By James M. Dorsey
Palestinians have long been known for a history of missing
opportunities. By contrast, Kurds spread across several Middle Eastern nations
appeared to have a keener understanding of geopolitics and were seemingly willing
to embrace the art of the possible. All of that has changed in the past year
with both Palestinians and Kurds seemingly further away from achieving their
long-standing goal of statehood.
A combination of the rise of US President Donald J. Trump,
the emergence of the Islamic State, the wars in Iraq and Syria, Turkey’s turn
towards authoritarianism, and the fallout of failed policies by Palestinian and
Kurdish leaders have rendered both nations struggling to salvage what can be
salvaged.
To be sure, circumstances that shape the struggle to achieve
the two peoples’ national aspirations could not be more different. Yet, while
Iraqi Kurds may have destroyed in the short-term what they built in almost three
decades of autonomy with an ill-advised referendum on independence in September
2017,
[i]
at least Iraqi and Syrian Kurds could in the middle-term be closer to some form
of sustainable self-rule, if not independence, than immediately meets the eye.
By contrast, with Trump backing Israel to the hilt, symbolized
by his unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state,
Palestinians are groping for an alternative framework for peace negotiations
[ii]
and tiptoeing around the possibility of a new uprising or Intifada
[iii]
that the last time round at the turn from the 20
th to the 21
st
century had a devastating effect on them.
[iv]
A region in transition
Working in the favour of both Kurds and Palestinians is the
fact that they live in a region that has been in volatile and violent
transition since the Arab popular revolts of 2011. That transition is likely to
continue for years, if not a quarter of a century, before the battles between
forces of change and counterrevolution and complicating regional rivalries have
battled it out and the fallout of the outcome of those struggles settles in.
As Kurds contemplate the future, they have the advantage in
contrast to the Palestinians, that the transition calls into question the
future political structure of Syria and Iraq, if not their existence as
nation-states within their post-colonial borders. Similarly, the nature of the
regime in Syria is likely to change with the contested future of President
Bashar al-Assad while the prospects of Iraq’s democratically elected,
Shiite-dominated government are in flux as it struggles to ensure that the
country’s Sunni minority maintains a stake in a unified Iraq and address
Kurdish aspirations. In Turkey, too, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambition
to remain in power at least until his country celebrates its 100th
anniversary in 2023 is certain to encounter headwinds.
Kurdish hopes are often vested in predictions articulated by
former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden that “Iraq no
longer exists, Syria no longer exists”
[v]
as well as the disintegration of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia in the wake of
the demise of communist rule. That remains a possibility but more realistic is the
fact, at least in the immediate future, the Syrian and Iraqi states as they
existed in the past are more likely to change rather than dissolve. The lesson
of the 2017 Iraqi Kurdish referendum and the fact that the Iraqi state has
already demonstrated resilience in surviving and its Syrian counterpart may
well do so too, means that Kurds will have to strive for some autonomous
accommodation within a federal structure.
Another lesson the referendum and the wars in Syria and Iraq
have taught the Kurds is that, despite having been close allies of the United
States in multiple battles, including the fight against former Iraqi strongman
Saddam Hussein and the Islamic State, they cannot count on the kind of support
Washington has extended to Israel. That, however, may be less of a disadvantage
than the obstacles Palestinians face as they counter a strong and entrenched
Israeli state that despite widespread condemnation of its annexationist
policies enjoys a network of strong international relationships even with
those, like the Gulf states, who are unwilling to recognize it and establish
formal diplomatic ties.
[vi]
With the future of Syria and Iraq as nation states in
question, Kurds ironically benefit from the fact that Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian
constituencies are not striving for a unitary state carved out of Turkish,
Syrian and Iraqi territory unlike the Palestinians who despite the split
between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestine Authority on the West
Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip are seeking an independent entity that would
encompass both territories. One consequence of that is the fact that Kurdish
leaders in the various territories are less stymied by their differences than
are the Palestinians whose leverage in potential negotiations and ability to
marshal more than symbolic international support has been undermined by their
inability to form a united front.
It has also made them more vulnerable to the machinations
and manipulations of external players such as Iran, Qatar, Egypt, and the
United Arab Emirates. Encouraged by the UAE and Egypt controversial Abu
Dhabi-based former security chief Mohammed Dahlan is weighing a return to
Palestinian politics and challenge to Abbas either by forming a party of his
own or joining Hamas in governing Gaza as part of national salvation
government.
[vii]
Playing ball with Syria
Syrian Kurds are likely to benefit from the fact that
decentralization will probably be Syria’s best bet to ensure its territorial
integrity once the guns fall silent. That would enable Kurds to claim enhanced
powers in purely Kurdish areas, strengthen their demand that Syria identify itself
as a republic rather than an Arab republic, create the basis for the children
of minorities to be educate in their mother tongue in both Kurdish-majority
regions as well as in Kurdish neighbourhoods of major Syrian cities, and allow
for an equitable distribution of oil export revenues.
[viii]
Syrian Kurds stressed the centrality of the revenues by declaring in 2016 their
autonomous federal region at a gathering in Rumeilan, the oil capital of
northeast Syria, rather than
Qamishli,
their de-facto capital.
[ix]
In some ways, the building blocks for autonomy are starker
in Syrian Kurdish areas than in Iraqi Kurdistan. The differences in law
enforcement, the administration of utilities and social services, and economic
policy in Kurdish areas and those parts of Syria controlled by the Assad
government are greater than in Iraq.
The regional Kurdish authority has promulgated laws,
including a quasi-constitution dubbed ‘Rojava’s social contract;’ created
agencies to license and administer investments, education, and media; founded
the region’s first university;
[x]
created a system for the sharing of economic resources;
[xi]
laid plans for an independent central bank,
[xii]
and witnessed the emergence of a broad network of non-governmental associations.
Notionally Damascus retained a presence in the regional area by maintaining its
monopoly on the issuing of civil record documents such as birth, marriage, and
death certificates, the paying of civil servant salaries, and its control of Qamishli
Airport, the area’s main gateway.
Nevertheless, a generation of Syrian Kurdish children is
being educated exclusively in Kurdish rather than also in Arabic. They are
growing up with a notion of Syria as a hostile, foreign forces, that they have
never visited. Kurdish children in Afrin are likely to have had their first
encounter with Syrians in early 2018 when Syrian government forces entered the
region in support of Kurdish forces fighting off military intervention by the
Turkish military and Ankara-backed rebels. Ironically, Kurdish agreement to the
Syrian entry could strengthen their bid for autonomy in a future federal
arrangement. The agreement reportedly involves the declaration of a no-fly zone
over Afrin, the establishment of Syrian military base, and put maintenance of a
local administration in northern Syria and sharing natural resources and
services on the table. Critics assert that those are conditions that the Assad
government is likely to walk away from in the longer term.
[xiii]
To succeed in achieving sustainable autonomy, Syrian Kurds
will have to endorse some combination involving and/or the relinquishing of
non-Kurdish territory, particularly in areas once occupied by the Islamic
state; loosen the ties of the US-backed People’s Protection Units (YPG) with
the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) that Turkey labels a terrorist organization;
and align its local governance structures with those of Syria. This will likely
involve a balancing of Kurdish, Turkish, and Syrian interests.
That could prove easier said than done particularly with
Assad seeing the survival of his regime as well as that of his Alawite minority
in Syria’s continued embrace of pan Arabism as a concept that includes “all
ethnic groups, religions, and communities” and recognizes their contribution to
the notion’s development. Assad see his country’s brutal war as an attempt to
force Syria to abandon its own identity and kowtow to foreign powers or to
become a society of “communities in conflict.”
Speaking in late 2017, Assad
asserted that "Arabism and national thinking have continuously been
accused by their enemies of backwardness and of being old-fashioned in an age
overwhelmed by globalization in order to turn us into tools to serve the
interests of huge financial institutions led by the United States."
[xiv]
Returning from the abyss
The Iraqi Kurds wasted their moment in history by falsely
assuming that the United States would back their quest for independence based
on the September 2017 referendum. Instead it will take the Iraqi Kurds time to
heal their internal divisions stemming from one faction allowing the Iraqi
military to take unopposed control of the strategic city of Kirkuk and crawl
back the degree of self-rule they had achieved under the umbrella of the United
States. Iraqi Kurds are still trying to come “to grips with the trauma caused
by the abrupt change from a quasi-state status to that of an entity under
threat of annihilation…
If Iraq’s history
as a nation-state can be taken as a proof then the possibility of peaceful
coexistence seems quite unrealistic.,” said scholar Ofra Bengio.
[xv]
Negotiations are nevertheless likely to be the only way to
achieve that. Both sides have incentives to engage in talks. Iraqi Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi’s military is weak despite its recapture of territory
controlled by the Islamic State as well as Kirkuk and has a poor track record
in retaining control of territories it has conquered. The threat of a military
confrontation with the Kurds will moreover continue to exist as long the two
sides fail to reach an agreement that is based on the country’s that recognized
Kurdistan’s regional status and gave it a far-reaching degree of self-rule.
Similarly, Iraqi Kurdish leaders have little other choice
given the fallout of the mis-guided referendum.
[xvi]
External players like Turkey and Iran that were crucial in thwarting Iraqi
Kurdish aspirations of independence would likely be supportive as long as
Kurdistan remains an integral part of Iraq and Iraqi territorial integrity is
guaranteed.
The key to successful negotiations is the elephant in the
room: the future of what the constitution terms “disputed territories” that are
rich in hydrocarbon resources, which in effect means agreement on the
boundaries that separate the Kurdish region from the rest of Iraq.
Iraqi Kurdish leverage in negotiations is likely to be in
part determined on whether the potential revival of Sunni-Shiite tensions will
erase the sense of national urgency that existed in the three-year struggle
against the Islamic State. The jury is still out on whether the local
administration that controls Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, will succeed in
taking into full account the interests of the Sunnis and ending their sense of
alienation. To do so, the government in Baghdad will have to secure the
resources to rebuild the shattered city and help its traumatised population –
something it has failed to effectively do in the past.
To be sure, Abadi, unlike Assad in Syria, has shown himself
to be more sensitive and inclusive. Yet, crucial to the Kurds, is the
underlying question of whether Abadi’s inclusiveness will succeed in putting
the Iraqi nation state’s core problem, the inability to create a deeply rooted
national identity, behind it.
Nonetheless, while it remains likely that the Kurdish-Iraqi standoff
will continue without a renewed eruption of hostilities for some time to come,
the question is for how long,” “The fractious nature of Iraqi politics
inherently works against compromise. In Baghdad, a united front for compromise
is almost impossible to achieve. As such, brave or original ideas are easily
undercut by opponents who will resort to the lowest common denominator: a
unitary Iraqi nationalism. This is the surest way to discredit any conciliatory
move on the Kurdish issue… Even if (the current crisis) ends with a return to a
mildly reshuffled form of the status quo ante, Arab Iraqis would be sorely
mistaken if they celebrate this as an Iraqi triumph: it would be a completely
Pyrrhic victory that merely intensifies the mutual mistrust and delays
confrontation,” warned Iraq scholar Fanar Haddad.
[xvii]
Regional imbroglio
The various Kurdish struggles risk becoming pawns in the
Middle East fundamental rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Iran and the Gulf
crisis that pits a UAE-Saudi-led alliance against Qatar that is backed by
Turkey and Iran. Turkey has already alleged that the Emirates, the kingdom and
Egypt are supporting the PKK. Yeni Safak, a newspaper closely aligned with
Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), charged that a $1 billion
Saudi contribution to the reconstruction of Raqqa, the now partly Syrian
Kurdish-controlled former capital of the Islamic State, was evidence of the
kingdom’s involvement in what it termed a “dirty game.”
[xviii]
Similarly, Iran reported increased insurgent activity in
majority-Kurdish region, asserting that Saudi Arabia was supporting it as part
of a bid to destabilize the Islamic republic.
[xix]
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said it had recently seized two large caches of
weapons and explosives in separate operations in Kurdish areas in the west of
the country and a Baloch region on the eastern border with Pakistan. It said
the Kurdish cache seized in the town of Marivan included bomb-making material,
electronic detonators, and rocket propelled grenades while the one in the east
contained two dozen remote-controlled bombs.
[xx]
Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman vowed last year that
the battle between his kingdom and the Islamic republic would be fought
"inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia."
[xxi]
Compared to the Kurds, Palestinians have the advantage that
they confront one rather than multiple states even if stability in Israel and
US backing for hard-line Israeli positions is beyond doubt. The Kurds may
however discover that the greater complexity of their struggle could turn out
to be an advantage provided they are able to play their cards right.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Singapore’s S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the Institute of Fan
Culture of the University of Wuerzburg, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer blog.
[iii]
Anshel Pfeffer, Three Reasons We Aren't Seeing a Third Intifada, Haaretz, 13
December 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/three-reasons-we-aren-t-seeing-a-third-intifada-1.5628267
