Where Kurdistan Meets the Red Zone
Michael J. Totten
"If Turkey allows itself to interfere in the matter of Kirkuk, we will do the same…in Turkey." — Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani.
KIRKUK, IRAQ — Just south of the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq's northernmost provinces lies the violence-stricken city of Kirkuk, the bleeding edge of Iraq's "greater" Kurdistan, and the upper-most limit of the asymmetric battleground known as the Red Zone. Kirkuk is claimed and counterclaimed by Iraq's warring factions and is a lightning rod for foreign powers — namely Turkey --- that fear a violent ethnic unraveling of their own that could be triggered by any change in Kirkuk's convulsive status quo.
I spent a day there with Member of Parliament and Peshmerga General "Mam" Rostam, Kirkuk's Chief of Police Major Sherzad, my colleague Patrick Lasswell, and our driver Hamid Shkak. You could stay a month in Kirkuk hunkered down in a compound or a house and not see or hear signs of war. But violence erupts somewhere in Kirkuk several times every day. If you go there with a Kurdish army general, as we did, and spend your day with the city's chief of police, as we also did, you will see violence or at least the aftermath of some violence. This isn't a maybe. So I brought my video camera as well as my Nikon along.
From the safety of the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya — where the war is already over — Kirkuk looks like the mouth of Hell. It's outside the safe fortress of the Kurdistan mountains and down in the hot and violent plains. The city doesn’t look much better up close, and you can feel the tension rise with the temperature in the car on the way down there.
Patrick and I woke Mam ("Uncle") Rostam first thing in the morning at his house in Suleimaniya. He told us we could follow him to Kirkuk, where he works every day, so we hired a world class driver to do the job.
Hamid Shkak spent years driving foreigners around war zones in south and central Iraq. He has more experience than anyone I know steering clear of IEDs, barreling through ambush sites at 120 miles an hour, and veering around spontaneously exploding firefights. He was perfect for the job, and we had little choice but to trust him and Mam Rostam with our lives.
And if they're smart, they render and keep it as Arabenrein as possible. One of my abiding principles of peaceful international relations is ethnic cleansing with apologies.
And I think most of you would agree. Because our government since April 2003 has been spending about $10 billion per month not just to wipe out the saddamite dictatorship, but to ethnically cleanse the entirety of Iraq. And as you can see, they've done a damned fine job of that.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Anyway, the Kurds are not making their region Arabenrein. They welcome everyone but the Baathists and the Islamists, and they know how to make that policy work. Decent Arabs are welcome in Kurdistan, and they even join the Peshmerga.
Who knows? You are there. We are here. You can probably see what's happening over there more clearly than we can.
In any case, I have written before that I find the process of ethnic cleansing a perfectly acceptable way to simmer down international conflicts. "International" in the sense that each culture regards itself as a separate nation. I never have thought multinational states have any likelihood of longterm permanency. And I never have to look very far for good bad examples.
For every Switzerland you can point out to me, I can point out a post-Tito Jugoslavia, a Czechoslovakia, a pre-independence India, a post-US-controlled Phillipine Islands, a post-Soviet Russia, a post British imperial Ireland, and to our immediate north, a Quesbec simultaneously in and out of the Canadian federation. Nothing makes me laugh more sardonically than perceiving the collapse of multinational commonwealths, as stunned US State Department officials look on in shock and disbelief.
And one thing I have learned from you of all people, with careful reading of all your interviews, is that Kurdistan all be assuredly will not be a long-term constituent part of whatever becomes of Iraq.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Well, if the Kurds get their way, long-term parts of Turkey won't be in Turkey, and ditto Iran.
It's a shame the Brits and Kissinger sold them out. From all indications, the nation of Kurdistan could have been a great ally and an example for the region.
And all because there is in fact a unique and distinct Kurdish nation. And in the near-enough future, that nation will have its own country as well.
Americans mostly think that "country" makes a nation. And no doubt it has worked that way in our own national experience. But its the nation that makes the country for most of the rest of the world.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.