The Trump Administration Just Stabbed the Kurds in the Front
On September 22, the Kurds in Erbil, Suleimaniyah, Dohuk and Kirkuk voted overwhelmingly to secede from Iraq.
This has been a long time coming. With 28 million people, the Kurds are the largest stateless people on earth, their “nation” parceled out in pieces to despotic governments in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Roughly six million of them live in Iraq.
The central government under Saddam Hussein’s genocidal regime murdered them by the hundreds of thousands with conventional and chemical weapons. After Saddam’s regime was demolished, the Kurds effectively retreated from the rest of Iraq and built the only properly functioning region in the country while the rest consumed itself in blood and fire.
They are the most staunchly pro-American and anti-Islamist people in the entire region by far and were, for a time, the only ones truly willing and able to take on ISIS and win. None of the Iraqi Kurdish parties and movements are terrorists. On the contrary, of the three largest ethno-religious groups in the country, the Kurds are the only ones who consistently resist terrorism in all its forms everywhere—not just in Iraq but everywhere else in the world.
Yet Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says their independence referendum is illegitimate. “The vote and the results lack legitimacy and we continue to support a united, federal, democratic and prosperous Iraq,” he said.
What garbage.
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Roughly three million people voted, and 92 percent of them chose independence. That number cannot be rigged. I visited Kurdistan four times during the war and never met a single person there who wished to remain in Iraq. Only foreigners refer to their part of the country as “Northern Iraq” rather than “Kurdistan.”
You’re all but guaranteed to be chastised if you refer to the place as “Iraq” within earshot of the locals. Rigging an independence vote in such an environment makes about as much sense as the Democrats in the United States rigging an election against the Republicans in San Francisco. What on earth would be the point? If anything, a 92 percent “yes” vote is low, and it’s only that “low” because the ethnically mixed Kirkuk Governate was included this time around.
Kurdistan is a nation in all but name while Iraq is a nation in name only. Iraq isn’t really even a country. It’s a map and a geographic abstraction. Baghdad, from the Kurds’ point
If Middle Easterners drew their own borders rather than French and British imperialists, Iraq wouldn’t even exist. (Nor would Syria, for that matter.)
The yearning for an independent Kurdistan dates back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the close of World War I, roughly the same time Arab and Turkish nationalisms were born. Back then, the League of Nations promised Kurdish autonomy, but they were cruelly shackled to Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, three of which went on to produce mass-murdering totalitarian regimes and terrorists armies.
Of course the Kurds want out. Under what theory would they want to stay? Saying their referendum on the question isn’t legitimate, as Rex Tillerson does, is a despicable lie made doubly despicable by the fact that the Kurds are our friends.
The reason why there won't be Kurdish independence anytime in the near future is because it also involves large parts of Iran and Turkey. Turkey in particular has no interest in seeing an independent Kurdish state, although I'd argue that their concerns are truly misguided.
Exactly. If a new independent state of Kurdistan were created, the land it would get would come from Kurdish areas --parts of Turkey and Iran (also some parts of from Iraq and Syria). Those countries don't want to lose that land (even though pasrts of it are mainly-- or entirely-- Kurdish).
In addition, as you mentioned, the Turks are afraid they'd be creating an enemy state on their border. However, the reason the Kurds have fought the Turks is that they want their independence. If they have their own country, the Kurds would have no reason to fight Turkey.
It's a little weird - even the very highly educated Turks I know are totally irrational when it comes to the issues of the Kurds and the Armenian genocide. I know that's partly due to how the primary schools and newspapers covered (or didn't cover at all) these topics, but you'd think that if somebody were waging a low-level terrorist campaign and clearly stating that they seek independence that you'd want to learn the backstory. It's like they've been brainwashed.
I am so flippen sick of supporting Turkey. They are runned by backstabbers. They are constantly cajoled. They refuse to recognize the Armenian genocide (btw, which gave Hitler his idea for the final solution) and finally the Kurds. They are the most honorable and brave people and they are screwed by us on a consistent basis because of Turkey.
Related article: Time to Kick Turkey Out of NATO?
It stunning to me that he would say that. If it were not for the Kurds Iraq would have been taken over by ISIS. Syria is in much the same situation, it was the Kurds that ended up doing the fighting.
It also interesting that the Kurds (Muslims) have been a stanch ally of the U.S. has both Christian Assyrians and Yazaidi people allied with them. In fact it was the Kurds that rescued the Yazadi from the mountain top.
Having a chance to have another democracy in the M/E and we blow it.
I believe our stupid policy originated a while back with the "experts" in our State Dept. In the case of "Iraq" they felt that if it broke that area up into separate nations, that would lead to "instability" in the Middle East. (Which is also a crazy idea-- most of the Middle east is hardly stabile!).
So the U.S. has tried to keep Iraq from breaking up. A stupid idea.
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The peoples in the area had no idea what the modern concept of a country was. They identified with their tribes, their religion, etc. After WWII the colonial powers created modern countries (based on their own interests not the interests of the indigenous peoples).
Sometimes they put several existing tribes (some of whom hated each other) into the same artificially created country. Other times when the colonial powers drew the lines for new "countries" they split a large tribe by placing it into two new, different countries!
At the end of WWII the British controlled area around "Mesopotamia" (Te land between the rivers-- the Tigris & the Euphrates) There were many different tribes there-- but the British forced them all into a new area to be called "Iraq"
The smart thing to do was to give each of the major groups in the area their own nation-- one new country each for each for the Sunni Arabs, the Shia Arabs, and the Kurds. But instead the British forced the all into one newly created oountry-- Iraq.
The aftermath of colonisation are here today and costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
That chance really existed in 1916 with the Sykes-Picot agreement, not in 2003 or 2017. In particular what Bush did with his illegal invasion of Iraq guaranteed that there will be much turmoil and no democracy for a very long time to come,
It would be no use to bring the matter to the UN for a repeat of the Israel-Partition plan method. In the Security Council there would be negative votes by countries that occupy lands not historically their own, and I need not mention which ones I mean. As well, the Sunni and Shia nations (and the many oil-hungry countries that pander to them) would in the General Assembly defeat such a motion anyway.
What disgusts me, is that the USA does not support the Kurds. As well, my opinion of Tillerson and others in Trump's administration is that they are pieces of shit who should be replaced by principled and unprejudiced persons. Can you believe that Tillerson favours the lying propaganda of the Palestinians and supports them rather than Israel? As for the Palestinian lies he believes, just read this:
as well as a previous story about him in the New York Post:
I concur with all the posts here.
The Kurds have every right to self determination in their own state.
They supported us.
We should and need to support them.
E.
Absolutely. It's time to stop turning our backs on the Kurds
Well, Tillerson is gone and since Turkey has turned even further to the dark side, I see support for the Kurds increasing.