Kurdistan: Would You Support It?

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2004-02-03 03:03pm

Would you support the creation of an independent Kurdistan from portions of northern Iraq?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-02-03 03:13pm

Sure, why not? It's not as if Iraq's territorial sovereignty seems to matter any more.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-02-03 03:48pm

The problem is 'Kurdistan' would not only cover much or Northern Iraq, but also much of Southeastern Turkey. Then you have to deal with the Sunni and Shi'ia in Iraq. do we 'give' them a country too?Thats a biiiiiiig can of worms you're opening up Nathan.

Rubberanvil · Post by **Rubberanvil** » 2004-02-03 03:50pm

On the contracy Iraq's territorial sovereignty does matter a lot in the region and in the world.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2004-02-03 04:03pm

Rubberanvil wrote:

On the contracy Iraq's territorial sovereignty does matter a lot in the region and in the world.

That was Mikes Oh so subtle Anti American jab.....

Darth Wong Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2004 2:13 pm Post subject:

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Sure, why not? It's not as if Iraq's territorial sovereignty seems to matter any more

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-02-03 04:04pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:The problem is 'Kurdistan' would not only cover much or Northern Iraq, but also much of Southeastern Turkey.

And if it didn't, then the Iraqi section would just become a big base of operations for the existing Kurdish rebels in Turkey. Turkey won't like that and then things get real nasty.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-02-03 04:06pm

theski wrote:That was Mikes Oh so subtle Anti American jab.....

"Appeal to Motive" fallacy. Look it up.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-02-03 04:22pm

I believe in the right of self-determination of the Kurds in Iraq (and everyone else for that matter). So once we finally get around to having elections there, I'd not be against a referendum on a Kurdish state carved out of Northern Iraq.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2004-02-03 04:59pm

You give the Kurds in Iraq their own state and the Kurds in Syria, Iran and Turkey will want one as well and the nice oil up in northern Iraq will go towards funding the efforts of those dissidents in other nations.

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-02-03 05:12pm

It would just further destabilize the situation there.
And Turkey can be considered trigger-happy when it comes down to Kurds...

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-02-03 05:26pm

And why does every single ethnicity get its own nation?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-02-03 05:48pm

I probably wouldn't support Kurdistan, since I think it could severely destabilize the region (particularly Turkey and Iran), and lead to increased problems in the area.

Thunderfire · Post by **Thunderfire** » 2004-02-03 05:50pm

This country should have been created after WW1. It is currently not a good idea to create one.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2004-02-03 06:02pm

Nathan F wrote:Would you support the creation of an independent Kurdistan from portions of northern Iraq?

Not right now. There are a lot of Kurds in neighboring nations who are firmly of the belief that they own the patches of dirt they're sitting on (especially in Turkey.) They'd want their part of whatever nation to be incorporated into Kurdistan too. And that would really piss off the Turks, for one. Another problem is that if we let the Kurds form their own nation, everyone else will pretty much cry foul and whine about American imperialism and favoritism, since the Kurds did help us. So, no, if the Kurds want their own nation, they'll have to take it up with the Iraqi government well after we've pulled out.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-02-03 06:07pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Nathan F wrote:Would you support the creation of an independent Kurdistan from portions of northern Iraq?
Not right now. There are a lot of Kurds in neighboring nations who are firmly of the belief that they own the patches of dirt they're sitting on (especially in Turkey.) They'd want their part of whatever nation to be incorporated into Kurdistan too. And that would really piss off the Turks, for one. Another problem is that if we let the Kurds form their own nation, everyone else will pretty much cry foul and whine about American imperialism and favoritism, since the Kurds did help us. So, no, if the Kurds want their own nation, they'll have to take it up with the Iraqi government well after we've pulled out.

And after that the US and its allies will have to go back in to help the Kurds.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2004-02-03 06:10pm

Montcalm wrote:
GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
Nathan F wrote:Would you support the creation of an independent Kurdistan from portions of northern Iraq?
Not right now. There are a lot of Kurds in neighboring nations who are firmly of the belief that they own the patches of dirt they're sitting on (especially in Turkey.) They'd want their part of whatever nation to be incorporated into Kurdistan too. And that would really piss off the Turks, for one. Another problem is that if we let the Kurds form their own nation, everyone else will pretty much cry foul and whine about American imperialism and favoritism, since the Kurds did help us. So, no, if the Kurds want their own nation, they'll have to take it up with the Iraqi government well after we've pulled out.
And after that the US and its allies will have to go back in to help the Kurds. :roll:

Which is rather unlikely, insofar as we'd be helping them against our staunch ally Turkey. And that would get embarassing really fast.

The short story, in the interests of regional stability and national prestige, the Kurds are still going to get shafted.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-02-03 06:41pm

Or we could do something as radical as installing an Iraqi democracy in which the Kurds have equal rights and representation.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-02-03 07:31pm

Every piss ant with an ant hill to piss on!

Fuck, if the US, Britain, Canada, et al can function with hundreds or thousands of ethnic groups, Iraq can get by with three.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2004-02-03 08:12pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:The problem is 'Kurdistan' would not only cover much or Northern Iraq, but also much of Southeastern Turkey. Then you have to deal with the Sunni and Shi'ia in Iraq. do we 'give' them a country too?Thats a biiiiiiig can of worms you're opening up Nathan.

I'm not saying I support it or don't support it. I want to see everyone elses opinions on it.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2004-02-03 08:40pm

The do in many ways deserve a country. The amount of persecution the kurds suffer from others is somewhat absurd.
However, in the current Middle Eastern political climate it would be a bad idea. It would make them a target that the U.N. or the US would have to defend against aggressive neighbors like some Iraqis and the Turks.
If the political climate of the Middle East cooled down (we're waiting for cold fronts from hell to move through) than I would support the Kurds getting a state.
But they can't call it Kurdistan, because frankly, that name sucks.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-02-03 09:31pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Or we could do something as radical as installing an Iraqi democracy in which the Kurds have equal rights and representation.

Won't happen. Not unless America decides to get serious about this Imperialism business and stop dicking around pretending they just want to "liberate" people and then leave them to their own devices.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2004-02-03 10:01pm

*sighs* Has anyone heard about the "Prussia phenomenon" before? Essentially, in the 19th century it was more than just Germany and Italy that were unified out of nothing. There were several other countries with far less valid claims that got going then and made extensive claims to territory based on ethnic (racial) grounds. These were principally Bulgaria, the famous "Prussia of the Balkans", and of course Serbia.

Serbia, which eventually gained her "Kingdom of the South Slavs," or Yugoslavia, with the results that we all know--though we must remember of course that in the process millions of people were killed to unify the country in the first place, just as countless more were killed to keep it and countless more to break it apart. Bulgaria, where hundreds of thousands of Muslim Turks were slaughtered from the moment in the 1870s when the Russians fought their way across the Danube and overcame the gallant resistance of the Ottoman Empire at Plevna to force the treaty of San Stefano on the old Empire, and see it rolled back to a minor principality under the vassalage of the Sultan (though of course de facto independant), and thus create a desire to gain the whole of the territories promised under the old treat (which had essentially given Bulgaria every single place where a single Bulgarian might live).

And so in 1885 the Bulgarians crossed into East Rumelia and de facto annexed it to the Principality; and more would die. In 1908 the Austrians turned their administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina into an outright annexation in part to prevent Slavic irredentism in the region; and of course the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 saw more conflict, and more bloody expulsions, whilst the whole time the terrorist group IMRO had been operating to gain a Macedonia that was not to be until nearly a century later (and of course over a much larger territory). Meanwhile over in Anatolia the Armenians had been incited to revolt by Russia in support of Russian expansionist aims and had slaughtered Muslims quite brutally and had gotten slaughtered quite brutally in return--often by their Kurdish neighbours who soon would find themselves on the wrong side of Ataturk's nationalist policies.

When the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed after nearly twelve years of warfare in 1923, to be replaced by Ataturk's Republic, the last hope of the Turkish people but founded on the nationalist policies which had undone the old Ottoman state, there were the usual and now necessary tactics; for the idea that multiple ethnicities could live in some vague semblence of harmony (more often that not the real thing, though, if one is to look at a mid-eastern city of the era) was totally abandoned; we have the mutual expulsions of the Muslims from Greece and the Greeks from Turkey, and the suppression of the Kurds.

Well, now Turkey is genuine democratic state; reform is occuring and the average citizen there is in quite good condition all things said in comparison to the states of the Mid-east. Though if you look at the northerly of those you will note that, of course, the Arabs who were brought to power by the great Arab Revolt naturally oppress the Kurdish and Turkic minorities still left in those countries, and they do so because they revolted in the fires of an ultimately ethnic-based concept of nationalism and in the decades that followed Pan-Arabism ruled and fueled, indeed, many of the atrocities of the Arab world that we are left with and more than a bit of the Arab-Israeli conflicts.

Now people are seriously proposing to give the Kurds a state? What sort of madness is this? And I do call it madness. Because quite frankly if you give them a state out of northern Iraq, their first act, and I say this with the absolute surety of seeing what every other ethnic group has done throughout the history of the nationalist era when granted that same privilage, will be to immediately attack the countries around them with the goal of fulfilling their complete irredentist aims. Syria's unstable ethnic balancing act might well be undone and see the collapse of that country, with consequences affecting the Israeli situation and others; and Turkey and Iran might see the triumph of conservative and dictatorial elements and genocides as the effort to contain the Kurds is undertaken. Certainly the Iraqis would also be very much interested in reconquering northern Iraq and eliminating the Kurds or at least enough of them that they can keep a hold of that State.

We would see the whole thing--a Greater Kurdistan or a mass genocide of the Kurds--decided by mass warfare throughout the Mid-East, with huge general repercussions. Of course, the economic interests of countries from outside the region might force intervention once more, or the general humanitarian outcry; but the scale on which we are speaking is something unmanageable except in blood, and quite a lot of it at that.

An independent Kurdistan, quite simply, would leave millions of people dead and destabilize the region for decades or perhaps the rest of the century.

Why is this thought of as a situation at all? Why must nationalist interests triumph over the interests of individuals who are part of ethnic groups? Is not their individual happiness more important than the independence and "right of self-determination" of an ethnic-group? And how can a person be happy when they are dead?

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2004-02-03 10:42pm

Yay, Duchess is back! Now I'll know what to do if I've got an hour (or five) to kill.

Anyway, Kurdistan? No. Whenever you give a group it's own area (whether it be a state, a part of a city, its own section on the bus) it breeds antipathy and a feeling of isolation from other groups, even when they ask for it! If we give the Kurds Kurdistan, they'll just become more insular and resentful.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-02-04 05:05am

What Duchess said. I'm also thinking of the precedent it would set.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-02-04 10:52am

#include <doz_essay.h>

IOW, no, I would not support an independant Kurdistan.

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