Meet the Iraqi Police in Kirkuk
Michael J. Totten
This is the second in a two part article. Read Part One, Where Kurdistan Meets the Red Zone, here.
KIRKUK, IRAQ – Kirkuk, like Baghdad, is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Car bombs, suicide attacks, shootings, and massacres erupt somewhere in the city every day. It is ethnically divided between Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens, and is a lightning rod for foreign powers (namely Turkey at this time) that interfere in the city’s politics in the hopes of staving off an ethnic unraveling of their own.
The city’s terrorists are mostly Baathists, not Islamists, and their racist ideology casts Kurds and Turkmens as enemies. They’re boxed in on all sides, though, and have a hard time operating outside their own neighborhoods. In their impotent rage they murder fellow Arabs by the dozens and hundreds. They have, in effect, strapped suicide belts around their entire community while the Kurds and Turkmens shudder and fight to keep the Baath in its box.
Kurdish and Turkmen neighborhoods are safer than the Arab quarter, but the city is out of control. Car bombs can and do explode anywhere at any time.
I spent the day with Peshmerga General “Mam” (Uncle) Rostam and Kirkuk’s Chief of Police Major Sherzad at a house Mam Rostam uses a base in an old Arab neighborhood that now belongs to the Kurds. Just after lunch Major Sherzad’s walkie-talkie began urgently squawking.
“There has been a shooting,” he said. “Two men on a motorcycle rode down the street and fired a gun at people walking on the sidewalk. One of the men was apprehended. They are bringing him here.”
For some reason I assumed when the chief said “here” he meant the police station. He did not. He meant Mam Rostam’s.
“They will be here in two minutes,” the chief said.
“Here?” I said. “They’re bringing him here? To the house?”
“They will bring him here before taking him down to the station,” he said. “I’ll interrogate him here. I’m not going to feel good until I slap him.”
An Iraqi Police truck pulled up in front of the house and slammed on the brakes.
“Here he is,” the chief said.
I grabbed my video camera, flipped the switch to on, and ran out the door.
What's so hard to understand about any of that?
The only reason there are random street shootings and other occasional terrorism in Kirkuk and not in Erbil is because there are still Arabs in Kirkuk and there are very few in Erbil. Kurds do not practice terrorism on one another. Because their enemies exclusively are members of other nations: namely Turks, Iranians and Arabs.
So their answer is quite simple. Ethnically cleanse Kirkuk, expelling all the remaining Arabs. Then there will be no more terrorism.
As for Turkey, one day the Kurds will be strong enough to organize their own coalition with the Russians and Greeks. Then and only then they will be strong enough to take back turkish Kurdistan and incorporate the significant body of Kurds there into what will then be independent Kurdistan.
Or maybe they will still be too weak and/or too diffident to try that. And the Kurds in turkish Kurdistan will continue to live in bondage. Like Stalin purportedly said once, that there is no substitute for power, and that it's the one thing in the world you can't fake. You either have it or you don't.
But like the Kurdish cop, I too think the US forces will stick around. Regardless of what happens in and around Baghdad with all those shi'a and sun'a Arabs.
But I've long since lost interest in whatever happens to Arabs. My concern now is that without US forces in the region, our puppet government in Afghanistan falls and Iran becomes the sole power in that part of the world. Not a good idea.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
The more I read about Kurdistan -- including your on-the-scene observations -- the more I think that place is our single major and lasting accomplishment in the Iraq war and our followup occupation of that country. But all this in a way the US government probably had never planned for.
I think that Kurdistan and its unfolding developments yet to come will twist and turn US policies in the Middle East into undoubtedly unintended directions in much the same manner as Israel has done for 60 years. But like Israel, I think Kurdistan one day shall emerge a stronger state than any of the blatherskite regimes around them.
And based on all of the above, I think that one day, Turkey shall lose control of the Kurdish-populated parts of their own country. Unless they have the strength and power of will to ethnically cleanse those regions. Exactly as they did with the Greek-populated parts of western Turkey. But Kurds are made of stronger stuff than the anatolian Greeks. So I don't think that will happen.
Another consideration comes to mind. The Turks are sun'a Muslims; the Iranians are shi'a. That factor has the makings for some interesting and deadly conflicts one day.
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.