Kurdistan's Independence

"The West should support the mandate the Kurdish people are bestowing upon their leaders: to guide the peaceful emergence of a confident Kurdistan, rather than the reinforcement of a bad marriage destined to fail. The cause of Kurdish freedom is right and just, and it is overdue that the West should say so."
Shuvaloy Majumdar, Munk Senior Fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute, Ottawa, Canada

Syrian Kurds wave the Kurdish flag in support of the independence referendum. Northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, September 26, 2017 DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP

"Ankara coordinated its military response with that Iraq and Iran. Turkish armed forces mobilized on the border and rehearsed military action. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close the Turkish-KRI border and cripple the flow of Kurdish gas to international markets. As a sign of things to come, on the day of the referendum, the KRI-Turkish border ground to a virtual standstill."
"The Kurdish march to independence from Iraq is irresistible. By Turkey firmly voicing its opposition Ankara has forgone an opportunity to lead on the world stage. Had Turkey expressed support it could have swayed the U.S., European countries and perhaps even Russia to do the same. Instead Turkey fell back to a position which fails to see the long-term benefits of Kurdish independence, and instead finds itself in the center of yet another regional crisis."                             Dr. Simon A. Waldman, Mercator-IPC fellow, Istanbul Policy Center, visiting research fellow, King's College London

When Iraq literally fell apart after the U.S.-led 'Coalition of the Willing' invasion meant to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from his seat of power, where his Sunni minority Baathist Party ruled the majority Shiite country he led, it was only Iraqi Kurds in their semi-autonomous area of Iraq that were capable of mustering the strength of collective character and appreciation of democratic process to build and reinforce the infrastructure of a decent, humane society.

Elsewhere than Kurdistan in Iraq, the vanquished Sunni Baathists whose control of the Iraqi military and government had been disrupted and dismantled, and the majority Shiites who had chafed under Sunni brutality saw the opportunity to unleash their deadly sectarian hatred against one another, embarking on a protracted orgy of mass killing, even under the noses of the occupying U.S.-led forces whose partial purpose was to maintain order and security.

While violent death stalked both the Shiite and the Sunni communities in revenge attacks, the Kurdish territory remained a bastion of peace and security. The Kurds gave shelter to fleeing Iraqi Christians and other minorities targeted by the terrorist Islamist jihadis like al-Qaeda who entered the country through Syria to begin their own onslaughts to achieve status and prosecute jihad. As these venomous groups gained some measure of control, the dismissed Sunni military elite saw the opportunity to join them and eventually a schism between factions allied with al-Qaeda led to the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The only fighting force that proved itself capable of challenging the deadly presence of these terror groups and providing haven to their hapless ethnic and religious minority victims were the Peshmerga, fighting back to retain their own territory, while the Iraqi military fled in panic as ISIL marched on Mosul and Kirkuk. The Kurds, whom Saddam Hussein had attacked with poison gas had always suffered dire persecution as a (significant) minority, and they always aspired to sovereignty, not merely autonomy.

On September 25, their long-awaited referendum took place, seeing over 90 percent of those voting giving their confidence to Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani, to guide them through to independence which in reality would simply result in an ancient people formally reclaiming their heritage geography. The new federal democracy that is now Iraq's is not an equal one for all its citizens; now the majority Shiites are in control in a reversal of Saddam's Sunni control, while the Sunni Iraqis feel themselves disadvantaged.

The Kurdistan Region's authorities plan to negotiate separation with Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al Abadi; their intention never was to unilaterally, even on the basis of their people's almost-unanimous call for sovereignty, declare independence. Understandably, the government of Iraq balks at losing a portion of their geography (they had lost far more than that to ISIL's caliphate which, thanks primarily to the Kurdish Peshmerga and NATO-member assistance has been mostly restored), along with the oil revenues represented by Kirkuk's petroleum reserves.

But this is land that was unconscionably allotted by colonialist Britain to Iraq though it was promised to the Kurds for a recognized homeland of their own. The Kurds have no interest whatever in continuing as a satellite however autonomous, of Iraq and little wonder that, given their past in Iraq. That Iran, Syria and Turkey are all now anticipating that their own Kurdish populations will most certainly see Iraqi Kurds' initiative as one heralding their own eventually, rings alarm from them and from the West, foreseeing civil conflict spreading.

Even now, while the Kurds proved themselves as the only reliable fighting force against the vicious malevolence of ISIL, prevailing where the Iraqi forces could not, Baghdad chose to hold back needed arms from the Peshmerga which Western allies ferried through the Iraqi government as it demanded, with the expectation that it would send them on to the Peshmerga, which it failed to do. Trust and interdependence is not there on an equal basis. There is no true basis for a compromise for the status quo to be continued.

The differences between Iraq and Kurdistan are enormous; one fractious, the other fraternal and pluralistic. Kurdistan's social and physical infrastructure is modern and forward-looking, a model for all of the countries of the Middle East, but one they are loathe to emulate since it would require a recognition of human rights and equality. Kurdistan deserves recognition for its legitimacy to enable it to exercise economic, diplomatic, cultural and military independence. It has earned that right.

Turkey's belligerent response is predictable, but still wrong: Turkish and Iraqi joint exercises near the Iraqi Kurdish region's borders the day after the referendum. Silopi, Turkey, Sept. 26, 2017    ILYAS AKENGIN/AFP