Makedonia25
10-29-2007, 05:13 AM
Knuckleheads In Kurdistan
The Huffington Post - By David Andelman
For the moment, Congress seems to have escaped making its most colossal foreign policy boner since the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, keeping the United States out of the League of Nations back in1919. It "postponed" consideration of a measure condemning Turkey for the genocide of its Armenians 90 years ago and that would have turned off the possibility of any ongoing dialogue on the latest flashpoint in the Middle East.
Which doesn't mean there aren't knuckleheaded moves within the grasp of the United States, or for that matter what exists of an Iraqi government and an intransigent Turkish military and political leadership over the volatile border region of Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
Listen to General Yasar Buyukanit, Turkey's military leader, discussing on Friday the attacks by PKK Kurdish guerrillas that have left 42 people including 30 Turkish soldiers dead in the past month:
"We are determined to make those who cause this sadness grieve with an intensity that they cannot imagine."
The world has failed for generations to understand the myriad tribes, religions and nationalities that have dotted the lands of Mesopotamia and once governed more or less successfully, but rarely peacefully, from the Ottoman Turkish capital of Constantinople. Certainly we know the Shiites and the Sunnis well by now. It seems we are about to become very familiar indeed with the third principal group in Iraq -- the Kurds.
But out our gaffes with respect to this benighted people go far back in history. At the time Iraq was constituted as a nation by the western powers gathered at the Paris Peace Talks of 1919, one member of the American delegation advising President Woodrow Wilson on the Middle East, Arthur I. Andrews, wrote:
"In some respects the Koords [sic] remind one of the North American Indians. They have a tawny skin, high cheek bones, broad mouth and black straight hair. Their mien too is rather quiet, morose, dull. Their temper is passionate, resentful, revengeful, intriguing and treacherous. They make good soldiers, but poor leaders. They are avaricious, utterly selfish, shameless beggars, and have a great propensity to steal. They are fond of the chase and of raising their rivals, are adept in the exercise of frightfulness. Mentally they are slow."
As I point out in my new book, A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today, this was only one of a host of staggering misconceptions, prejudices and gaffes that marked the efforts of the United States, Britain, France and Italy as they went about creating nations and drawing boundary lines that persist to this day.
It happens that in the ensuing nine decades, the Kurds and their region of Kurdistan have turned out to be the lone promising island of peace and prosperity in the nation of Iraq. Certainly the way the borders were carved -- leaving a large chunk of Kurds in the reconstituted Turkey that was all the peacemakers left of the once vast Ottoman Empire -- was just one of a host of errors.
Nevertheless, the world may now be in a position today to reverse, even rectify these errors. Peace and prosperity may be just two of a host of consequences. Arriving at a solution to the tensions across the Turkish-Kurdish frontier may also lead to an independent nation of Kurdistan, a model for the rest of Iraq and a roadmap to eventual American disengagement from the entire region.
But first we have to get there. And that's where the problems arise. There are, quite simply, a host of strong passions on all sides of the frontier -- and I say all sides because Iran, with its own small Kurdish population, and a big stake in the future of the rest of Iraq, also has a dog in this fight. Indeed only 20 percent of all Kurds are in Kurdistan itself. Some 55 percent are actually in Turkey, another 20 percent are in Iran and smaller numbers are scattered across Asia and the Caucasus including 200,000 in Afghanistan and even 100,000 in Israel. None of this, however, should prevent an independent nation of Kurdistan. Certainly there are far more Albanians in Albania than in Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia. Yet that doesn't prevent Kosovo from aspiring to independence. Indeed, an independent Kurdistan could play for the Kurds the same role as a homeland that the Jews lusted after and, after centuries, won for themselves.
Still, we have to take this one baby step at a time. First, we need to encourage General Buyukanit and his military not to take steps that would make Kurds grieve with an unimaginable intensity. We, and by that I mean not only the United States but also the European Union which can dangle a real carrot in the form of potential Turkish membership in the EU, must persuade Turkey that a free and independent Kurdistan on its border would be the best possible guarantee that PKK guerrillas are tamed and held in check. It's pretty clear that a Congressional resolution bashing Turkey for its unquestionable genocide of another resident minority, the Armenians, ninety years ago, would remove much of our ability to talk calmly and rationally with the current rulers of Turkey.
Fortunately, for the moment, most sides are still talking -- though possibly not the same language. Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan flew to Teheran this past weekend to lobby for Iranian support, while an Iraqi delegation flew back to Baghdad from Ankara on Saturday without any breakthroughs. What the foreign minister wants from his Iraqi counterparts, however, he's not getting -- "very, very quick results." Instead, all he got was long-term proposals, "far from being satisfactory."
Absent in all of this is one reality, though. The Kurds themselves. Baghdad can scarcely be expected to speak with any authority for a regional government that wants nothing but independence and, frankly, has demonstrated it's ready now to move in that direction. So those who really need to be in the heart of the discussions aren't even at the table -- the Kurds themselves. As I've suggested in my book and innumerable speeches in recent weeks, the only real solution is an independent Kurdistan that can stand on the international stage and speak for itself.
Moreover, there's not much time left. On November 5, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with President Bush in Washington. Can the president talk the Prime Minister off this slippery ledge with a fiery pit on the other side? It may be the world's last hope. Said Prime Minister Erdogan on a Turkish reprisal: "We can't say when or how we will do it, we will just do it."
The Huffington Post - By David Andelman
For the moment, Congress seems to have escaped making its most colossal foreign policy boner since the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, keeping the United States out of the League of Nations back in1919. It "postponed" consideration of a measure condemning Turkey for the genocide of its Armenians 90 years ago and that would have turned off the possibility of any ongoing dialogue on the latest flashpoint in the Middle East.
Which doesn't mean there aren't knuckleheaded moves within the grasp of the United States, or for that matter what exists of an Iraqi government and an intransigent Turkish military and political leadership over the volatile border region of Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
Listen to General Yasar Buyukanit, Turkey's military leader, discussing on Friday the attacks by PKK Kurdish guerrillas that have left 42 people including 30 Turkish soldiers dead in the past month:
"We are determined to make those who cause this sadness grieve with an intensity that they cannot imagine."
The world has failed for generations to understand the myriad tribes, religions and nationalities that have dotted the lands of Mesopotamia and once governed more or less successfully, but rarely peacefully, from the Ottoman Turkish capital of Constantinople. Certainly we know the Shiites and the Sunnis well by now. It seems we are about to become very familiar indeed with the third principal group in Iraq -- the Kurds.
But out our gaffes with respect to this benighted people go far back in history. At the time Iraq was constituted as a nation by the western powers gathered at the Paris Peace Talks of 1919, one member of the American delegation advising President Woodrow Wilson on the Middle East, Arthur I. Andrews, wrote:
"In some respects the Koords [sic] remind one of the North American Indians. They have a tawny skin, high cheek bones, broad mouth and black straight hair. Their mien too is rather quiet, morose, dull. Their temper is passionate, resentful, revengeful, intriguing and treacherous. They make good soldiers, but poor leaders. They are avaricious, utterly selfish, shameless beggars, and have a great propensity to steal. They are fond of the chase and of raising their rivals, are adept in the exercise of frightfulness. Mentally they are slow."
As I point out in my new book, A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today, this was only one of a host of staggering misconceptions, prejudices and gaffes that marked the efforts of the United States, Britain, France and Italy as they went about creating nations and drawing boundary lines that persist to this day.
It happens that in the ensuing nine decades, the Kurds and their region of Kurdistan have turned out to be the lone promising island of peace and prosperity in the nation of Iraq. Certainly the way the borders were carved -- leaving a large chunk of Kurds in the reconstituted Turkey that was all the peacemakers left of the once vast Ottoman Empire -- was just one of a host of errors.
Nevertheless, the world may now be in a position today to reverse, even rectify these errors. Peace and prosperity may be just two of a host of consequences. Arriving at a solution to the tensions across the Turkish-Kurdish frontier may also lead to an independent nation of Kurdistan, a model for the rest of Iraq and a roadmap to eventual American disengagement from the entire region.
But first we have to get there. And that's where the problems arise. There are, quite simply, a host of strong passions on all sides of the frontier -- and I say all sides because Iran, with its own small Kurdish population, and a big stake in the future of the rest of Iraq, also has a dog in this fight. Indeed only 20 percent of all Kurds are in Kurdistan itself. Some 55 percent are actually in Turkey, another 20 percent are in Iran and smaller numbers are scattered across Asia and the Caucasus including 200,000 in Afghanistan and even 100,000 in Israel. None of this, however, should prevent an independent nation of Kurdistan. Certainly there are far more Albanians in Albania than in Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia. Yet that doesn't prevent Kosovo from aspiring to independence. Indeed, an independent Kurdistan could play for the Kurds the same role as a homeland that the Jews lusted after and, after centuries, won for themselves.
Still, we have to take this one baby step at a time. First, we need to encourage General Buyukanit and his military not to take steps that would make Kurds grieve with an unimaginable intensity. We, and by that I mean not only the United States but also the European Union which can dangle a real carrot in the form of potential Turkish membership in the EU, must persuade Turkey that a free and independent Kurdistan on its border would be the best possible guarantee that PKK guerrillas are tamed and held in check. It's pretty clear that a Congressional resolution bashing Turkey for its unquestionable genocide of another resident minority, the Armenians, ninety years ago, would remove much of our ability to talk calmly and rationally with the current rulers of Turkey.
Fortunately, for the moment, most sides are still talking -- though possibly not the same language. Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan flew to Teheran this past weekend to lobby for Iranian support, while an Iraqi delegation flew back to Baghdad from Ankara on Saturday without any breakthroughs. What the foreign minister wants from his Iraqi counterparts, however, he's not getting -- "very, very quick results." Instead, all he got was long-term proposals, "far from being satisfactory."
Absent in all of this is one reality, though. The Kurds themselves. Baghdad can scarcely be expected to speak with any authority for a regional government that wants nothing but independence and, frankly, has demonstrated it's ready now to move in that direction. So those who really need to be in the heart of the discussions aren't even at the table -- the Kurds themselves. As I've suggested in my book and innumerable speeches in recent weeks, the only real solution is an independent Kurdistan that can stand on the international stage and speak for itself.
Moreover, there's not much time left. On November 5, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with President Bush in Washington. Can the president talk the Prime Minister off this slippery ledge with a fiery pit on the other side? It may be the world's last hope. Said Prime Minister Erdogan on a Turkish reprisal: "We can't say when or how we will do it, we will just do it."