Three months on from the failure of October 16, there is still an ongoing, meaningless argument in the Kurdistan Region about whether what happened was a failure.
There are three bitter facts that we should accept. First, we are defeated in the face of Iraq and lost all the territory we had regained by blood. Second, we held a historic referendum, which doesn’t help us in our negotiations at this stage. Third, treason was committed on October 16, in broad daylight.
We cannot, however, afford to punish anyone for this treason at this stage, nor can we afford to make our house more disorderly by dwelling on this injury. Changes are happening fast and none of the Kurdish leaders is reassuring us that they have an organized agenda to turn these changes into advantages for Kurdistan.
In these disappointing situations, we have two options: be united and wait for the conditions to change and be lucky again, or refuse what is available to us, review ourselves and plan ahead.
Post-failure shocks and unhealthy fears
Our history consists of consecutive failures. Every generation has seen aftershocks of these failures once every ten to fifteen years, but we have managed to rise up and move on from these failures, stronger.
Holding the referendum across south Kurdistan was an historic opportunity, which we exploited after the defeat of ISIS and after the partnership with Baghdad stopped functioning. It was an opportunity that wouldn’t be repeated.
It is important to recognize that holding the referendum was an historic moment. It is equally important to recognize that we were defeated on October 16 and have to get over the aftershocks of this failure.
The criticism we have been constantly leveling against Haider al-Abadi and Baghdad over the past few months is that they have become vain. But we were vain before them. This was one reason cause of the failure of October 16.
Both of these instances of vanity were and are bad. But it was twice as bad for us as it was for Baghdad because the events showed that no matter how tribal and undemocratic they are in our eyes, they have been accepted as a state by the international community. No matter how much we advocate the values championed by western countries, we are still part of the country that the world deals with through Baghdad.
We transgressed with respect to not fearing and not caring. It is better to have a healthy fear.
The story of Israel is testament to this. They are doing their utmost to help strengthen their country, but they still have not dispelled the fear that their enemies might one day sweep over them. This is a healthy fear, because it makes subsequent generations do their best to ensure that day never comes.
In Kurdistan, fear is played upon on two levels. First, people are made afraid that history may be repeated in order to make them easily controlled. Second, people are reassured and made overconfident in the abilities of the regional government in order to impress them and not lose their support.
Not having the right kind of fear showed how careless we were in terms of economy, diplomacy, society, and administration, to the extent that we realized we are like the naked emperor from the classic fable.
Uncertainties for the future
Where does the current leadership want to take Kurdistan after this failure? Reading between the lines of statements from Kurdish leaders recently, I don’t feel like they have assessed the failure and made plans for what comes next.
Very few officials say new things about current events other than repeating themselves, pointing fingers at each other and getting bogged down in the past.
Political leadership normally inform the people of the direction they are taking. Having a clear idea of this direction will help the nation reach its goal. People have a right to know where they are heading.
We should work to ensure we clothe our entity so we don’t appear naked next time we are photographed. For example, what is our economic, cultural, and educational agenda? New generations of a threatened nation should be equipped with this kind of knowledge.
How do we protect our strategies in other parts of Kurdistan in a way they will be of use at times of need? We should know what our mistakes with respect to our diplomacy were and prepare ourselves for at least the next decade.
Suppose that circumstances change and we have an opportunity to build a state tomorrow. The lack of vision for the future shows that we have done nothing over the past 25 years.
A citizen from Kirkuk explained our current situation using a straightforward example: “Our leadership told us they wanted to pierce our ears and buy us earrings. They pierced our ears, only to find out they had no money to buy the earrings.”
This is the question we should be asking. What should we do now so that next time we get our ears pierced, we have the money to buy the earrings?
We have no option other than unity
After the failure of the revolution in the 1970s, Saddam Hussein met with a leader of the revolution. The leader had formed some a party and anticipated Baghdad would negotiate on the Kurdish question. In the meeting, Saddam Hussein had told him: “Convince other parties, we will then negotiate.”
The leader returned and failed to convince anyone. The prospective negotiations did not therefore succeed.
Abadi told Kurdish leaders the same thing recently. “Reach an agreement among yourselves, then come for an agreement,” he said.
This has been our story with Baghdad since the 1960s. We achieved nothing when we went to the Iraqi capital divided in two or more delegations. But they respected us more and the world supported us when we had one delegation during the Kurdistan Front period and after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
We have internal problems now and this is because we have failed in self-governance. We have yet to agree on a constitution for the Kurdistan Region. Parties think it is okay to pull out of the government a few months ahead of elections.
Treason was committed on October 16, but the real reason for the failure is that we couldn’t build a national army that takes orders from the minister, prime minister, and president of the country rather than parties and groups.
There is no way out of this other than being united.
Understanding the world
What happened during and after the referendum showed that our reading of diplomatic relations was wrong.
World countries, especially in the west, dealt with us on the basis of two things. First, fighting the war on ISIS through the Kurds in Iraq and Syria is cheaper rather than using their own forces. By cheaper, I mean in terms of economy, human capacity, and politics. The Kurds needed the world’s help to protect itself from the threat of ISIS, and the world needed to conduct the war on ISIS as cheaply as possible. It was primarily due to this mutual interest that Kurdistan was given attention and became a hub of visits by western leaders and military officials.
The second point is that compared to Turkey and other world countries, Kurdistan has built relations with the west on the basis of few demands. When the question of the referendum came up, Kurdistan’s expectations from its western friends were so big they couldn’t respond at this stage. That is why they opposed the referendum.
We came to realize that only the mountains are our friends after October 16.
Returning to Baghdad
Iraq is not a country of no surprises, nor is Haider al-Abadi a panacea for the problems of the country. So it’s not strange if Iraqi is turned upside down and the Kurds can once again rise from defeat and become kingmaker. But this is merely a fantasy.
The reality is that we have to return to Baghdad in order to rise up and become strong again – a capital we didn’t want to deal with in the past.
We need to send very wise people to Baghdad and prevent the reoccurrence of what happened to us because of the weakness of our representatives there. I think it is important to encourage all those who can strengthen the Kurdish position in Iraq again.
We should concentrate our efforts on strengthening our position internally and across Iraq because as we learned recently, if an opportunity for separation from Iraq arises in the future, we should settle it with Baghdad where we have a presence.
There are three bitter facts that we should accept. First, we are defeated in the face of Iraq and lost all the territory we had regained by blood. Second, we held a historic referendum, which doesn’t help us in our negotiations at this stage. Third, treason was committed on October 16, in broad daylight.
We cannot, however, afford to punish anyone for this treason at this stage, nor can we afford to make our house more disorderly by dwelling on this injury. Changes are happening fast and none of the Kurdish leaders is reassuring us that they have an organized agenda to turn these changes into advantages for Kurdistan.
In these disappointing situations, we have two options: be united and wait for the conditions to change and be lucky again, or refuse what is available to us, review ourselves and plan ahead.
Post-failure shocks and unhealthy fears
Our history consists of consecutive failures. Every generation has seen aftershocks of these failures once every ten to fifteen years, but we have managed to rise up and move on from these failures, stronger.
Holding the referendum across south Kurdistan was an historic opportunity, which we exploited after the defeat of ISIS and after the partnership with Baghdad stopped functioning. It was an opportunity that wouldn’t be repeated.
It is important to recognize that holding the referendum was an historic moment. It is equally important to recognize that we were defeated on October 16 and have to get over the aftershocks of this failure.
The criticism we have been constantly leveling against Haider al-Abadi and Baghdad over the past few months is that they have become vain. But we were vain before them. This was one reason cause of the failure of October 16.
Both of these instances of vanity were and are bad. But it was twice as bad for us as it was for Baghdad because the events showed that no matter how tribal and undemocratic they are in our eyes, they have been accepted as a state by the international community. No matter how much we advocate the values championed by western countries, we are still part of the country that the world deals with through Baghdad.
We transgressed with respect to not fearing and not caring. It is better to have a healthy fear.
The story of Israel is testament to this. They are doing their utmost to help strengthen their country, but they still have not dispelled the fear that their enemies might one day sweep over them. This is a healthy fear, because it makes subsequent generations do their best to ensure that day never comes.
In Kurdistan, fear is played upon on two levels. First, people are made afraid that history may be repeated in order to make them easily controlled. Second, people are reassured and made overconfident in the abilities of the regional government in order to impress them and not lose their support.
Not having the right kind of fear showed how careless we were in terms of economy, diplomacy, society, and administration, to the extent that we realized we are like the naked emperor from the classic fable.
Uncertainties for the future
Where does the current leadership want to take Kurdistan after this failure? Reading between the lines of statements from Kurdish leaders recently, I don’t feel like they have assessed the failure and made plans for what comes next.
Very few officials say new things about current events other than repeating themselves, pointing fingers at each other and getting bogged down in the past.
Political leadership normally inform the people of the direction they are taking. Having a clear idea of this direction will help the nation reach its goal. People have a right to know where they are heading.
We should work to ensure we clothe our entity so we don’t appear naked next time we are photographed. For example, what is our economic, cultural, and educational agenda? New generations of a threatened nation should be equipped with this kind of knowledge.
How do we protect our strategies in other parts of Kurdistan in a way they will be of use at times of need? We should know what our mistakes with respect to our diplomacy were and prepare ourselves for at least the next decade.
Suppose that circumstances change and we have an opportunity to build a state tomorrow. The lack of vision for the future shows that we have done nothing over the past 25 years.
A citizen from Kirkuk explained our current situation using a straightforward example: “Our leadership told us they wanted to pierce our ears and buy us earrings. They pierced our ears, only to find out they had no money to buy the earrings.”
This is the question we should be asking. What should we do now so that next time we get our ears pierced, we have the money to buy the earrings?
We have no option other than unity
After the failure of the revolution in the 1970s, Saddam Hussein met with a leader of the revolution. The leader had formed some a party and anticipated Baghdad would negotiate on the Kurdish question. In the meeting, Saddam Hussein had told him: “Convince other parties, we will then negotiate.”
The leader returned and failed to convince anyone. The prospective negotiations did not therefore succeed.
Abadi told Kurdish leaders the same thing recently. “Reach an agreement among yourselves, then come for an agreement,” he said.
This has been our story with Baghdad since the 1960s. We achieved nothing when we went to the Iraqi capital divided in two or more delegations. But they respected us more and the world supported us when we had one delegation during the Kurdistan Front period and after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
We have internal problems now and this is because we have failed in self-governance. We have yet to agree on a constitution for the Kurdistan Region. Parties think it is okay to pull out of the government a few months ahead of elections.
Treason was committed on October 16, but the real reason for the failure is that we couldn’t build a national army that takes orders from the minister, prime minister, and president of the country rather than parties and groups.
There is no way out of this other than being united.
Understanding the world
What happened during and after the referendum showed that our reading of diplomatic relations was wrong.
World countries, especially in the west, dealt with us on the basis of two things. First, fighting the war on ISIS through the Kurds in Iraq and Syria is cheaper rather than using their own forces. By cheaper, I mean in terms of economy, human capacity, and politics. The Kurds needed the world’s help to protect itself from the threat of ISIS, and the world needed to conduct the war on ISIS as cheaply as possible. It was primarily due to this mutual interest that Kurdistan was given attention and became a hub of visits by western leaders and military officials.
The second point is that compared to Turkey and other world countries, Kurdistan has built relations with the west on the basis of few demands. When the question of the referendum came up, Kurdistan’s expectations from its western friends were so big they couldn’t respond at this stage. That is why they opposed the referendum.
We came to realize that only the mountains are our friends after October 16.
Returning to Baghdad
Iraq is not a country of no surprises, nor is Haider al-Abadi a panacea for the problems of the country. So it’s not strange if Iraqi is turned upside down and the Kurds can once again rise from defeat and become kingmaker. But this is merely a fantasy.
The reality is that we have to return to Baghdad in order to rise up and become strong again – a capital we didn’t want to deal with in the past.
We need to send very wise people to Baghdad and prevent the reoccurrence of what happened to us because of the weakness of our representatives there. I think it is important to encourage all those who can strengthen the Kurdish position in Iraq again.
We should concentrate our efforts on strengthening our position internally and across Iraq because as we learned recently, if an opportunity for separation from Iraq arises in the future, we should settle it with Baghdad where we have a presence.
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