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By Dilshad Hama:
The recent American rejection of the Kurdish efforts towards independence from Iraq are mostly based on the vague idea that ‘a unified Iraq is a stronger Iraq’. The American justification has been spelled out recently by more than one person working at the State Department. I was wondering, did the Americans and their allies invade Iraq back in 2003 to make the country stronger or wasn’t the pretext for the military intervention the so-called ‘democratization’ of the country? What does ‘a stronger Iraq’ stand for in American political terminology? Have those American politicians who have chosen to stand against the will of the very people who once stood by them to topple the Ba’ath regime in Iraq forgotten that Iraq was at the peak of its military might during the 1980s?
However, that same period was the bleakest time for the Iraqi people in general. Nearly two million people died as the result of the eight-year-long Iraq-Iran war. Kurds and Shi’ite people lost hundreds of thousands to the Iraqi state’s killing machines, which did not spare many Arab Sunni lives either. The strong Iraq pre-1991 meant to live under a Stalin-style state or flee the country. The Americans and their like-minded politicians around the world seem to have forgotten that today’s borders were politically constructed less than a century ago. These guys seem to ignore the fact that these borders are nothing more than politically-squiggly lines drawn against the will of a substantial component of those imprisoned within them. What Iraqi Kurds demand today is nothing more than the right of self-determination, which is supposed to be a fundamental human right, which is again, paradoxically, approved by most of today’s states.
We understand that behind the rejection of Kurdish self-determination rests the headless idea of ‘territorial integrity’ of the existing states. The seemingly logical explanation of this attitude towards the Kurdish aspiration can be spelled out as such: the borders that demarcate the political-jurisdiction of today’s states are as holy for modern statesmen as are the holy books for the holy-men. In the meantime, there is the fact that these borders, once upon a time, were drawn by people of blood and flesh, people who happened to be politicians; and also the fact that these borders would have been given a wholly different meaning if they were drawn around masses of animals, for example. These two facts are observed with blind eyes by those who choose to deny Iraqi Kurds the right to determine their own fate. I understand these speculations might be of a different currency to that common in today’s international politics. However, I hope it is not my misunderstanding of liberal philosophy and democracy, ‘the main source of pride to the American nation’, to argue that there should be a room for normative considerations as well. The politically-constructed borders should not be more holy than the people who happen to have been bound by them.
The thin border lines resulting from the infamous Sykes-Picot pact have long been sanctified by most American and Western policy-makers, until ISIS suddenly erupted onto the stage and practically disregarded them without referring to those policy-makers. Yet, despite the fact that Kurds have shown willingness to hold a referendum – a democratic mechanism – in order to give the people of Iraqi Kurdistan the chance to determine their own future, the once-engineers of Iraqi democratization have so far decided to stand against this fundamental democratic right by Iraqi Kurds. My arguments here can only represent the normative side of the issue behind Iraqi Kurds’ aspiration for independence. One can provide solid, sound, and substantial strategic explanations and justification in support of Iraqi Kurds’ move towards establishing their own long-waited-for state. The people of Kurdistan and, of course, other Iraqi components, should not be treated unholy against the holy borders that are not there anymore, anyway, except in the minds of some state-minded politicians. The well-being and choice of the people living within these borders ought to be more worthy than these borders.
Dilshad Hama: PhD candidate at the School of Politics & International Relations, the University of Nottingham, UK; a freelance writer
Stop the good Kurds and bad Kurds game! You are either with us ( independence) or against us.
Scotland’s Independence Run Inspires
“An independent Scotland will ensure that decisions about Scotland are taken by the people who care most about it,” say the campaigners.
http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/16072014
That is a good article and well done Dilshad.
Certain Kurdish political parties have recently received weapons from Islamic Republic of Iran to confront ISIS.
We urge all parties in South to lessen their reliance on neighboring countries and work for an independent Kurdistan!
And lesson our reliance on all outside forces, including the crazy calls by some people to go beg senators and congressmen to support an independent Kurdistan! USA policy is openly against a free Kurdistan! So let’s stop whoring ourselves out as a nation and let’s do things by our own hands! No AIPAC, no Iran, no American Enterprise Institute, no Turkey, and no one out there supports Kurds if they don’t have interests!
Back to the Future: Reemergence of the Idea of an Independent Kurdistan
http://basnews.com/en/Article/Details/Reemergence-of-the-Idea-of-an-Independent-Kurdistan/921
Well said, and these man made borders have become meaningless. Millions of lives have been lost for laying down this unholy self serving borders. We do need a redrawing of all borders laid down by the Sikes picot agreement who designed them to serve the masters of the First World War, not the people who live there. As long as these borders remain as they are, Middle East will not see peace. Almost 100 years have past since the time the borders were drawn. Time has changed
And so are people. In the end justice should prevail or face contiuous instability.
all of us know, the realty is ONE thing and the fact is another, we don’t want just a state but a strong state, so to get such state we really need US sporting and even they don’t want to sport us or at list they declare such attitude today but certainly we could some day to change this their situation.