David A. Andelman: To kill ISIS, back Kurdish nation
Gannett6:51 p.m. CDT September 14, 2014
Holding Iraq together with training, foreign aid and diplomatic pressure has been tried and failed. Perhaps it is time to turn elsewhere. Our last and best hope of turning the tide against the Islamist thugs could be the powerful and motivated Kurdish people, especially their valiant army, the peshmerga.
Forget having to train or advise these Kurdish warriors. All the peshmerga really needs to turn into the true steel tip of the sword are the right hardware and some assurance that the endgame will involve an independent Kurdistan. If we lose sight of this reality, the United States and the West have lost before the battle is joined.
You can bet that the pathetic Iraqi army, backed by a new but shaky government, will make zero headway against the Islamic State. We'll be in for years of violence and turmoil spreading across the region and, all too quickly, to our shores.
Wrong reasons
Officially, Obama sent U.S. warplanes into action to drive ISIS forces from the Mosul dam while protecting Iraqi religious minorities and protecting the Kurdish capital of Irbil. All good reasons for intervention.
The right reason would have been to help the Kurds achieve independence. That we took any initiative on behalf of the Kurds was because it furthered our own misguided goal. For years and at a cost of thousands of lives, we have sought to hold together a dysfunctional Iraqi nation to which few Kurds have any real loyalty and for which they would hardly lay down their lives.
They would lay down their lives, however, for a free Kurdistan, something that was snatched from their grasp nearly a century ago by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I. Redrawing the map of the Ottoman Empire, the peacemakers created Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and an opening for Israel, but left out Kurdistan. Instead, they scattered 30 million to 40 million ethnically, religiously and culturally homogeneous people across a handful of countries.
Today, the Kurds understand what it takes to build a viable nation and have the gumption and will to defend it. Given the means and authority, the Kurds have every right to become the Israel of the Muslim Middle East. And they won't even ask for a handout. Plenty of oil and a vibrant commercial class assure them of a solid economic foundation.
Real Islamic democracy
Imagine helping a true Islamic democracy emerge in the heart of the Middle East, something we tried desperately to do in Iraq at the cost of so many American lives. And yet it is now right in front of us, ripe for the taking, if only we abandon the fiction of a united, democratic Iraq. Coupled with an Israeli-style "right of return," the Kurds could become a free and vibrant nation, without taking a sliver of territory from the countries where millions of their brethren live today.
Moreover, they have their forces where they are needed, in the vast stretches of northern Syria and Iraq where ISIS is so firmly planted. Given the right incentive, we also might find that the Kurds of Syria are worthy and vital opponents both of the Assad regime and of ISIS terrorists. The Kurds of Turkey are equally appropriate allies, if we can persuade our NATO ally, Turkey, to part with them. And why not? They are only a distraction in that nation. There's also no love lost between the Kurds of Iran and the mullahs of Tehran, yet both seem prepared to face down the Sunnis of ISIS at any cost.
America, with all its diplomatic and military muscle, should do no less — help the Kurds finally reach the goal they have earned, many of them with their lives. Perhaps we can right a century-old wrong while giving Obama's ISIS strategy a real chance to succeed.
David A. Andelman, editor in chief of World Policy Journal, is a member of the Board of Contributors of USA TODAY and author of A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.
