President Obama was elected President in part to get the U.S. out of the war with Iraq. Obama called the Iraq War a war of choice, not a war of necessity and blamed President Bush and Vice-President Cheney for punishing Saddam Hussein for committing genocide against the Kurdish people and killing hundreds of thousands of Kurdish women, children, and men in 1988. In the Muslim world and in the Middle East only the Kurds are thankful for George Bush, because Bush’s policy of a no-fly zone in Northern Iraq gave dignity to the Kurds, so that they could show the rest of the world that they are capable of ruling themselves. More than thirty million Kurdish people possess the right to have self-rule, but they are denied that right. Today the only peaceful place and the most developed area in the region is not Baghdad, but it is the Kurdish Autonomous Region spanning from Erbil to Sulaymaniyah to Dohuk. Now, history is repeating itself because thousands of Kurdish people from the city of Kobani are going to be slaughtered by the ISIS before the eyes of the so-called defenders of human rights, such as the United States, the U.K, and the West in general, so that the people in the region one more time realize that the world was a better place under the Bush leadership.
Kurds themselves are Muslims and are being oppressed by the Muslim countries. There are only two nations who are true friends of America in the Middle East; it is not Saudi Arabia, nor Turkey; but rather, it is the Kurdish region and Israel. It is sad to say, however, that America is betraying and loosing the trust of the Kurds yet again. Yes, President Obama did authorized U.S-led air strikes against the ISIS, but without putting boots on the ground ISIS will not be defeated, and as a result, once again thousands of Kurds are going to die. Obama’s limited war policy will not solve the region’s complex political, military, and sectarian problems.
There is a trust issue in the region, because the majority of the people there do not trust America anymore. For several years President Obama has been calling for a regime change in Syria and now has backed down from removing Assad from power to prioritize the crisis with ISIS. Furthermore, the Turks and Iranians do not believe the Obama administration is serious about defeating ISIS because Obama ‘s plan to defeat ISIS is based on an ad- hoc response since the U.S does not know who to trust and who to arm in Syria to defeat Assad and ISIS. But in Iraq, at least there is an army, and there is government the U.S. can help and support; consequently, there is a chance of success compared to Syria.
The U.S is hoping that new Iraq leader Fuad Masum is inclusive enough that the Iraqi Sunnis who have joined the ISIS will stop fighting, thereby helping the new president to hold the country together. President Obama insists that the Iraqi people and the people in the region should deal with the ISIS, but the problem is that Iraqis, the Turks, and the Saudis are unable to stop ISIS’s advance on their own; there is no reason to believe they could without the U.S., the Turks, and other allies putting troops on the ground. Why is America insisting on not using ground forces against ISIS? The other question is why is Turkey watching the ISIS as it kills Kurdish people from the city of Kobani? What happened to the Assad regime? Is the Assad regime no longer the first priority for America and the West?
The Obama administration believes arming the Kurds could lead to the break up of Iraq because subsequently the Kurds might use these weapons to demand independence, which would almost guarantee the collapse of Iraq. It is the wrong American policy toward the Kurds. The Kurds should be able to have their own state, and, as a matter of fact, the new map of the Middle East without an independent Kurdistan (and Palestine) will not be possible, because the Kurds belong to that land and have been fighting for literally centuries to have their right of self-rule. This is time for the international community to recognize it. It is the wrong American policy not to allow the Kurds to sell their own oil to international markets. America’s only true allies in the region are the Kurds, and that is why the ISIS does not like and thus is terrorizing, and killing the Kurds– for being friends of the infidels. Yet, as of now, America is giving only limited support to the Kurds.
The United States wants Turkey to fight against the ISIS, so that the U.S administers air strikes and Turkey leads the ground troops to defeat the ISIS. The U.S. does not see this as an American fight but regards it as a fight among and for Muslims countries; therefore, in the U.S. view, Muslims should be fighting against the ISIS, not the U.S or the West. Turks do not trust the West or the United States if they put troops on the ground, because Obama did not seriously support the military action against the Assad regime, which led to a failed state in Iraq and Syria caused by the advancement of the ISIS.
President Obama points his finger at the Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan for his inaction in the crisis in Kobani, and President Erdogan points his finger at Obama for his inaction in the crisis of the Syrian regime. President Erdogan believes that removing the ISIS is not a big problem but that removing President Bashar al – Assad should be the priority. The Turkish government insists on three demands from the U.S: 1) establishing a no-fly zone and a safe zone in Syria, so that Turkey will be able to place the Syrian refuges in Turkey at safe havens; 2) training the Syrian Free Army to fight against Assad to remove him, because Turkey rightly sees Assad as the problem; and 3) removing Assad since the longer Assad stays in power, the longer the war will be. For Turkey the sooner the removal of Assad occurs, the better,
The Kurdish protests in Turkey have claimed over thirty lives and left hundreds injured. The protests are fueled by the claim that the Turkish state is supporting ISIS and that Kobani, home to more than 500,000 residents, is supporting Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey, the Democratic Union Party known as the PKK. The Democratic Union Party (PYD), an affiliate of the PKK based in Syria, formed the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), to protect Kurdish areas. The PYD-YPG has been fighting against the ISIS in Kobani, trying to protect the city against the ISIS onslaught and its heavy weaponry and armored vehicles. If the U.S- led coalition against the ISIS does not intervene soon as it did in the case of Erbil, then Kobani will fall under the control of the ISIS and a massacre may ensue. There will be another significant Kurdish uprising if Kobani falls under the ISIS because it will be the end of the peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK and will affect Turkey negatively. Ultimately, it will be more chaotic in the region.
Actually this is a great opportunity for the Kurds to have self-rule and feel at home in their land. Not more than four years ago when war was about to begin in Syria, more than two million Kurds who live in Syria did not have their own citizenship. Later when Assad saw that things were not going well, he granted citizenship to the Kurds. The Kurdish minority in Turkey wanted to help their Kurdish brothers in Syria while the ISIS was slaughtering them. The Kurdish people in Turkey asked for the Turkish government to establish a corridor to Kobani, which is located near Turkish territory, to allow aid and military supplies to reach the Kurds in Kobani and to grant access to Kurds who live in Turkey and are willing to fight against the ISIS. The Turkish government refused to fight against the ISIS and refused to meet Kurdish demands in Turkey, but why? It was because the Kurdish militia PYD, who fought in Kobani against the ISIS, was another armed wing of the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK mentioned above, which fought the Turkish state for Kurdish basic rights and autonomy for more than three decades. Consequently, Turkey and its Western allies designated PKK a terrorist group.
It is wrong for Turkey to think that those Kurds who support PKK should be punished. Also, strategically it is good for Turkey not to intervene in the ISIS onslaught. Turkey’s concerns about the current so-called coalition fight against the ISIS is that it is ill planned and immature, and Ankara is afraid that if Turkey joins the current plan, it will lead to possible dangerous outcomes that may threaten Turkey’s security. On the other hand, President Obama and his advisors see the ISIS and the Syrian regime as two different problems. That is why Obama’s first priority is to get rid of the ISIS, but he fails to understand that the Assad regime in Syria caused the ISIS to grow.
I do believe the international community should focus on the removal of Bashar Al Assad in Syria, because Syria and Iraq are failed states causing the chaos and mayhem. The ISIS is a product and outcome of the failed states. Also, I think the problem in Syria is not going to be solved anytime soon, even if the ISIS has been eradicated and Assad removed from power.
The biggest problem will be the aftermath of the Assad regime. I do not think the international community has any plan for the outcome. We will have the same problems in Syria that we see in Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam’s topple. We will have Shia sects, the majority Sunni, and the Kurdish minority. The problem is not only that America has gotten weaker, but also that the Middle East has changed and the world has changed. In the past it was easy for the United States to support strong leaders and let the leader control the media and state institutions, but today the Middle East is defined by a complicated ethno-sectarian religious conflict as well as weak and failed states. These variables in addition to the collapse of central governments and the rise of powerful non- state actors are causing problems that the U.S simply cannot solve.
Dr. Aland Mizell is President of the MCI and a regular contributor to Mindanao Times. You may email the author at:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com