I was quite surprised that you failed to raise a significant issue
regarding the differing experiences of the Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi
Shiites and Sunnis on your recent program about the Kurds. In
simplified terms the Kurds have chosen to accept the role, as have
many other small nations, of being American/Western toadies in
exchange for protection and economic support. Your guests openly
acknowledged that the Kurds will be happy to have a long term presence
of American military forces and bases in their territory. On the
other hand the Iraqis have emphasized that their long term goal is to
have the foreign troops off of their soil. I feel you should have
raised the question of what it really means to be a soveriegn nation.
It seems clear that the Kurds won’t have much sovereignty under the
arrangement described. They will be expected to jump every time the
U.S. tells them to jump. It would have added considerable substance
to the program content to have raised this issue and asked for their
response.

That having been said, it seem that the people of Iraqi Kurdistan have done pretty well for themselves, given everything that has happened to them and to Iraq over the past few decades. Congratulations and good wishes.

I’m also thinking of the comparisons between the stateless Kurds and stateless Palistinians – it’s sad that the Palistinians couldn’t get their act together when they had the chance at an autonomous-region-leading-to-a-state in the 1990s…

looking at this as coreography with a certain rational thread is a bit spooky. i’ve grown accustomed to thinking of our leadership as being incompetant.

thank you for letting me think aloud in the stoa.

it will be really interesting to see what happens to that turkish petition to enter the EU in the days to come.

begs the question..was this the plan all along..it wouldn’t have played well if it had been openly presented at the start. the us gets quite a prize..an oil producing friendly country/region/canton with an american military base right smack in the thick of it all.

I don’t take any side on this issue and am glad that the Kurdish section of Iraq is doing well. However, there should be some commentators from the Shiite and Sunni areas, because we’re still talking about Iraq, right, which does include them?

Tom
Woods Hole, MA

frankly screw the rest of iraq, let them fight it out. grant the kurds their oil and their freedom. the rest of the iraqis have lost the right to claim anything from their barbaric behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newroz_as_celebrated_by_Kurds

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6475407.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6467387.stm

I wonder if the KRG’s US Represtative thinks there is any truth to the complaint?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/baghdad_navigator/

seyyed hossein nasr in his history of Islam describes the kurds thusly:

“the second oldest ethnic and cultural zone of the islamic world is the persian, comprising not only people of present day iran but also those of similar ethnic and linguistic stock including the kurds and the people of afghanistan (including the pushtus), tajikistan, and parts of uzbekistan and pakistan.”

it could be that they are located on the less sympathetic side of iran for one thing

iran (under the shah) supported the kurdish independence effort in iraq (20% of the population) in the 1970’s..not helpful

iraq (under saddam) then backed kurdish independence in iran…not helpful either

all of this with the encouragement of the us and israel..REALLY not helpful

but..the shah, saddam AND the saudis all decided to get along and signed a treaty defining borders and agreeing to stop all this insurgency rousing…

the iranian revolution hit..and saddam decided that the shatt al arab (not kurdish..but the iranians were fuming) was actually his after all…this is an ancient region of dispute…he then accused iran of going back on its word about the kurdish insurgency..the iranians said that they weren’t going to abide by the shah’s aggreements and BOOM! big time nastiness with the kurds seemingly carrying much of the blame…saddam needed a scapegoat for the coming slaughter and it was a slaughter..

the iranians fought the war stalin style..their shah era american arms were under an embargo..they threw masses of troops at the problem..the iraqis fought the war in a more industrial way..with american aid and (mostly)soviet weapons..but all this still cost LOTS of money…it gets worse..sadam started with the chemical weapons..his war debts were starting to get to him….civilians were killed….when the smoke finaly cleared..nobody had won…and many had died in a state of horror..

both countries were devastated in human toll and financially…

and no one was happy with the kurds and their yearnings for independence..

they too would soon learn of saddam’s gas technology that smelled like sweet apples and killed with agony..they were even more galvanized by this event as one might imagine..

the heat got turned up by the turkish kurds..they were desperate for a place of their own..

from here events should be pretty current in most memories..