Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Rev.uedë'P.t~sse-Press Review-Berhevoka
Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
Kurd Issue Likely toFuel Chaos in Future Iraq
Amir Taheri
Arab News (Saudi)
June 23, 2004
With the end of the14 -month occupation, Iraq is likely to
be faced, once again, with some of the problems it has
had ever since it was put on the map as a nation-state
in1921.
The most complex of these concerns the Kurds whose
leaders are playing a game of bluff and counter bluff in the
hope of exacting maximum advantage in a period of
uncertainty.
Both Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the two most
prominent leaders of the Iraqi Kurds, have dropped hints
that they might decide to "part ways" if their demand for a
Kurdish veto on some key national decisions is not
included in the new constitution.
This mayor may not be a bluff. But the threat of Kurdish
secession has already met with two different reactions
from Iraq's non-Kurdish leadership elite.
Some Iraqi Arab leaders are horrified at the thought of the
Kurdish problem dominating the nation's agenda once
again. They are prepared to do all they reasonably can to
satisfy Kurdish demands within a multi-ethnic pluralist
system.
Others, however, manifest some frustration against
the Kurds.
"The Kurds have been the source of all our national
miseries from the start," says one Iraqi Arab leader on
condition of anonymity. "We became involved in several
wars because of them. We also had to submit to dictators
because we believed they would prevent the Kurds from
secession. But now that Iraq is free why should we return
to the failed policies of the past just to keep the Kurds
under our flag?"
Many Iraqis, and some policy-makers in Washington, see
the Kurdish secession as the worst case scenario for the
newly-liberated nation. Barzani and Talabani, arguably
the most experienced politicians in Iraq today, know this
and try to exploit such fears.
A closer look at the reality of the situation, however, would
show that there is little chance for a breakaway Kurdish
state in northern Iraq.
There are several reasons for this. To start with Iraqi
Kurds do not constitute a single ethnic entity let alone a
"nation" in the accepted sense of the term.
Iraqi Kurds speak two different, though mutually
intelligible, languages, each of which is divided into
several sub-dialects, with distinct literally and cultural
traditions.
Iraqi Kurds are' also divided into half a dozen religious
communities, including a number of heterodox creeds.
Some of the people generally labelled "Kurdish" are, in
fact ethnic Lurs and Elamites with their distinct languages,
cultures and histories. At the same time the predominantly
Kurdish area is also home to some non-Kurdish
communities, including ethnic Arabs, Turcomans,
Assyrians and Armenians.
To make matters more complicated, at least a third of Iraqi
Kurds live outside the area that might one day become an
independent Kurdish state. (There are more than a million
Kurds in greater Baghdad, for example.) The creation of a
breakaway Kurdish state in Iraq could trigger a process of
ethnic cleansing, population exchanges, and
displacements that could plunge the whole region into
years of conflict.
A Kurdish mini-state in northeastern Iraq might not even
be viable. It would be landlocked and will have few natural
resources.
Almost all of Iraq's major oil fields fall outside the area
under discussion. Also, the area's water resources would
be vulnerable to manipulation from Turkey and Iran where
the principal rivers originate.
But what about a greater Kurdistan, encompassing all
who describe themselves as Kurds? After all there are
millions of people who, despite the objective diversity of
their languages, histories, and ways of life, feel
themselves to be Kurds.
Such a state, including Kurds in Syria, Turkey, Iran,
Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Iraq, would have a
population of 30 million in an area the size of France. To
create this greater Kurdistan one would have to
reorganize a good part of the Middle East and re-draw the
borders of six states, including the two largest in the
region: Turkey and Iran. Even then the greater Kurdistan
would still be a weak landlocked state with few natural
resources, and surrounded by powers that, if not hostile,
would not go out of their ways to help it get along.
Such a greater Kurdistan would face numerous internal
problems also. To start with it will have to decide which of
the four alphabets in use for writing the various Kurdish
languages should be adopted as the national one.
If the view of the majority is to prevail the alphabet chosen
should be Turkish because almost half of all Kurds live in
Turkey. At the same time, however, the bulk of Kurdish
historic, literary, political, religious and other significant
texts are written in the Persian alphabet, itself. an
expanded version of the Arabic. And where would be the
capital of the greater Kurdistan?
If history, myth and, to some extent, the number of
inhabitants, are the yardsticks the Iranian cities of
Sanandaj and Mahabad would be strong candidates. And,
yet, the city with the largest number of Kurdish inhabitants
is Istanbul, Turkey's cultural and business capital which is
home to more than1 6 million ethnic Kurds.
In a greater Kurdistan the intellectual elite would come
from Iran and the business elite from Turkey. Would they
then allow Iraqi Kurds to provide the political elite? That is
hardly likely. What is certain, however, is that in a greater
Kurdistan Barzani and Talabani, now big fish in the
smaller Iraqi pond, could end up as small fish in a much
bigger pond.
All that means that Barzani and Talabani have no interest.
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