Kurdistan: Rebalancing the Middle East

Chaos, civil war, insurgency. Withdraw, stay the course, phased out withdrawl? It seems that underneath the mountains of rhetoric, debate and news only one thing remains constant: Kurdistan works. Kurdistan is all the things we wanted Iraq to be and everything the rest of Iraq isn’t. It’s safe. It’s democratic. It’s western oriented. It’s modern and it’s developing quickly. Iraqi Kurdistan is a success and the longer the rest of the country remains in chaos, the more real the internal division between them will become. And one day, that border will become real.

American intervention has been one third successful. In fact, according to journalists who’ve recently visited, most Kurds don’t even consider themselves as living in Iraq. It’s the other side of the moon. With victory in the rest of Iraq in question, America has to seriously consider its next move. Should we withdraw, it shouldn’t be to America but to Kurdistan. After all, were we to desert the Kurds again (such as after the Gulf War), they would again be left to a terrible fate.

Independence

What would an independent Kurdistan look like? Most observers say a major war, probably with Iran and Turkey pitted against the Kurds. Yet, America has a golden opportunity to turn the tables in the Middle East. Were America to withdraw to Kurdistan, all fears of a regional war would disappear. A US security guarantee would deter Turkey, a fellow NATO member, and Iran a well. In exchange for that guarantee, the Kurds would have to renounce all claim to parts of Turkey. As for Syria and Iran, however, we should ask for no such thing. In addition, they would have to help root out any PKK elements in the North and considering many Iraqi Kurds never supported them, this would likely be a non-issue.

A New Regional Alliance

Democratic, modern and liberal, Kurdistan is a natural ally of not only the United States, but of Israel too. Considering both the US and Israel are allied with Turkey, and the Kurds with America, further regional stability would be created and a serious geopolitical shift would occur. With solid guarantees from America and Kurdistan, Turkey could be coopted into a powerful new Turkish-Israeli-Kurdish axis. On top of that, the Middle East would gain another democracy. If all that isn’t a big bang, then what is?

The ramifications of such a new alliance are exciting and with Iran increasingly causing trouble in the region, a friendly Kurdistan with fancy new US military bases a stone’s throw away doesn’t look too shabby. It would also counterbalance increased Iranian infuence in southern Iraq.

Complications

Yet, there are serious complications: war and oil. With the aforementioned plan, war could almost certainly be averted but oil, or more specifically Kirkuk, is the major sticking point. This could be resolved in creative ways such the Kurds sharing oil revenue with the leftovers of Iraq for a fixed period of time, say 25 or 50 years until they get on their feet, or even permanently such as the Kurds passing along a smaller percentage for good. Enforcement would have to be via some international organization. As for the city itself, that remains to be seen. But whatever happens, the US will have to look the other way as the Kurds expel non-Kurds and make no mistake, it will happen and must be done. They could even be given relocation money from oil revenue.

The fate of the rest of the country remains unclear though. As Kirk has noted, the Kurds are part of a delicate balance between the Shia and Sunni Arabs and without them, the question as to whether they can stay together is anyone’s guess. It could indeed destabilize its neighbors or invite foreign intervention. But if withdrawl becomes the only politically viable option or the situation continues to deteriorate, a Kurdish backup plan is the best possible outcome. There’s a reason there are only 200 American soldiers in Iraqi Kurdistan and over 100,000 everwhere else.

Facing up to the inevitable

At some point we have to start thinking about inevitabilities, not possibilities. 98% of Kurds favor independence. Do we want another fragile state with bizarre ethnic quotas for government positions always one step away from civil war? Do we want another Lebanon or Bosnia? All the elements are in place for creating a stable, democratic and liberal country in the region, it’s just not the one we originally intended.

I’ll continue to follow Kurdish events and report more next March when I visit Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan.