What Kurds got from the ISIS war
By Salahadin Koban
ISIS has been defeated in Syria and we are seeing the last bases of the group gone. For the time being the conflict is over and what the Kurds of Syria have achieved time will tell. Northern Syria has been ruling itself since 2011, but without any formal recognition from the Syrian government. This means further conflicts could follow.
What has the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq achieved in its war with ISIS? They fought from 2014-2017, but most of the areas where the Kurdish Peshmerga fought are now under Iraqi army and militia control.
This scenario begs a question: Did the Kurds fall for nothing or did they fight for the Iraqi central government? The Kurdish official line was always that the Kurds were fighting on behalf of humanity. This often sounded embarrassing and I don't know who talked this nonsense to the Kurds.
It is important to learn from one's own mistakes. In foreign policy there are interests and partnerships, no friendships. I still hear this flawed rhetoric that "We have no friends but the mountains" and if a politician talks like this he should quit his job.
The issue here is that the achievements are not felt tangibly in society while the Kurdish government should know that three years of war with ISIS have left many scars in this society not to mention the traumas of the fallen Peshmerga soldiers.
A historic opportunity missed
In June 2014 Mosul fell to ISIS. The Iraqi army had melted, and the international community needed the KRG. It was a moment when a window of opportunity briefly opened. History sometimes affords you moments like this. When the Israelis established a Jewish state in 1948 after the UN partition plan, thanks to the immediate Arab attacks they were able to define their own borders and survive.
The KRG could have made a deal with Baghdad as it was militarily on the strong side at that time. Furthermore, the whole international community needed the Peshmerga. This chance was wasted in the Kurdish political class. The referendum in 2017 was three years too late.
The Iraqi central government once again got its army in order, established people's militias and many areas freed by the Kurds were taken away from them. But the consequences of those developments seem to have escaped the Kurds already.
The Peshmerga army must be urgently organized, radical reforms in the education sector must be carried out and the principle of efficiency imposed.
The KRG must be careful and not sidelined on the political chessboard. This time the opportunity was missed but the next generation will get this chance again. One thing is almost certain and that is the Middle East goes from one crisis to another. So the KRG must be prepared for the next stage and do its homework way in advance.
Salahdin Koban is a member of Germany's CDU Party. He was the first German-Kurd to run as a candidate in a German Federal Election, 2017. He is member of the German Israeli Group and Republicans Overseas in Germany. His main field is foreign policy.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
