Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Brewing Trouble in the "Good" Region
For the last few years the one region of Iraq that consistently caused few problems for TeamBush has been the northern most Kurdish areas. As primary benefactors of the GW I era no-fly-zone imposed by the US-UK, the Kurds essentially ran their own independent state since 1992. Protected from occasional land forays by Saddam's weakened army by the well-armed and -organized Peshmerga, they developed institutions and a semblance of civil society in Iraq's north. They managed to put aside, for the most part, political differences between the two primary Kurdish factions, the PUK and the KDP, and jointly rule the region in the post-Saddam era; leaving the Bush-Blair coalition the worry largely about the on-going self destruction of the sunni and shi'a areas to the south. Recent events, however, may change this success story quite rapidly.
Neighboring Turkey has always been wary of Kurdish independence in the Iraqi region, fearing that it will fuel greater calls of autonomy from its restive Kurdish minority of about 15 million. For decades Turkey's homegrown Kurdish separatist groups carried out raids against Turkish military and civilian targets, most notably the PKK led by militia leader and folk hero Abdullah Ocalan, who was captured by the Turks in 1999 and remains jailed there.
Beginning in June of this year and continuing unabated ever since, PKK raids in Turkey have increasingly tested the patience of the Ankara government. Despite a recent security arrangement with Iraq's government concerning border security in the region, Turkey maintains that roughly 3,000 members of the PKK militia responsible fro these attacks are being sheltered across the border in Kurdish-held Iraq; the relatively-weak central government in Baghdad, it is thought, is unable to stop the attacks or support in the northern region where it has limited power or credibility.
To date the US-UK has been able to deter Turkey, a NATO ally and de facto supporter of the Coalition since the Iraq War if not prior, with financial and political considerations, including support for its inclusion in the EU. This rising escalation of PKK attacks, however, comes at a time when the US House of Representatives has approved, at this point only at the committee level but a floor vote is said to be impending, a resolution calling the slaughter of ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century "a genocide."
This vote has been along time in coming. As a student in DC during the 1980s I worked in a residence hall that each year housed a delegation of young Armenians who came to lobby the Congress for such a resolution. And each year the vote failed to materialize, opposed as it was by steadfast official Turkish propaganda and fears of upsetting a key ally against the Soviets/ in the Gulf War/ in the Iraq War/ of the Global war on Terror. It is indeed a complicated issue, as eloquently stated by Richard Cohen in an Op-Ed in today's Washington Post.
The impact of this conflict, once known only to history buffs and those of the various ethnicities with an agenda, is already being felt. The impending Turkish vote authorizing incursion, scheduled for today in Ankara, was one of the primary factors that sent crude above $87 a barrel and thus world stocks tumbling. Should TeamBush allies get into a violent shooting war with one another in what is currently the world's least stable and arguably most critical part of the world, Condi Rice will be wistfully wishing for the days when all she had on her plate was the comparatively easy task of piecing together consensus for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan.
For the last few years the one region of Iraq that consistently caused few problems for TeamBush has been the northern most Kurdish areas. As primary benefactors of the GW I era no-fly-zone imposed by the US-UK, the Kurds essentially ran their own independent state since 1992. Protected from occasional land forays by Saddam's weakened army by the well-armed and -organized Peshmerga, they developed institutions and a semblance of civil society in Iraq's north. They managed to put aside, for the most part, political differences between the two primary Kurdish factions, the PUK and the KDP, and jointly rule the region in the post-Saddam era; leaving the Bush-Blair coalition the worry largely about the on-going self destruction of the sunni and shi'a areas to the south. Recent events, however, may change this success story quite rapidly.
Neighboring Turkey has always been wary of Kurdish independence in the Iraqi region, fearing that it will fuel greater calls of autonomy from its restive Kurdish minority of about 15 million. For decades Turkey's homegrown Kurdish separatist groups carried out raids against Turkish military and civilian targets, most notably the PKK led by militia leader and folk hero Abdullah Ocalan, who was captured by the Turks in 1999 and remains jailed there.
Beginning in June of this year and continuing unabated ever since, PKK raids in Turkey have increasingly tested the patience of the Ankara government. Despite a recent security arrangement with Iraq's government concerning border security in the region, Turkey maintains that roughly 3,000 members of the PKK militia responsible fro these attacks are being sheltered across the border in Kurdish-held Iraq; the relatively-weak central government in Baghdad, it is thought, is unable to stop the attacks or support in the northern region where it has limited power or credibility.
To date the US-UK has been able to deter Turkey, a NATO ally and de facto supporter of the Coalition since the Iraq War if not prior, with financial and political considerations, including support for its inclusion in the EU. This rising escalation of PKK attacks, however, comes at a time when the US House of Representatives has approved, at this point only at the committee level but a floor vote is said to be impending, a resolution calling the slaughter of ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century "a genocide."
This vote has been along time in coming. As a student in DC during the 1980s I worked in a residence hall that each year housed a delegation of young Armenians who came to lobby the Congress for such a resolution. And each year the vote failed to materialize, opposed as it was by steadfast official Turkish propaganda and fears of upsetting a key ally against the Soviets/ in the Gulf War/ in the Iraq War/ of the Global war on Terror. It is indeed a complicated issue, as eloquently stated by Richard Cohen in an Op-Ed in today's Washington Post.
The impact of this conflict, once known only to history buffs and those of the various ethnicities with an agenda, is already being felt. The impending Turkish vote authorizing incursion, scheduled for today in Ankara, was one of the primary factors that sent crude above $87 a barrel and thus world stocks tumbling. Should TeamBush allies get into a violent shooting war with one another in what is currently the world's least stable and arguably most critical part of the world, Condi Rice will be wistfully wishing for the days when all she had on her plate was the comparatively easy task of piecing together consensus for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan.
Labels: Iraq, Kurds, Oil, Turkey
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