Today we have another post from Spirit Across The Sea, (AKA Belgium.) I think we might consider voting Belgium in as the site historian and researcher. Murph

The Task of Condi Rice in Turkey

A Step in the Continuance of Empire Toward its Destination

A follow up from Murph’s previous post-- by Belgium.

The homogeneous community of Kurds didn’t fall out as lucky as that of the Jews in the lottery of life and so they have no national homeland of their own. The Diaspora of Kurds lies across several national boundaries and each country regards them differently. Generally, although they have lived under Arab rule since the 7^th century they see the West offering more advantages, much to the chagrin of some of the Arab nations where they live. They have enough clout to be able to make themselves a nuisance to some of the nations whose territory they occupy and this is used mischievously by some to make alliances and cause divisions.

The countries and groups in play in this struggle for a Kurdish homeland and national identity are: the Kurds themselves; Turkey; Iran; Iraq; Israel and the USA. There is minor involvement or secondary support to some of the primary group members from Armenia; Azerbaijan; Syria and Saudi Arabia. Each of these has its own agenda and is trying to either play up or play down the situation to its own advantage. Let us have a look at them in turn and see what each is trying to get out of the situation.

The Kurds

The traditional homeland of the Kurds was overrun by the Seljuk Turks, the Mongols and the Safavid dynasty during the seventh century, which in the 13^th century gave way to the Ottoman Empire. After this in turn collapsed at the end of WW1 the Treaty of Sèvres proposed an autonomous homeland for the Kurds but this treaty was never ratified. Instead it was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne, which no longer mandated Turkey to grant autonomy for the Kurds and whose traditional lands are designated as a ‘region’ crossing the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Syria. These have now expanded into parts of Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Over the years the Kurds have been on the losing end of many skirmishes uprisings and revolts but generally giving continued headaches to their host countries. In 1946 Mustafa Barzani founded the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) dedicated to the creation of an independent Kurdistan. This quarrelsome state of picking one nation off against another continued until in 1970 the Government of Iraq granted the Iraqi Kurds some self-rule but excluded the oil rich Kurdish region of Kirkuk. Another Kurdish uprising was then put down. In 1975, Jalal Talibani (Uncle Jalal) the then leader of the KDP left to found the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the infighting between the two groups gave the host countries some temporary respite.

Meanwhile in Turkey, Abdullah Ocalan, with others, founded the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) dedicated towards Independence for Turkish Kurds. In 1984 a PKK uprising was put down. In a separate campaign Iraq slaughtered thousands of Kurds and uprooted about 1.5 million from their homes for supporting Iran during the Iran / Iraq war which in turn caused a mass emigration into Turkey. Those who stayed behind had a seven year grumbling stand off with Saddam Hussein until, encouraged but not overly supported by the USA, they again rebel. They were harshly crushed whilst the UN sat on its hands and looked the other way. Eventually the famous No Fly zone was established which gaves virtual autonomy and breathing space to the regions 3 million Kurds. In Turkey, government detente granted the use of the Kurdish language, secondary language status but not for use in schools, broadcasts and other official settings.

In 1992, 10,000 Turkish military advance on PKK bases in Iraq. When they are engaged, Turkey suddenly produces an extra 60,000 troops and the Kurds are overwhelmed. This operation is repeated in 1995 with 35,000 Turkish troops.

In 1998 the PUK and the KDP agree to stop fighting each other and fight the perceived enemy instead.

In 1999, Abdullah Ocalan is captured and sentenced to death but fearing a backlash, the Turkish government kicked the whole matter upstairs to the International Court of Justice. In 2002 the Kurdish National Parliament reconvened after a six year break indicating a national unity within Iraq at least.

In 2003 the Kurds join the Gulf War on the USA & British side. Four Kurds are appointed by the US to the Iraqi Governing Council Including Barzani (son of Mustafa Barzani) and Talibani.

This single act has had the effect of uniting the majority of the Arab (Muslim) world against the Kurdish cause.

After 1300 years of living in other peoples lands, the Kurdish people want what was promised to them in the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 and with a total population roughly equal to that of Texas, they remain the largest indigenous group in the world without a national homeland.

Israel

Everyone knows that what Israel wants, is what America does and what Israel wants are two things, which are easy to say but not so easy to achieve. Firstly, it wants all the oil it can take from the Kirkuk region of Northern Iraq and secondly it wants to break up the sea of Islam in the Middle East, by ethnic cleansing if necessary.

To this end there was a plan, proposed in 1990 by the fairly moderate Zionist Leslie Gelb. The nuts and bolts of this plan comprised a federal Iraq with a northern section for the Iraqi Kurds. Mosul and Kirkuk were to be shared with the Turkoman peoples. The rest of Iraq was to be shared between the Sunnis and the Shiite factions. Not long after the plan was agreed with Washington, Leslie Gelb Died and not long after that, the Turkoman part of the deal disappeared. All that Barzani and Talibani had to do to get their mini state in Iraq was to smash their fraternal brothers the KPP. This they did and received their reward. The DKP and PUK would be dumped in the blink of an eye once they had fulfilled their usefulness if it was not for the oil fields those wily pair are sitting on. The PKK however was down but not out and has now made a resurgence. This soft partition plan in a modified form is what the US Congress voted on last week. The original overall Gelb concept is still being played out and Washington still regards this as ‘nobody’s business’.

Turkey

It is sometimes said that if you give people guns then sooner of later they are going to shoot themselves in the foot. This is what has happened to Turkey and now they are hopping mad. Although I am presenting this from each countries point of view these countries do not exist in isolation and the truth is an intricate complexity of alliances, temporary allegiances of convenience, crossings, double crossings and downright dirty double dealings. Turkey has blinked first and no matter what the merits of its case they are paying the price (for now). The reason they are in a rage is because Turkeys Prime Minister at the time, Turgut Ozal, was co-author of the Gelb Plan which has now come back to haunt them.

Turkey’s position regarding the Kurds is that since two thirds of them are scattered throughout the land and the rest fully integrated into Turkish society, they have no business dreaming about autonomy. In this, Turkey is taking a similar stance that the Chinese take regarding the Tibetans. The PKK carries out cross border attacks out of Iraq and now that Barzani and Talibani have got what they want, they are no longer interested in smashing anybody, especially their own sort for Turkey’s benefit. The thing that has really stuck in Turkey’s throat however is the position the US is taking. Last year The US gave the green light for Israel to go after Hezbollah in Lebanon after two of its soldiers were captured. Now the PKK have taken out 12 Turkish military and wounded 8 others then disappeared back into Iraq. The US administration is saying “Hold on a minute boys, let’s take it easy and think about this in the round for a minute. Hezbollah are ‘real’ terrorists, the PKK are well…… Is going after these rag tags what we really want to do”? This measuring with two sticks has caused the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan to respond “In view of its strong determination to root out terrorism, Turkey is willing and ready to cooperate with any actor in its fight against the PKK” later adding, “We will launch an operation against the PKK whenever it will be necessary without asking for anybody’s opinion”. He is willing to make a pact with the Devil if necessary and fuck the US’s political capital. General Yasar Buyukanit added a new dimension to this in June saying “There is not only the PKK in Northern Iraq. There is Massoud Barzani as well. Turkey cannot afford an independent (oil and water rich) state on its southern border.

This is the real reason why Condi is in Turkey because the US doesn’t want anybody upsetting the nice apple cart it has laid out. Turkey however is in a mood to set fire to the oil she is pouring on its troubled waters although the oil has only to stay there long enough for the US to achieve its objectives in Iran and then Turkey can go to hell as far as it is concerned. Its ally will just be another casualty of war when the US will shrug its shoulders and walk away. Turkey knows this and is unlikely to blink first this time.

Iraq

Now that the first part of the Iraqi soft partition has been virtually achieved and Bazani and Talibani have what they want, they do not want anybody taking it from them, particularly Turkey. After all they were only taking sides against the PKK to get what they wanted off the USA and Israel. Any benefit to Turkey was purely incidental. In response to Yasar Buyukanit’s statement above, Barzani replied with a startling and novel concept. “If Turkey invaded, we would deal with it as an Iraqi issue”. This warlord who can hardly stand to be in the same country as Malaki and the rest, would regard an invasion by Turkey to be firstly an attack on the Iraqi occupying forces to be resisted by General Petraus and secondly an attack on Southern Kurdistan. So they want to have their kebab and eat it; who do they think they are, Scotland? Whether or not the US has the resources to meet such an adventure is another thing, Turkey is in a mind to go anyway.

Iran

Kurds have expanded their territory over the Eastern Turkish border into Iran’s oil rich North Western states so far as lake Urmia (Orumigeh). The PKK now represents as much of a threat to Iran as it does to Turkey. By funding separatist movements, mainly by the Kurds, the Azeris and Ahwaz Arabs the USA hopes to keep the Iran administration busy enough to take its eye off the ball. It fully realizes that Iran is too big to be brought down this way but it hopes to weaken it enough for it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

It is interesting that in 1979 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared jihad against the Kurds denouncing their separatist claims based on ethnicity as un-Islamic. There was and never would be any such thing as Iranian Kurdistan. This at least brought him into agreement with the leaders of Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Over recent history the Kurds have been playing a cat and mouse game in Iran. Whenever they are chased away and Iran gets busy somewhere else, they come back again, shaking spears and making claims.

The House of Saud is also very worried that soft partition of Iraq would give rise to a Kurdistan counterpart, Shiiteistan on its northern border which it fears, would be subservient to Iran.

USA

So it comes to this, there are two sorts of terrorists, the ones who do what the USA likes and those who do what the USA doesn’t like. One sort is OK and the other sort not OK. The PKK are only minor terrorists, a mere bagatelle, hardly anything at all, nothing for anyone to really get upset over especially Turkey. And they will remain OK so long as they are useful to the USA and then they will be not OK.

The USA has demonstrated the adage of ‘my enemies enemy is my friend’ so often that it is now enshrined policy. This is clear in its funding of separatist movements within Iran. The problem in this instance is that you can’t say I am giving money to this bit of the PKK which is in Iran but we are not giving it to that bit of the PKK that operates in Turkey.

The big perplexing question for the USA is whether its desire to smash Iran is great enough to allow a war in Northern Iraq which will compromise both Israel’s oil supply and the Turkey / Iraq corridor through which 70% of US supplies to Iraq travel.

Here are some pertinent observations regarding the US’s foreign policy from Robert Higgs (a fellow of political science at the Johns Hopkins University).

”As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the actual powers-that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: follow the money.

When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

So U.S. soldiers get killed, so Palestinians get insulted, robbed, and confined to a set of squalid concentration areas, so the "peace process" never gets far from square one, etc., etc. – none of this makes the policies failures; these things are all surface froth, costs not borne by the policy makers themselves but by the cannon-fodder masses, the bovine taxpayers at large, and foreigners who count for nothing.

It would hardly do for our national leaders to announce the truth.

We have military power of a kind that allows us to do whatever we want, anywhere in the world. We intend to establish worldwide hegemony, baby. And while we're doing that, we and some of our best friends are going to get filthy, stinking rich. Guess what: most of the governing class is in on the scheme -- and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it.
No, that wouldn't do at all. So our leaders talk of "national interests," which can mean anything imaginable that serves the needs of the moment”.

Conclusion

The Kurds have been divided and are being ruled but both groups still have the power to cause continued trouble.

The USA finds both groups useful, the DKP & PUK to stabilize N Iraq and to supply oil to Israel and PKK to destabilize Iran and doesn’t want Turkey to Invade Iraq to start a war which will compromise both objectives. If achieving that goal involves dumping its ally Turkey then they will just be regarded as a casualty of war.