Kurdistan: Bird in the hand or three in the bush?

POST: Lessons from the Edge of Globalization: Part 2, Day 1

The key choice for the Iraqi Kurds is this: if they are smart enough to take the bird in the hand and essentially disavow the three in the bush (Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iran), they have a real chance at real independence.

This is the tough choice Kemal Attaturk made in Turkey after WWI (forgetting the rest of the Ottoman Empire) and which David Ben-Gurion made with Israel after WWII (settling for half of what Zionists wanted territorially), and it made their states happen.

Barzani and Co. make this smart but tough call now, and they have a chance. Equivocate or get too cute, and it may all come crashing down. That's why the Iraqi Kurds must give up the PKK inside their territory.

You want a state of your own, you make the tough calls--even if all they do is put off inevitable clashes (remember slavery in the U.S.).

Comments

[Dirk]

This is rare, but I'm going to have to absolutely disagree with you on this one. I do agree that disavowing "Turkish Kurdistan" is the only workable approach to Iraqi Kurd independence (and seeing as how a Turkish, Kurdish, Israeli NAFTA would likely follow they wouldn’t really be giving up much). That said; I cannot wrap my head around the logic of the Kurds disavowing their Syrian and Iranian territories. Isn’t a visceral threat to their territorial integrity the best available tool for keeping the Syrians and Iranians from turning Iraq into a bigger, bloodier, version of Angola circa 1975? There’s also a moral dimension to asking/expecting the Kurd’s to abandon their brothers to either the Mullahs (on the decline or not) and Assad’s ilk but I’ll leave that aside for now.

[Michael]

Dirk, you're probably right about the Kurdish claims being a useful tool. But what's the best way to use it? Here's my take.

Offer Syria and Iran (maybe Turkey, too) a deal. The Iraqi Kurds renounce all claim on Kurdish sections of their countries; in return, those countries recognize an independent Kurdistan (or an autonomous Kurdistan within Iraq, or a Kurd-controlled Iraq, or whatever). The Iraqi Kurds promise to quash any rebel groups staying in their territory and stay out of their neighbor's affairs; said neighbors agree to stay out of the Kurd's affairs. Guaranteeing right of migration for Kurds going to Iraqi Kurdistan helps both sides: the Kurds by helping their brethren, the other groups by giving dissatisfied Kurds an alternative to violence.

[Chirol]

I also have to disagree. Israel and Kurdistan are apples and oranges. While the Israelis all migrated to present-day Israel, the Kurds have inhabited their lands for thousands of years and thus although for us the borders keeping them apart are very real, for them, it's as if they live in another state (for US readers). Abandoning them would be difficult.

I aruged for the same thing a few months ago

http://www.cominganarchy.com/2006/11/01/kurdistan-rebalancing-the-middle-east

One realistic compromise would be renouncing claims against Turkey but NOT against Syria and Iran as Turkey is the main threat. With US bases in Kurdistan and the Turkish threat neutralized, they'd have a chance. In addition, they'd be useful for continuing to destabilize Iran.