeast and northwest corners of Syria and claim these lands to be a part of Kurdistan (literally KurdLand). There is also the Kurdish population in Damascus and in Haleppo.Kurds in Damascus are mostly ancient settlers of the city and the ones in Haleppo are more recent immigrants. The Kurds have three different faiths they follow: the Sunna Islam (the majority), and two varieties of an ancient Kurdish religion which academics classify under ‘Angels Cult’ name: the Ezidi (or Yezidi) in the northeast tip and the Alevi in the northwest tip. (Alevi Kurds share a different fatih than Alawit Arabs).
Syria under current president’s father’s rule gained a key status in the Middle East politics. Nick named ‘Desert Fox’, Hafez Al Assad was one of the main figures of the Baathist Arap nationalism, but was also known well in positioning his country strategically during the turmoil in the region in seventies and eighties.
One thing Syria managed very well during all the turning points of the recent history; during the fourth quarter of the twentieth century was oppressing its nation. Kurds who lost their identity documents count up to 300’000 today. The regime was not merciless only against the Kurds. Hama massacre in 1982 is still fresh in the memories of many. Arab nationalist movement and most of the Arabs were happy with the Assad ruled Baath regime in Syria and of its politics. It was fighting against Israel and this was good enough. Lebanon, in practice, was under Syrian rule but the Arab world seemed to care little or none. However, the whole perception against Syria changed when the Lebanese prime minister Hariri was killed in a bomb attack.
Syria was not wanted in Lebanon any more and left Lebanon soon after that.
Speaking of Syria, one should mention similar states in the region to better understand the dynamics creating and surrounding the events. One was Tunisia under the rule of Ben Ali and Libya under Gaddafi’s rule and Egypt with Mubarak. Saddam’s Iraq has long gone and is a part of history but before it was gone, especially during the Iran – Iraq war, Saddam’s Iraq qas a leading country for Arab nationalism. All these rulers were iron fisted dictators who named (and name) their states as “republics”. They were in nature secular states but with little or no democracy and with even lesser freedom for the public vote.
Looking at the picture in MENA today (Middle East and North Africa), we see that it’s the Assad regime which remained. (Libya is a complete different dispute only for its oil reserves. It will take time for the western warring countries to agree with each other to decide who gets what after Gaddafi. Once they agree, Gaddafi will not find a cave Saddam could.)
Syria though, is different than all these mentioned similar states. Syria touches Kurdistan; is an occupant force on about 5 % of Kurdistan.
ABOUT THE KURDISH CURSE: THE STATUS QUO IN THE REGION
If a Kurdistan map can be analyzed quickly, it will be seen that Kurdistan itself and the Kurdish people onboard are the one thing Syria shares with Turkey, Iran and Iraq. This has been the curse of Kurdistan from the point of view of the Kurds since these countries’ borders have been drawn by the British and the French. The curse was basically this: All these four countries had their own allies within and outside the region. Even though there was conflict between themselves and between their allies, they also had their agreement on the status quo. The status quo, tied strongly by the global strategy balance, did not allow Kurds to gain rights.
Bu then, things started to change with the turn of the century after the American led invasion of Iraq. I would like to go into a bit of detail on Kurdish politics here to help you to understand the Kurdish sentiments that effects the Kurdish decision making.
Now that the small bit of Kurdistan (about 20%) inside the Iraqi borders enjoys relative independence, this effects the rest of the Kurds strongly. First time during the modern ages Kurds claim their own land under their very own rule. Being Kurd in the other parts of Kurdistan is more or less being prisoned at home and not being allowed to go to the next room. However this time Kurds in one part of Kurdistan live in freedom. When one part gets something, it means that a United and Independent Kurdistan is one step closer. The sentiment among Kurds since the invasion of Iraq is that the curse is broken.
Today though, Kurds in Iraq live in freedom. Kurds in Syria, Turkey and Iraq don’t. If we give the Turkish example; knowing that Kurds in Turkey do not officially exist should tell the story. Or to know that the 24h Kurdish broadcast of the Turkish state owned TRT6 is officially in an ‘unknown’ language. Shortly, Kurdish identity is not recognized in Turkey. In Iran it seems better because at least the identity is recognized. The Kurds are not Persians but Kurds as they are (they are officially Turks in Turkey, not Kurds). In reality though the Shia Persian enmity against Kurds is an ongoing opression.
If one looks from this perspective it is easy to understand why Turkey is so much interested in what goes on in Syria. Turkey has about 50% of Kurdistan (250’000 sqkm) and between 17 and 25 million Kurds. With no rights. Imagine the power vacuum having no right creates in Kurdistan.
Thinking of domino effect theory, it is hard to imagine that if the Kurds in Syria gained similar rights to those in Iraq, the ones in Turkey or Iran would agree on any less. Kurdish agenda has never been to agree to that little though.
In general, Kurds ask for an independent state. They have their own flags, their own antem and their own separate history in the land which they claim to be theirs and name after themselves: Kurdistan (KurdLand).
That’s what makes all affairs in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran of interest to each other. And of course, when you have interest in any of these countries you find yourself in a position to understand the long unsolved Kurdish issue. And I believe it is the puzzle made in Kurdistan by the British and the French after the I. World War that created the curse mentioned: even if you want more rights for Kurds, say from Washington or Moscow, you would not know how to agree on a deal with other powers who would have their own interests. And so many countries had their own interests in these four countries. And nobody knew how things would evolve once the status quo changed.
After the intervention in Iraq which led to a federation between South Kurdistan and the rest of the Iraq, the status quo changed. The curse finally broke. The fact that it broke once, the Kurds do not believe to it any more. Kurds in any part of Kurdistan only prepare themselves for their turn. They believe that an independent Kurdistan only approaches with the events.
Kurds are very much interested in what’s going on around the countries that have their feet on Kurdistan. Syria is the hot country nowadays.
Bashar Assad, son of the Desert Fox, proved to be an idiot in ruling his country. One should start in ruling his country by reading the history of the land. Bashar made the mistake of imagining a friendship with the ruler of Konstantinopolis (Istanbul). Erdogan, he thought, was a true muslim leader that would have little to do with Europe and rather ally with the East. Turkey under Erdogan’s pragmatist rule proved to be a strong ally of the USA on the other hand.
Israel is having sour relationship with Turkey although it does not seem to be a strategical turning point between the two countries. The trade between the countries has only increased since the ‘one minute’ crisis. A ‘second minute’ crisis seems very unlikely. As a strong gesture on seeking friendship, the Turks pulled their men back from the second Gaza Flotilla.
Israelis however are looking for more allies after the souring relationhip with Turkey. More allies in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea. They have developed new ties with Greece, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine and Georgia. Warming up with the Greeks is going well, and the Greeks seem to value their newly formed relatinship with Israel.
Israel has also found a very significant amount of natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea between Cyprus and Israel. Some of the reserves are in shared seabottom land. Greek Cyrpus being the little brother of Athens, it would be hard to imagine a different relationship between Nicosia and Jerusalem than that between Athens and Jerusalem.
On July 11, there was a massive explosion in Cyprus. Ammunition captured in 98 containers dispatched to Syria from Iran were seized by Cypriots in respect to the UN embargo on Iran.
That was the day the Greek president visited Jerusalem. The day American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton increased pressure on Bashar Assad himself and said he lost his legitimacy and was running out of time.
There is more to write on this story.
Blood borders
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa’s borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region’s comprehensive failure isn’t Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.
Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant “cheated” population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.
Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.
Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosporus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East’s “organic” frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected.
As for those who refuse to “think the unthinkable,” declaring that boundaries must not change and that’s that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now (as ambassadors and special representatives avert their eyes to study the shine on their wingtips).
Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.
Begin with the border issue most sensitive to American readers: For Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbors, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders — with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns. But the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes. Where all parties have turned their god into a real-estate tycoon, literal turf battles have a tenacity unrivaled by mere greed for oil wealth or ethnic squabbles. So let us set aside this single overstudied issue and turn to those that are studiously ignored.
The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East (the figures are imprecise because no state has ever allowed an honest census). Greater than the population of present-day Iraq, even the lower figure makes the Kurds the world’s largest ethnic group without a state of its own. Worse, Kurds have been oppressed by every government controlling the hills and mountains where they’ve lived since Xenophon’s day.
The U.S. and its coalition partners missed a glorious chance to begin to correct this injustice after Baghdad’s fall. A Frankenstein’s monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately. We failed from cowardice and lack of vision, bullying Iraq’s Kurds into supporting the new Iraqi government — which they do wistfully as a quid pro quo for our good will. But were a free plebiscite to be held, make no mistake: Nearly 100 percent of Iraq’s Kurds would vote for independence.
As would the long-suffering Kurds of Turkey, who have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to “mountain Turks” in an effort to eradicate their identity. While the Kurdish plight at Ankara’s hands has eased somewhat over the past decade, the repression recently intensified again and the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as occupied territory. As for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could. The refusal by the world’s legitimate democracies to champion Kurdish independence is a human-rights sin of omission far worse than the clumsy, minor sins of commission that routinely excite our media. And by the way: A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.
A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq’s three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.
A root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family’s treatment of Mecca and Medina as their fiefdom. With Islam’s holiest shrines under the police-state control of one of the world’s most bigoted and oppressive regimes — a regime that commands vast, unearned oil wealth — the Saudis have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders. The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol) conquest.
While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam’s holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world’s major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed. True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia’s coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that subregion, while a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be capable of far less mischief toward Islam and the world.
Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today’s Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.
What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining “natural” Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.
The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.
In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism — in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today’s boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.
Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.
Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform will continue to fight for security from terrorism, for the prospect of democracy and for access to oil supplies in a region that is destined to fight itself. The current human divisions and forced unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region’s self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as anyone could design. Where men and women look ruefully at their borders, they look enthusiastically for enemies.
From the world’s oversupply of terrorists to its paucity of energy supplies, the current deformations of the Middle East promise a worsening, not an improving, situation. In a region where only the worst aspects of nationalism ever took hold and where the most debased aspects of religion threaten to dominate a disappointed faith, the U.S., its allies and, above all, our armed forces can look for crises without end. While Iraq may provide a counterexample of hope — if we do not quit its soil prematurely — the rest of this vast region offers worsening problems on almost every front.
If the borders of the greater Middle East cannot be amended to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith, we may take it as an article of faith that a portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue to be our own.
• • •
WHO WINS, WHO LOSES
Winners —
Afghanistan
Arab Shia State
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Free Baluchistan
Free Kurdistan
Iran
Islamic Sacred State
Jordan
Lebanon
Yemen
•
Losers —
Afghanistan
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Kuwait
Pakistan
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
West Bank
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