Photo: U.S. Army
Gerald A. Honigman | Exclusive to Ekurd.net
Ankara has rendered the important American base at Incirlik all but useless.
Shi’a Arabs–who owe their ascendancy to America’s defeat of their various Sunni Arab tormentors–have told us our days are numbered in Iraq. The American-equipped Iraqi Shi’a army had earlier fled ISIS, leaving it many modern American weapons, and the Kurds were then mostly the only ones left resisting the Jihadis–only to be abandoned later by Washington afterwards…Shame!
So, what is America now to do?
For reasons of justice, practicality, and necessity, the time for American bases in Iraqi Kurdistan and an open embrace of Kurdish friends and allies has arrived….
We have supplied Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Pakistanis, Afghanis, and others with trillions of dollars in military and other aid and support since at least World War II–many who openly hate America. So doing likewise for a people who mostly like America should be a no-brainer.
For decades, most of the world has proclaimed the need for a second state for Arabs in the original post-World War I,1920 Mandate of Palestine. Since 1922, Jordan sits on almost 80% of that land. Arabs have nearly two dozen states today–most created by conquest and forced Arabization of other non-Arab peoples’ territories.
Around the same time that most of Palestine was gifted to Arab nationalism in one of its numerous subspecies, Kurds were promised independence in the northern part of the much larger Mandate of Mesopotamia. A collusion of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism aborted those dreams…a solely Arab-dominated Iraq arose instead. Search “British Petroleum Politics, Arab Nationalism, and the Kurds” to see what you find…
While real and proposed partitions of Palestine occurred addressing the desires of competing nationalisms, after the Brits got what they wanted in the Mosul Decision of the League of Nations in 1925–the oil of the Kurdish north tied to the Mandate of Mesopotamia instead of to Ataturk’s new Turkish state–the Kurds were dropped like a hot potato.
Powerful rulers emerging in Turkey and Iran–Mustafa Kemal, “Ataturk,” and Reza Shah Pahlavi–nixed Kurdish hopes in those areas; and with France imbedded in Syria as one of its post-WWI Mandates, Mesopotamia was the Kurds’ best hope in the new age of nationalism.
After World War II, Washington replaced London as primary user and abuser of these 38 million truly stateless people in Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) Big Oil and State Department machinations. Trump’s first SoS, Rex Tillerson, was head of the largest of the original ARAMCO’s “Seven Sisters.” Given Trump’s desire to “drain the swamp” and supposed ‘thinking out of the box’ nature, I’m puzzled at why he chose a predictable Big Oil person like Tillerson to head other traditional Arabists who dominate Foggy Bottom in the first place.
Back to the future…
The January 3, 2020 dispatch, via President Trump’s order, of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ “Quds” Force (the Arabs’ and Arabizeds’ name for the Jews’ Jerusalem) leader, General Qasem Soleimani, was long overdue.
Given the blood of many hundreds of Americans and others on his hands, if ever a legitimate military target existed, he was it. There’s no need repeating what can easily be searched out on the Internet, and as a revealing side note, to see the real main reason why the mullahs are so “concerned” about “Al-Quds,” see here.
The President has displayed mostly good, out-of-the box thinking in the region so far…Jerusalem; defunding the pay-to-slay Palestinian Authority/PLO alleged “moderates led by Mahmoud Abbas; slashing funds to organizations like UNRWA; making sure the Golan Heights are never used by Syria to rain down death upon Israel again as it did for decades; etc. and so forth.
That Big Oil’s age-old bosom buddy Arabists in the State Department can’t stomach Trump’s policies proves just how good they are. The Foggy Folks have been shafting Jews, Kurds, and others for three quarters of a century now…ever since the State Department fought President Truman over Israel’s very rebirth in 1948–and even earlier.
Not long before the assassination of Soleimani, however, President Trump misstepped in Syria, and being in the Middle East, these various pieces of the greater puzzle affect each other. Let’s rehash a bit…
After using mostly native Syrian Kurds and other Peshmerga forces from the Kurdish Regional Government region in Iraq to fight (and die) against Islamist groups like ISIS for years, President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria set the stage not only for catastrophe, but abetted a 21st century, would-be Islamist Turkish sultan’s (President Erdogan) aim to at least partially re-create the Asian half of the Ottoman Empire. While some American shuffling (again, with Kurdish help) to protect Syrian oil fields from falling into ISIS’, Turks’, and others’ hands occurred soon afterwards, this did not prevent disaster.
To protect themselves from invading Turks who have literally tried to eradicate Turkey’s own Kurds as a separate people by outlawing their culture and language to Turkify them, after America’s withdrawal, Syria’s Kurds who were not killed were forced evacuate some of their own lands and to make a deal with the devil—the hated Iranian-allied, Alawi/Shi’a Assad regime in Damascus–which they had struggled against for decades in order to just gain basic human, let alone political, rights from as well. As with the Turks, Kurdish school children in “Arab” Syria had routinely been forced to sing songs praising their ARAB identities–not Kurdish ones. And so forth. We’ll return to this tragedy later, but just imagine if Israel was doing this sort of thing to Arabs. Yet, have you heard about any international body or leader raising a commotion over these real travesties?
On September 9, 2018, the Jerusalem Post reported a precision ballistic missile attack on Kurds deep inside Iraq which hit the exact building–perhaps exact room–where Kurdish leaders were meeting. Soleimani’s IRGC was sending a message to others besides Kurds. The Saudis received a similar Iranian present via the Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen later on–taking out much of their oil production.
Like Shi’a Iran’s centuries’ old rivals for hegemony–Turks and (Sunni) Arabs—the one thing all three have been in agreement about is the denial of political and even basic human rights to some 38 million truly stateless people who pre-date at least Turkish and Arab conquests in their part of the Middle East by millennia.
Both Turks and Arabs have outlawed Kurdish language and culture. Twenty three million Kurds in Turkey–about a fourth of the latter’s population–have been renamed “Mountain Turks” by Ankara; and besides Saddam Hussein’s Anfal Campaign in “Arab” Iraq in the 1980s, which eventually took some 200,000 Kurdish lives, the title of the Kurdish scholar, Ismet Cherif Vanly’s book, The Syrian ‘Mein Kampf ‘Against The Kurds), says all you need to know about how Syrian Arabs have dealt with them as well.
Iran continues to hang Kurdish (and other) dissidents whenever it sees fit. Again, check out what Iran has done to its own 8 million Arabs in the very first link in this analysis. All three nations have slaughtered tens or hundreds of thousands of Kurds just during this past century.
Given increased tensions since America finally overdosed on the murderous machinations of Soleimani’s IRGC and cut off the head of the snake, many are now anxiously waiting to see what the mullahs’ next move will be. When they strike, America’s response must be exponential–not proportional…like this.
Now, please pay close attention to these next excerpts from that above JP report…
“The big picture is an Iranian missile threat throughout the region {GAH: this was written before the Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities} … US allies have missile defense to confront the Iranian threat. Israel has a layered system of missile defense…Saudi Arabia has used Patriot missile batteries to stop Houthi missiles. This has proven effective {GAH: ???!!!}. It is also why the IRGC decided to test missiles targeting defenseless Kurdish groups in northern Iraq.”
Note that very last line’s “defenseless” Kurds. Now let’s really begin…
For quite some time, I’ve called for America to consider a radical change in policy. Radical… I’ve done extensive doctoral studies in this very area, and my work on the Kurds and this region for over forty years now can be found in leading universities around the world–so, I’m not just shooting from the hip.
For far too long American administrations (and appointed State Department chiefs) have let Turks and Arabs dictate positions in the region according to their own self-interests–no matter who else got shafted and slaughtered.
President Obama allowed Iran to do this to America as well. While he didn’t bow to the Ayatollah like he did to the Saudi king, he might as well have done so given the honey deal Iran got from him regarding its nuclear program–including $150 billion Soleimani got to terrorize Sunni Arabs and Jews alike, supplying Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, etc. with hundreds of thousands of increasingly more powerful and accurate missiles, mortars, and such.
As discussed earlier, with an Islamist-oriented Erdogan government now in Turkey, the important American Air Base at Incirlik has been rendered all but useless to Washington.
To replace Incirlik and American bases in Shi’a Arab Iraq (Shi’a Iran’s little brother next door) and America’s virtual exit from Syria, President Trump needs to continue to think and act out of the box.
With Trump’s axing of Big Oil’s Rex Tillerson as head of the State Department and his replacement with Mike Pompeo, the Department now once again finally has a leader with a vision reminiscent of President Reagan’s exceptional secretary of state, George Shultz.
Think again about what major American bases, replacing Incirlik and others in the region (where Americans are largely hated), set up in Iraqi Kurdistan–situated among folks who actually like us and who have fought and died for our mutual causes–might achieve in this strategically important part of the world. And in the very territory where Kurds were indeed promised independence earlier but got shafted due to a collusion of Big Oil and Arab nationalism.
Next, add to the above an additional major shift…
Instead of just arming Kurds with glorified pop guns and such, America needs to do for Kurds–America’s most effective fighting force against ISIS and others as well–what it has done for their Arab, Turk, and Iranian subjugators and executioners: train and equip Kurdish tank, artillery, and anti-aircraft battalions; bomber and fighter aircraft squadrons; special forces; and so forth.
It’s time to treat allies who, despite their own shortcomings, share many of our own ideals and vision, and provide them with means to actually win–not just be a nuisance to–their/our enemies. We shamefully used them in the ’70s when the Shah of Iran was fighting Saddam (yes, he was around that long). As soon as Tehran made its temporary peace with Iraq’s Arabs, Washington, via Secretary of State Kissinger, pulled the rug out from under them…resulting in thousands of Kurds being slaughtered and displaced. The late, great New York Times’ William Safire wrote a series of op-eds about this, “The Sellout of the Kurds,” along with follow-up articles as well.…
Worse, we repeated this under President George H. W. Bush’s watch (“ When Norman Wasn’t Stormin’ ”).
Even Trump, despite other positive actions in the region, gave far less than sterling support when 90% of Iraqi Kurds voted for independence in a referendum and were subsequently overrun by American tanks and lost the oil fields of Kirkuk in the heart of ancient Kurdish lands to the Shi’a Arab army–the same guys who ran from ISIS.
Everyone next jumped on the Kurds, blaming them for their own misfortune: “Timing was bad; you angered your non-Kurdish neighbors,” and so on. Again, this occurred while Kurds were doing most of the fighting and dying against ISIS.
“Bad timing… really? Just what would be a “good time” for Kurds–who’ve been waiting a century—to finally receive a share of justice in the new age of nationalism in the Middle East, given the nature of the Turks, Arabs, Iranians, and others who’ve used, abused, and/or subjugated and slaughtered them all this time?
Blame the victim when you don’t have backbone to take on the oppressors. After all, it’s much easier that way–and you won’t tick off Turks, Arab oil potentates and their multi-national Big Oil partners.
An independent (or even just substantially autonomous) Kurdistan???
“Destabilizing,” critics complain. Yet, those same voices who expect tens of millions of Kurds to remain stateless, demand a 22nd Arab state run by terrorist Fatah’s latter-day Arafatians-in-suits and/or terrorist Islamist Hamasniks and Palestinian Islamic Jihadis. Now, that wouldn’t be destabilizing, would it ?
A powerful American presence in Iraqi Kurdistan will send an important message to Turkey and Iran to stay out, and it will greatly help keep militant Kurdish groups from striking out on their own.
serious arming of the official KRG military will make it easier for independent fighters to integrate into a powerful, American-trained fighting force. Kurds are known for their military prowess. Now imagine what could be–American/Kurdish artillery, missile batteries, etc. as close to would-be atomic ayatollahs as vice-versa, and so forth.
The Jerusalem Post article spoke of Iran deliberately testing more sophisticated, precision missiles against “defenseless” Kurds. It did–and then, via Houthis, demolished Saudi oil facilities afterwards.
So…Why not drastically change this situation, create another bulwark against the feared Shi’a Crescent (Hizbullah’s Lebanon, Assad’s Alawi Shi’a Syria, Iraq, and Iran), and give American influence in the region a much-needed renewed boost at the same time?
But, again, won’t this anger Turks, Arabs, and Iranians?
Sure it will…but that doesn’t mean such radical change in policy shouldn’t be done and isn’t morally correct–like Trump defunding UNRWA, or finally making Arabs define “refugee” the same way scores of millions of other non-Arab refugees have had to. Recall that at least as many Jews fled from Arab/Muslim lands as Arabs did in reverse due to a war started with the attack by a half dozen Arab states on a minuscule Israel upon its rebirth in May 1948. Those Sefardi and Mizrahi Jews had no “UNRWA” set up to especially help them.
Yes, Turks have been an important NATO ally, and they’re worried about how their own 23 million “Mountain Turks” will respond to the freedom disease happenings involving their Kurdish brethren across the border in Syria and Iraq. But, guess what?
My bet is that they’ll remain allies. Ankara is doing lots of business with Iraqi Kurdistan and has access to its oil as well. A newly-independent or substantially autonomous Kurdistan—in lands where Kurds and Assyrians predate both Arabs and Turks by millennia–is not about to do anything stupid to provoke the powerful Turkish military.
With proposed American base(s) in place in the KRG region, and a better-equipped official Kurdish army, the “loose guns” among the Kurds will be better contained. But that’s also up to Ankara as well. If it continues to suppress its own Mountain Turks/, it will be hard to convince groups like the PKK to ignore this.
Furthermore, with Putin’s Russia having visions of recreating the czarist Russian empire, unless Ankara has very bad amnesia, it will realize that it needs NATO and America more than the latter need it.
Oh yes, I almost forgot…Most Kurds like Israel, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Jews in Israel and elsewhere have great memories of their Kurdish neighbors. A future alliance between Israel and Kurdistan? Far stranger things have happened…
With Syria in shambles, who knows what next might happen–especially if an independent Kurdistan arises next door in Iraq? A partitioned or federalized Syria, into Sunni, Alawi Shi’a, and Kurdish autonomous states–like in, perhaps, Iraq as well? We live in very potentially pregnant times, indeed.
Historically, Iraq was as artificial a state in Asia as Yugoslavia was in Europe. Both were formed after the breakup of empires after WWI and brought together different religious and ethnic groups who were, at the very least, rivals–if not outright enemies.
The glue that kept both Iraq and Yugoslavia intact involved leaders who ruled with an iron fist.
When Marshal Tito died, it was just a matter of time before Yugoslavia exited the world stage as a united nation, with Serbs, Albanians, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, and others reverting to age-old blood feuds and rivalries. With the genocidal tyrant Saddam Hussein’s demise, all bloody hell broke loose in Iraq as well.
Despite some differences, Syria has had a similar history. It too has been ruled by branches of the same Arabist Baath Party in Iraq which affords political rights to none but Arabs. And, as in the case of Yugoslavia, the possible breakup of Iraq may not be a bad thing–nor Syria either.
Different, long antagonistic groups should not be forced together if some insist on subjugating others. Where is it written that the time period for the birth of new nations–especially ones which should have been born (as Kurdistan) but were prevented–has come to an end? South Sudan was created not long ago because of its peoples’ slaughter, enslavement, and suppression by the Arab/Arabized north–as just one example. And what of that second Arab state in Palestine that the world insists gets shoved down Israel’s throat?
The age-old hatred between Sunni and Shi’a Arabs; both of the latter’s murderous, dominating, and/or subjugating policies towards Christian Assyrians and Kurds; and Ankara’s use of Iraqi Turkmen to further its own (and their own) interests in the oil-rich, predominantly Kurdish north never did–and now especially don’t–bode well for a future unified Iraq. None of the above should therefore prevent America from setting up necessary, strategically important bases and treating our Kurdish friends and allies as they should have been treated from the get-go.
It’s long past due that an independent Kurdistan arise, with its oil in Kirkuk and the north to support it economically (which can also be shared with Baghdad)–accompanied by the same substantial support America has given to subjugating Turks, terrorist-supporting Pakistanis, Afghanis, and numerous Arab despots over the years.
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and websites all around the world. You can visit his website at geraldahonigman.com Gerald A. Honigman is a longtime senior contributing writer, from 2007, and columnist for Ekurd.net. Honigman has published a major book, “The Quest For Justice In The Middle East–The Arab-Israeli Conflict In Greater Perspective.” For more see below.
The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.
Copyright © 2019 Ekurd.net. All rights reserved