I find it hard to believe that we are coming to another national election and we are still debating what to do in Iraq. Five years after 9/11, the President's popularity is down so far that even Republicans are starting to question the way he has handled Iraq. Despite the money and the casualties, "stay the course" still looks like it will be the plan for the foreseeable future.
Unless something big and out of our control happens.
That something big might be Kurdistan. It's not exactly clear to me why we feel Israel and Palestine needs a two-state solution but the three regions of Iraq need a one-state solution but cracks continue go grow in that plan. Just this week, Rice visited Kurdistan and they were flying the Kurdish not the Iraqi flag.
This is a great article with background on the Kurdish people. At the start of the war, most Americans did not know that Iraq had three distinct regions or that the Kurds are a unique ethnic group that has never had a country of their own. Like Palestinians, Jews, and every other people, they want one. Who are we to tell them they dont deserve it? But for Kurds to get something, someone else has to give something up and that rarely happens without a fight. Turkey and Iran arent too thrilled about a Kurdish nation.
Central to "stay the course" is a single, unified Iraq but that hasnt really appeared. We have kept things from flying completely apart thanks to our 140,000 troops, but how long will that last? Especially since we arent creating peace in the region and American citizens are losing the patience, albeit slowly.
Iraq has a weak central government and little internal pressure to pull together in a single state. Nor do they have a dominant region that is ready to dominate the other regions to create a single country, which was the case in our own civil war.
Will the Kurdish people get a Kurdistan? Will Turkey or Iran attack because of it? What will we do about it? Time will tell but the pot has been simmering for a long time now.
In Northern Iraq, A Rebel Sanctuary Bedevils the U.S.
In Wake of Kurdish Attacks Against Turkey, Washington Is Caught Between Allies 'Our State in the Mountains'October 2, 2006
QANDIL MOUNTAIN RANGE, Iraq -- Kurdish guerrillas have used the remote mountains of northern Iraq as a base to attack Turkey for years. Now their presence has become a thorny problem for Washington.
Thousands of Kurdish fighters move openly in dozens of camps spread throughout Qandil's scrubby mountainsides and tree-covered ravines. A day's hike to the north lies Turkey, where most of these militants were born and where they face terrorism charges for fighting for Kurdish autonomy. Here in northern Iraq, with grenades clipped to the belts of their matching olive-green outfits, the guerrillas conduct combat drills, restock arms or watch satellite television. A few months ago they honored their leader by painting his image on a giant concrete slab they poured onto a hillside. It is visible from miles away.
"We have our own state in the mountains," says Farman, the 42-year-old area commander whose neck bears the indented scar of a bullet wound. Like other militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, he introduced himself by first name only.
The guerrillas' enclave in northern Iraq is at the center of a growing diplomatic storm. As the U.S. begins to exert pressure on Iraq to rein in the anti-Turkey fighters, it finds itself caught between two key allies. On one side is Iraqi Kurdistan, which supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq and whose leaders have deep ties with the Kurdistan Workers' Party. On the other is Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a Muslim democracy, whose leaders say they are committed to destroying the PKK.
...
The Kurds, who number about 25 million and speak their own language, have never had a country of their own. Most of them live in contiguous border stretches in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. The majority -- about 15 million -- live in Turkey, which has historically denied them minority rights such as cultural recognition or Kurdish-language education.
Since its birth in Turkey in 1974, the PKK, or Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, has employed a violent blend of Marxism and nationalism. Its guerrillas consolidated support in the countryside, ruthlessly attacking Turks and Kurds alike who stood in the way of their goal of establishing an independent Kurdistan. The conflict with the Turkish military led to an estimated 30,000 deaths in the 1980s and the 1990s.
Pressured inside Turkey, the PKK found a haven in northern Iraq in the mid-1980s. Iraqi Kurdish leaders, fighting their own rebellion against Baghdad, allowed the PKK to enter northern Iraq in a gesture of pan-Kurdish solidarity. Iraqi Kurds were also among the region's strongest supporters of the U.S. decision to depose Saddam Hussein, who is currently on trial in Baghdad on charges of genocide against Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.
In the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Turkey opposed, Iraqi Kurdistan has strengthened its autonomy. The home to five million Kurds, the Iraqi region has gradually accumulated the trappings of sovereignty from Baghdad's rule, serving as an inspirational example to Kurds across the border in Turkey and Iran.
In early September, Massoud Barzani, the region's president, outlawed the Iraqi national flag on the grounds that it symbolizes repression of Kurds under Mr. Hussein. Only Kurdish flags, marked with a bright yellow sun in the middle, now remain. The region's parliament just approved a petroleum law that stipulates that revenue from future oil production doesn't have to be shared with Baghdad. (Baghdad has criticized the region's drive to set its own oil policy.) Boundaries between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq are reinforced with trenches and patrolled by units of the regional government's own military force, the Peshmerga.
In addressing the guerrillas sheltering within their borders, Iraqi Kurdistan's officials find themselves with dual allegiances. While Washington classifies the Kurdistan Workers' Party as a terrorist group, Iraqi Kurd leaders view them as freedom fighters. Masrur Barzani, the head of Iraqi Kurdistan's intelligence branch and the son of the regional president, says Kurds "existed here long before" the Turkic tribes from Central Asia began their conquest of modern-day Turkey a millennium ago. Jafar Mustafa Ali, an Iraqi Kurd in charge of many of the Peshmerga units, suggests the PKK fighters are cut from the same nationalist cloth as Iraq's anti-Saddam Kurdish guerrillas. "The PKK asks for the rights of its people," he says. "Why should somebody be called a terrorist for that?"
...
Devotion to the group's Marxist founder, Abdullah Öcalan (pronounced O-dja-lan), borders on cultish. Mr. Öcalan was captured in 1999, and is currently serving a life sentence in a Turkish island prison. His portrait is ubiquitous in the camps, on bright yellow banners or surrounded with flowers. His severe, moustached visage is painted in bold blue, white and black on a concrete slab, some 8 feet by 20 feet, above one of the camps. Semad has an image of Mr. Öcalan on the screen of his mobile phone.
While northern Iraq has assumed importance as a PKK haven, the root causes of the group's appeal to some Turkish Kurds can be found in the Turkish Southeast. The area still reels from the violence of the past two decades. Major riots erupted in the city of Diyarbakir in March after several PKK fighters were killed by Turkish forces. Thousands of young Kurds set up roadblocks, trashed banks and shops and attacked police with rocks. In some parts of Diyarbakir, a city of one million residents, unemployment runs as high as 70%.
Partly under pressure from the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, Turkish officials have been trying to address some Kurdish demands for greater rights. Broadcasting in Kurdish, as well as Kurdish-language classes, have been allowed, though both activities are still tightly controlled. A few years ago, the PKK dropped its demand for an independent Kurdistan, saying it would be content with some form of autonomy inside Turkey. The government wants to channel investment to the region and now openly acknowledges that it has long neglected its Kurdish citizens and denied their identity. While these are small steps, they would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.
"One of the reasons we were fighting was to provide the conditions for greater cultural and language rights. At the time it was necessary," says Hasan Seker, a one-time teacher in a village school who joined the PKK in the 1980s, fought, lost an index finger, was captured and spent nine years in prison. He now runs a cultural center in Diyarbakir promoting Kurdish music, literature and language. Though the center faces restrictions, he says the difference is obvious. "It's serious progress. We came from the point of 'Kurds don't exist' to this point," he says. "Of course it gives us hope."
