Beyond the Cusp

Day before yesterday, the Kurdish People in Iraq voted in a referendum on whether they desire to declare their independence from Iraq or remain part of a nation which craves their oil but wishes them the worst. The vote was decisively for independence with over ninety percent of the Kurds voting claiming their desire for their own state at long last. As seventy-two percent of eligible Kurds voted, that brings the result to close to two-thirds of all Kurds eligible voting for independence. That is an overwhelming result in anyone’s book but should they act on this they will face Iraqi troops invading and a boycott or worse from Turkey along with a closed border militarily enforced. Iran may also invade in order to quash the movement. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, has ordered the Kurds to hand over control of airports and borders by Friday; the Iraqi parliament passed a thirteen-point resolution Wednesday aimed to chip at Kurdistan autonomy and posing new challenges with some expected threats. Fortunately for the Kurds, their Kurdish Peshmerga Militias who performed so admirably against the ISIS threat will also be the ones defending their freedom should invasions result. The similarities to what Israel faced on May 15, 1948 when declaring Jewish independence and what the Kurds are likely to face is unavoidable, especially when the friendship between the two peoples is taken into account.

Despite the fact that the Kurdish are mostly Sunni Muslims as was Saddam Hussein, when he was the dictatorial President of Iraq he regularly used the Kurdish population in military experiments as the subject or target of new weapons or simply for practice. The attack has been chronicled well by Aljazeera English quoted below.

“On the morning of March 16, 1988, Iraqi war planes and artillery pounded the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq with mustard gas and the deadly nerve agent sarin.
Some 5,000 people – mainly women and children – died on the day, and up to 12,000 have lost their lives since. The method was the same as the Ghouta gas attack in Damascus, on August 21, 2013, just over 25 years later.
In both instances a conventional pre-bombardment – to break windows and doors and to get people underground – was followed by the deadly chemical weapons, sarin and mustard agent.
Heavier than air – and with no windows and doors to stop the “gas” – it found its victims helpless and unprotected in underground cellars and air-raid shelters. These crimes against humanity were then followed up with a conventional bombardment to destroy the evidence.”

The Kurdish Village of Halabja, unfortunately, was far from the only Kurdish village attacked by Saddam Hussein though it was the most well documented and was used heavily in his war crimes trial. Saddam had also regularly had Kurdish farmers strafed while they worked their fields watching from his command craft enjoying the spectacle. And after Saddam was deposed and the United States prematurely abandoned the Kurdish to the new bosses, the Shia in the south were out for a little payback after Saddam Hussein. The best that can be said for the Shia government of Iraq, which is largely controlled by Iranian officers, is that they largely ignore the Kurdish areas other than Mosul from which there comes oil and a command over much of the central and all the northern highways thus controlling the infrastructure of roadways plus the large Mosul Dam and hydroelectric generating plants which produces a significant amount of the total electrical output in Iraq. The dam is also in need of repair without which it is in danger of failure which would cause major flooding and damage in Baghdad as well as Mosul and across the nation all the way to where it feeds the Arabian Gulf.

Montage of Saddam Hussein’s Chemical Gas Attack on Kurdish Village of Halabja

Since the United States withdrew under orders from President Obama, Mosul was taken over by the Islamic State. They were threatening to destroy the Mosul Dam just because. Did Iran with their military come and free the city or did their puppets in Iraq come with their military or the Sunni militias to free Mosul? They did get credit for doing so in the New York Times who gave the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias bare mention when truth be told, had the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias not cleared the entrance to Mosul and performed much of the heavy lifting, Mosul would have taken far longer to have been retaken, if it had been at all. The Kurdish forces also did a large part of the clearing of the northern half of Mosul of Islamic State fighters who remained hidden trying to merge with the population to attack at a later time when fortunes might be changed. Now the Iraqi government is claiming Mosul largely because Iran desperately desires to control this pivotal and central city. Mosul is at the core of the Kurdish hopes as they believe that Mosul belongs to them as many of the Kurds who were forcably removed under Saddam Hussein have now returned following the defeat of the Islamic State with a large and formidable Kurdish effort. The world owes the Kurds across the region much thanks as it was the Kurdish forces who put an end to the spread of Islamic State when it was known as ISIS and was swallowing up large swaths of central Iraq and Syria defeating every force they encountered until they were pushed to a halt and then backed right out of Kobani, Syria and that proved to be the turning point as after that the Kurdish YPG forces in Syria backed by Peshmerga started the push-back against the Islamic State which also contributed to the retaking of Mosul. Had Kurdish forces not proven that the Islamic State could be beaten, their reputation might have continued winning many battles for them by the Syrian or Iraqi military troops fleeing before their rumored advance. The Kurds are the reason the world is now talking about taking Raqa, the presumed Islamic State capital city.

Our Idea for a Proposed Kurdistan

What is so very disturbing is that much of the world is not prepared to give the Kurdish their due by backing them should they declare independence. The United States State Department requested the Kurdish officials postpone the vote as it was an inconvenient timing for the State Department and they informed the Kurds that they would get back to them on a better time to schedule their referendum. One can be assured that the State Department would promptly forget that the Kurdish People desired independence and would eventually sell them out to the highest bidder just as the British did after World War I when they reneged on their promise to back the formation of a Kurdish homeland. They succeeded in forcing the Kurds to accept Arab rule in much the same manner as they attempted to do with the Jews as the British also opposed a Jewish State and wanted the Zionists to accept Arab rule or shared rule with the Arabs having the majority vote. Israeli officials defeated the British finally in 1948 and ignored the United States State Department which requested that the Zionists wait until it would be a more convenient time for the State Department to be able to support a Jewish State, better known as never. The Kurds deserve their own state and the recognition of the world as well as their thanks for being the ones who stepped up and started the initial defeat of the Islamic State. The United Nations, United States, NATO, Russia, Iran, Iraq and almost anyone else you care to mention are against Kurdish independence. The Kurds have received support from some of the Sunni Arab villages along their proposed border preferring the Kurds to the Iranian and Iraqi Shiites. There has also been support from Saudi Arabia which is reasonable, as they will prefer anybody over the Iranians who are their enemies. Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria and seemingly the world is against Kurdish independence with one obvious exception, Israel. That is the single supporting state which has quietly provided the Kurds with intelligence, equipment, logistics, weapons and training all in a very clandestine manner.

The final item we believe and feel we absolutely need to express, should the Kurds in Iraq declare their independence, we hope that more nations and organizations than just Israel and Saudi Arabia recognize their declaration. Hopefully the fact that Israel and Saudi Arabia recognize the newly formed Kurdistan, assuming the declaration is approved, will prevent any military attempts at intervention by the government in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus or Ankara. Further, it would be very helpful if the United Nations would at least hold a General Assembly vote supporting the Kurdish independence as soon as possible as it becomes appropriate and have that followed by a Security Council recognition granting them recognition as a state by the United Nations. Finally, the map we posted above would be something for the far future as the current declaration is regarding only the Iraqi Kurds. The border would remain within the current borders of northern Iraq and hopefully move south to include Mosul. The rest of the Kurdish regions would need to be addressed separately and if they were to desire to also vote for independence and desire to merge with the Iraqi Kurds, the first item they would need renounce is their socialist political principles as the Iraqi Kurds have stated their desire for democratic elections and a capitalist free economy. One of the rules of joining an established system is that you must accept that system, not demand it alter to meet your expectations. One thing which is clear, if the Kurds desire to ever gain the recognition from President Trump, the first thing they must not become is a socialist run nation. President Trump kind of made his feelings known concerning anything tinged by socialism during his United Nations speech. Thankfully, the Kurds of Iraq desire a free state and economy unrestricted by the chocking restraints of socialism. All that remains is the final count of their referendum. Obviously, we are hoping they choose to be free and run their own lives and nation, as we now have seen. We can only hope and wish them the best and pray that other free nations will assist the Kurds in their bid for freedom, though as was proven by Israel, friends will be as scarce as hens’ teeth.

Beyond the Cusp