Events of the year that has just gone by have underscored once again the stark fact that independent and sovereign statehood is the ultimate currency of power. Bereft of political unity, a powerful military, and a strong economy, there is very little chance of getting fair treatment and justice for any group of people.
In retrospect, the patronage of distant powers, the kindness of the "international community," and notions of religious solidarity have all proved to be poor substitutes for the real thing – namely, the exercise of state power.
From the hapless Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar to the warring Palestinian factions of the occupied territories, the lessons of 2018 apply equally to all vulnerable peoples, but especially to ethnic Kurds, an estimated 35 million of whom are spread across four countries where they face various levels of persecution and antagonism.
Syrian Kurds may be the most visible metaphor at present for the disadvantages of being a minority, but the difference between the insecurities and injustices experienced by them and by their Turkish, Iranian, and Iraqi counterparts is essentially a matter of degree, not kind.
Besides, no matter how badly betrayed the Kurds of Syria may feel due to US President Donald Trump's shock decision to withdraw troops from northeastern Syria, they were familiar with the Middle East's gamut of iniquities decades before the outbreak of Arab Spring protests in 2011.
During the long rule of the Assad clan, hundreds of thousands of them were denied citizenship, their history had no place in Syrian textbooks, use of Kurdish names and celebration of Kurdish culture were discouraged, and access to education and jobs was severely restricted.
Caught between a rock and a hard place as the peaceful uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule got hijacked by jihadist groups, the Kurds – the joint Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), to be precise – opted for a middle path by carving out their own multi-ethnic, socially liberal statelet in Syria's northeast, which coincidentally contained the country's richest oil fields and prime wheat-producing lands.
In an ideal world of cross-border solidarity, Kurds of neighboring countries would have sent their security forces to Syria to fill the void that would be left by the departing American soldiers. Sadly, a coordinated intervention of this kind is not only inconceivable under the geopolitical circumstances, it could alienate the Kurds from their valuable coalition allies, who appreciate their sacrifices in blood and treasure as part of the ongoing offensive against the Islamic State group.
In sharp contrast to the Kurds' dire predicament is the confidence, strength, and self-reliance of the Israelis. Alert to the clear and present danger posed by Trump's Syria withdrawal order among other signs of creeping isolationism, not to mention the exit of Pentagon chief Jim Mattis, the Israeli government quickly vowed to pick up the slack – but only to the extent it was warranted by its security interests.
Israel needed neither to send a delegation to Paris to urge a larger French military presence in Syria nor to make deals with the lesser of two evils. What it intended to do was made clear by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a cabinet meeting: "We will continue to act against Iran's attempts to establish military bases in Syria, and if necessary we will even expand our operations there."
Whether or not Trump's subsequent decision to slow the troop withdrawal was influenced in part by behind-the-scenes Israeli lobbying, it has definitely been a boon for the SDC and its military wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which stood to lose their grip on northeastern Syria rather quickly in the event of a precipitous pullout by the 2,000-strong US contingent.
It is now up to the SDF to translate as quickly as possible the global respect and goodwill it commands into the practical guarantees necessary for the preservation of the status quo. While the tactical objective should be to stretch the US withdrawal timetable to a lot longer than six months and have friendly European and Arab forces fill the security gap, the strategic goal should be nothing short of amassing the defensive arsenal, economic muscle, and political prestige of a sovereign country.
As things stand, entering into an agreement with Damascus guaranteed by Moscow does seem unavoidable. However, the SDF would be wise to reach such a deal from a position of relative strength if there is even a slight chance of having time on its side. After all, a newly confident Assad may prove to be no more magnanimous as the victor of a brutal civil war than he was as an unreconstructed autocrat before 2011.
Moreover, the "deep state" of Iran is unlikely to sit idly by were the Kurdish-Arab entity to end up as a protectorate of the Syrians and Russians. A US force withdrawal would help Iran gain full control over a strategic arc of the Levant, from Baghdad in the east to Beirut in the west. This would further entrench Tehran's position in Syria's security affairs, on top of the foothold it has gained through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its Lebanese Hezbollah proxies, and Shiite militias comprised of Iraqis and Afghans.
Admittedly, the setbacks suffered by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government as a result of the independence referendum of September 2017, are a cautionary tale against a hasty independence bid by Kurds in general. But those lessons must be tempered by realism after the abandonment of the fearless Kurds of neighboring Syria by a mercurial American president, despite his professed love and admiration for the "Great people! Great fighters!"
To sum up, Trump's determination to hand over Syria to Washington's rivals may have momentarily tilted the balance of regional power in favor of the Kurds' foes, but paradoxically it has strengthened the moral and legal arguments for Kurdish assertiveness, muscle-flexing, and self-rule going forward.
Arrangements such as federal autonomy, self-governance, and NATO protectorate do not even come close to repaying the debt civilization owes to Kurds for defeating the nihilists of the Islamic State group and creating a safe haven for people of all sects, faiths, and ethnicity in war-torn Iraq and Syria. All that remains to be seen is how soon, and in what form, the Middle East's Kurds can forcefully claim their reward from a grateful if effete international community.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and commentator on the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
In retrospect, the patronage of distant powers, the kindness of the "international community," and notions of religious solidarity have all proved to be poor substitutes for the real thing – namely, the exercise of state power.
From the hapless Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar to the warring Palestinian factions of the occupied territories, the lessons of 2018 apply equally to all vulnerable peoples, but especially to ethnic Kurds, an estimated 35 million of whom are spread across four countries where they face various levels of persecution and antagonism.
Syrian Kurds may be the most visible metaphor at present for the disadvantages of being a minority, but the difference between the insecurities and injustices experienced by them and by their Turkish, Iranian, and Iraqi counterparts is essentially a matter of degree, not kind.
Besides, no matter how badly betrayed the Kurds of Syria may feel due to US President Donald Trump's shock decision to withdraw troops from northeastern Syria, they were familiar with the Middle East's gamut of iniquities decades before the outbreak of Arab Spring protests in 2011.
During the long rule of the Assad clan, hundreds of thousands of them were denied citizenship, their history had no place in Syrian textbooks, use of Kurdish names and celebration of Kurdish culture were discouraged, and access to education and jobs was severely restricted.
Caught between a rock and a hard place as the peaceful uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule got hijacked by jihadist groups, the Kurds – the joint Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), to be precise – opted for a middle path by carving out their own multi-ethnic, socially liberal statelet in Syria's northeast, which coincidentally contained the country's richest oil fields and prime wheat-producing lands.
In an ideal world of cross-border solidarity, Kurds of neighboring countries would have sent their security forces to Syria to fill the void that would be left by the departing American soldiers. Sadly, a coordinated intervention of this kind is not only inconceivable under the geopolitical circumstances, it could alienate the Kurds from their valuable coalition allies, who appreciate their sacrifices in blood and treasure as part of the ongoing offensive against the Islamic State group.
In sharp contrast to the Kurds' dire predicament is the confidence, strength, and self-reliance of the Israelis. Alert to the clear and present danger posed by Trump's Syria withdrawal order among other signs of creeping isolationism, not to mention the exit of Pentagon chief Jim Mattis, the Israeli government quickly vowed to pick up the slack – but only to the extent it was warranted by its security interests.
Israel needed neither to send a delegation to Paris to urge a larger French military presence in Syria nor to make deals with the lesser of two evils. What it intended to do was made clear by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a cabinet meeting: "We will continue to act against Iran's attempts to establish military bases in Syria, and if necessary we will even expand our operations there."
Whether or not Trump's subsequent decision to slow the troop withdrawal was influenced in part by behind-the-scenes Israeli lobbying, it has definitely been a boon for the SDC and its military wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which stood to lose their grip on northeastern Syria rather quickly in the event of a precipitous pullout by the 2,000-strong US contingent.
It is now up to the SDF to translate as quickly as possible the global respect and goodwill it commands into the practical guarantees necessary for the preservation of the status quo. While the tactical objective should be to stretch the US withdrawal timetable to a lot longer than six months and have friendly European and Arab forces fill the security gap, the strategic goal should be nothing short of amassing the defensive arsenal, economic muscle, and political prestige of a sovereign country.
As things stand, entering into an agreement with Damascus guaranteed by Moscow does seem unavoidable. However, the SDF would be wise to reach such a deal from a position of relative strength if there is even a slight chance of having time on its side. After all, a newly confident Assad may prove to be no more magnanimous as the victor of a brutal civil war than he was as an unreconstructed autocrat before 2011.
Moreover, the "deep state" of Iran is unlikely to sit idly by were the Kurdish-Arab entity to end up as a protectorate of the Syrians and Russians. A US force withdrawal would help Iran gain full control over a strategic arc of the Levant, from Baghdad in the east to Beirut in the west. This would further entrench Tehran's position in Syria's security affairs, on top of the foothold it has gained through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its Lebanese Hezbollah proxies, and Shiite militias comprised of Iraqis and Afghans.
Admittedly, the setbacks suffered by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government as a result of the independence referendum of September 2017, are a cautionary tale against a hasty independence bid by Kurds in general. But those lessons must be tempered by realism after the abandonment of the fearless Kurds of neighboring Syria by a mercurial American president, despite his professed love and admiration for the "Great people! Great fighters!"
To sum up, Trump's determination to hand over Syria to Washington's rivals may have momentarily tilted the balance of regional power in favor of the Kurds' foes, but paradoxically it has strengthened the moral and legal arguments for Kurdish assertiveness, muscle-flexing, and self-rule going forward.
Arrangements such as federal autonomy, self-governance, and NATO protectorate do not even come close to repaying the debt civilization owes to Kurds for defeating the nihilists of the Islamic State group and creating a safe haven for people of all sects, faiths, and ethnicity in war-torn Iraq and Syria. All that remains to be seen is how soon, and in what form, the Middle East's Kurds can forcefully claim their reward from a grateful if effete international community.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and commentator on the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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