ISIS - a Black Hole in the Heart of the Middle East: the Kurdish Factor (1/2)

By Patrick Bahzad


In a recent turn of events, Turkey has stepped up its military operations against the "Islamic State", but also against Kurdish PKK fighters and their logistical bases in Northern Syria. The development that triggered the Turks springing into action was a suicide bombing that occurred last week in Suruç, on the Turkish side of the border to Syria, near the town of Kobane.

While many observers expected Ankara to step up its efforts and rein in ISIS' freedom of action on Turkish territory, secretly hoping for stronger measures to be taken against the Jihadi militants on Syrian territory as well, the Turkish airstrikes against Kurdish groups have come as a surprize and a shock. This dual strategy however is perfectly explainable and should remind all those interested in fighting the "Islamic State" that national interests in the region are very diverse and that the US-inspired anti-ISIS coalition has to deal with a number of national agendas, making the implementation of any common plan all the more difficult. To Ankara in particular, it looks very much like the Kurds and their militant groups are just as much a part of the problem as is the "Islamic State".

Kobane, the Kurdish border-town close to where last week's bombing took place, did rise to fame last year when Kurdish "Peshmerga" fighters managed to contain and roll back an IS offensive. However, the success of the Kurdish irregulars, whose name literally means "those facing death", was largely conditioned by massive US and Coalition airstrikes. During the four month siege of Kobane, nearly 80 % off all anti-ISIS strikes in Iraq and Syria took place around Kobane. This alone should help put the Kurdish performance into context and help understand that the aura of courage and resilience of the Kurds is also an image that was carefully crafted by PR-agencies in the West.

Kurdish History Repeating Itself

In truth, the Kurds have a reputation as fearsome mountain fighters. Early converts to Islam, they have always lived in their current areas of population, but rarely – actually never – formed an independent political entity. The 19th century in particular was crucial to their dispersion and lack of unity. Confronted with an increasing political and administrative centralisation by the Ottoman State, the Kurds started an insurgency, but – just as today – their lack of internal cohesion brought their downfall and what was left of earlier semi-autonomous Kurdish emirates gradually disappeared, as Ottoman armies put an end to local leadership.

However, the "Sheikhs" that the Ottoman Sultans designated to replace earlier feudal leaders would prove almost as difficult to manage as their predecessors and insurgency practically became the normal state of play in Kurdish populated areas of the Empire. While these insurgencies played a crucial role in shaping the feeling of a Kurdish identity and fed the Kurds' longing for autonomy and independence, they also fostered a fractured political landscape, with clans and families – often the offspring of the "Sheikhs" who had been put in place by the Sublime Porte – fighting for legitimacy as representatives of the Kurdish people.

With the end of World War I and the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, hopes ran high in Kurdish areas. The peace Treaty of Sèvres (1920) even suggested the establishment of an independent Kurdish State in Eastern Anatolia and in the province of Mosul, in today's Iraq. However, the new Turkish State under Kemal Ataturk refused those terms and a three year war against foreign occupying powers put an end to any expectation of Kurdish autonomy. Starting in 1923, the "Turkification" of the whole territory, including the Kurdish areas, systematically denied any specific rights to the Kurdish minority.

This repressive policy, again, caused a series of uprisings that were all put down militarily in the 1920s and 1930s. Worse for the Kurds, in 1937, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan signed an agreement for the coordination of efforts against Kurdish separatism. Back then already, the Kurdish question was a transnational issue and would remain so until the present day. The fact that Kurdish population groups were spread over several countries was not the only obstacle to the Kurds' efforts at increased autonomy though. Internal factors also didn't play in their favour.

The Problem of Kurdish Identity

According to credible estimates, the Kurds represent some 35 million people today, with around half of them living in Turkey, the other countries of Kurdish population being mainly Northern Syria, North-Eastern Iraq and North-western Iran. These 35 million people however don't constitute a homogenous group: tribal allegiances are very strong and internal feuds have been common for centuries. This may also explain why there never was a real attempt at unifying those groups under a single banner. Rather, the various groups tried to gain more rights within the countries and States on whose territory they were living.

Not even the language is unified. Several variants of Kurdish exist and understanding each other may not always be easy, depending on which regions are concerned. Writing too is based on different alphabets. As for religion, the Kurds are predominantly Sunni Muslims, but some tribes (particularly in Eastern Iraq and in Iran) are Shia. All this makes it difficult to consider the Kurds as a nation in the same way the French, the Brits or the Americans are. And of course, tribal rivalries and sectarian differences have been exploited by regional powers to try and prevent the rise of a real sense of national Kurdish identity.

All too often, the countries with Kurdish minorities have been ruthless in their oppression of their own Kurdish minority, while at the same time encouraging uprisings among the Kurds in neighbouring and rival States. The result for the Kurds has been a disaster. Since the 1960s, some 250 000 Kurds have been killed all over the Middle-East in various counter-insurgency campaigns, millions have been displaced and thousands of villages destroyed.

Kurdish Minorities in Syria, Iraq and Iran

In Syria for example, Kurds are estimated to be around one million, living mostly along the border to Turkey in the North and North-East. The attitude of the Syrian State has been quite fluctuating with regard to their minority. In the 1960s and 1970s, the "Arabisation" process promoted by the Syrian Baath party led to some 300 000 Kurds being stripped of their Syrian citizenship. At the same time though, Kurds were encouraged to join the army and some even made it into the "Presidential Guard" that spearheaded the attack against the Muslim Brotherhood stronghold of Hama, in 1982. Until 1998, the Assad regime even tacitly supported the PKK, i.e. the Kurdish terrorist and insurgent group that fought for autonomy and independence against Turkey.

In Iran, the 6 to 8 million Kurds also harboured various militant groups. Things went so far that at one point, Ayatollah Khomeini declared a "Jihad" against them. Repression in the Kurdish mountains of North Western Iran was no less bloody than in Turkey, and some of the exiled Kurdish-Iranian leaders were even assassinated by Iranian intelligence. The Iran-Iraq war perfectly exemplified the cynical policy of the established States, giving support and training to the Kurds in the neighbouring country, while brutally oppressing their own Kurdish population.

A collateral damage of these policies has been the widening gap between the various Kurdish groups, which made it more and more difficult for any potential party or leader to achieve unity among clans and tribes. This strategy of "divide and conquer" or "divide and reign" had already started way before the Iran-Iraq war, but it reached its climax during the early 1980s, culminating in Saddam Hussein's massacre of the Kurds at Halabja. In that sense though, the war crime of Halabja – which didn't give rise to calls for UN or international intervention, unlike the still disputed chemical attack of Eastern Damascus in 2012 – only differed from similar operations by the number of casualties and the use of chemical WMDs.

For the Kurds of Iraq, Halabja will forever remain as one of the darkest chapters in their history. Ironically, their relation with Iraqi authorities and in particular with Saddam Hussein had taken a rather good start in 1970. That year, the Iraqi dictator signed an agreement with legendary Kurdish DPK leader Mustafa Barzani. Baghdad granted a number of local and cultural rights to their Kurds and Kurdish representatives even made it as cabinet ministers into the Iraqi government.

The Terrible Fate of the Iraqi Kurds

One issue remained though that would prove a real poison in the long run: the oil rich city of Kirkuk. After a few years of relative calm, uprisings broke out again. That time however, Barzani made a fatal mistake. Rather than sticking to his previous deal with Saddam, he entered into an alliance with the Iranians, who had promised weapons, money and training. But in 1975 already, the Iraqis and Iranians worked out a provisional deal and the Kurdish DPK of Barzani paid a heavy price for its "treason". Scores of DPK fighters had to flee to Iran and the party itself was split. A new leadership and a new party emerged: the PUK, led by another influential clan leader, Jalal Talabani.

But worse was still to come for the Iraqi Kurds. In the aftermath of the 1988 ceasefire between Iraq and Iran, Saddam Hussein again exerted a terrible vengeance for the open support both the PDK and the UPK had received from Tehran. The whole North of Iraq was reconquered militarily and some 150 000 Kurds were killed during the "Anfal" campaign. The only positive outcome from a Kurdish point of view was that rival PUK and DPK had to unite their forces against the Iraqi onslaught.

Three years later, PUK and DPK "Pershmerga" – encouraged by US intelligence – tried their luck again, while Saddam's armies were given a hiding by the US during "Operation Desert Storm". The circumstances in which the Iraqi Republican Guard was finally allowed to put down this insurrection too are still being debated, but the end-result was similar to that of previous campaigns: the Kurds were defeated once again, thousands died, and millions fled into the mountainous North, or even into Turkey and Iran.

Confronted with a humanitarian disaster, the Allies – and in particular the US – finally established a "no fly zone" in the North of Iraq. Thousands of Western soldiers were sent in, letting the Kurdish irregulars take actual control of those areas. The rivalry between PUK and DPK, and between their leaders Talabani and Barzani, started off again, with the DPK controlling most of Northern Kurdistan, while the UPK became stronger in the South.

Tacit Powersharing

This geographical distribution of each party's powerbase gave rise to serious tensions, as control over the North meant control over trading and smuggling routes with Turkey. The financially richer DPK a wasn't willing to share its benefits with rival PUK though and tensions escalated into a genuine civil war, with thousands of casualties on both sides.

In 1995, Talabani's PUK seemed to gain the upper hand. At this point however, his rival Barzani called in arch-enemy Saddam Hussein, another sign of how deep the gap had become within the Iraqi Kurds. Iraqi government troops entered Kurdistan and helped Barzani to victory, while previously more successful Talabani fled to Iran. Barzani now became the only ruler of the Kurdish enclave. After extensive US mediation though, he finally agreed to let in rival PUK into the lucrative oil deals.

The situation and peace remained fragile though, due to the ever existent dissent within the Kurds. Many small parties coexisted in addition to the main DPK and PUK. And each of these groups has its own militia. There was also a small but growing Islamist movement in remote areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, "Ansar al-Islam", which would rise to fame in the years following the US invasion of 2003. Add into the mix the presence of a Turkmen minority with strong ties to Turkey, and neighbouring Iran with its own Kurdish party (the MIK), and the picture that emerges is one of a totally fractured and truly shaky autonomy.

This system of alliances and allegiances remained largely in place even after US "Operation Iraqi Freedom", the only difference being institutional, with the main Kurdish parties – PUK and DPK – gaining official recognition and positions of influence within the new Iraqi State. In broad terms tough, the period between 1991 and 2011 was one of growing cultural and economic autonomy for Iraqi Kurds, but the real development that got everything rolling again was the start of the Syrian civil war, and the gradual rise of the "Islamic State".

Öcalan, Turkey and the PKK

In that regard, one last player has to be mentioned again: Turkey, and the Turkish Kurds. In fact, Turkey is both home to the largest Kurdish population group and the main actor in the repression of Kurdish autonomy efforts. While the situation of Kurds in countries such as Iraq, Syria or Iran has not necessarily been worse – economically speaking – than that of the majority of the population, there has always been a deep divide between Turks and Kurds living in Turkey. The income, the education level, the economic perspectives of Turkish Kurds have always been far worse than those of the average national, making the Kurds de facto second class citizens.

Thus, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Kurdish separatist movements have always been strongest and most active in Turkey. In 1974 for example, the big man of the Kurds in Turkey made his debut on the political stage: Abdullah Öcalan, aka "Apo" (for "uncle") created his first militant group, "Apocus". Following internal dissent however, Öcalan founded a splinter group that was to become one of the major players in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict: the PKK, the "Kurdish Workers Party", a openly Marxist group, calling for an independent Kurdistan, the establishment of a communist society, the destruction of the "bourgeois" social class and the alliance of farmers and workers of Kurdistan.

Altogether, this programme made for a very conventional Marxist agenda, but the PKK's actions aimed first at destroying rival Kurdish groups, which were accused of being Turkish collaborators. Once again, as in other Kurdish areas across the Middle-East, Kurdish militants engaged in self-destructive feuds, that have become the trademark of all the Kurdish insurgency movements. These internal divisions and rifts are probably just as much a reason for the failure of the Kurds to fulfil their dream of an independent State as the repressive policies of the countries where Kurdish populations live.

Violence and Counter-violence

Having assassinated some of his rivals, Öcalan stepped up the actions of the PKK, engaging first in a campaign of terrorism against the Turkish State, with an open insurgency phase being implemented as a second stage, in a classic revolutionary warfare style. Taxing local businesses, engaging in drug and weapons smuggling, but also relying on outside help (from the Syrian government in particular), Öcalan's PKK rapidly expanded its operations and Öcalan himself established his headquarters on Syrian territory.

After the military coup of 1980, the Turkish army reacted with utmost brutality to the terror tactics of the PKK. In 1983, following the assassination of three Turkish officers, the use of the Kurdish language was even prohibited on Turkish soil. One year later, Öcalan decided to launch a full-scale guerrilla warfare against the Turkish army. Violence and counter-violence spiralled almost out of control and casualty figures ran high, especially among the Kurdish civilians. Villages were raided and destroyed. Turkish death squads (the famous "Grey Wolves", recruited out of Turkish intelligence and local organised crime) roamed the Kurdish countryside, killing and raping on a large scale. In total, almost 40 000 people died, and two million Kurds fled their homeland.

As for the PKK, they were not much better than their Turkish foes: anybody suspected of collusion with the Turkish State was assassinated, and that also included town elders in villages that were too "neutral" or "hostile" to the PKK. Women and children were not exempt either from the wrath of the Kurdish fighters. Finally, it has to be noted that in the struggle against the Turkish State, part of the PKK - especially its cells present on mainland Europe - drifted gradually towards organised crime, in their effort to collect "revolutionary tax" from Kurdish exiles and in their management of drug smuggling rings that were very lucrative sources of income for Öcalan's movement.

The Turkish Fear of a "Domino Effect"

Confronted with mounting European pressure though, Turkey gradually shifted its stance on the Kurdish question, especially as part of the process of EU-membership that Ankara was very favourable to in the  early 2000s. However, the Turkish government always remained very cautious and wary of Kurdish autonomy, even just cultural or linguistic.

What gives Turkish rulers nightmares is the prospect of a "domino effect" spreading from a possibly autonomous Kurdish region in Eastern Anatolia to other Kurdish areas in Syria, Iraq and possibly Iran. If the call for autonomy ­– or, worse, independence – was to spread like a wildfire to the approximately 35 million Kurds living in the Middle-East, a political shift might start that could have very serious implications for Turkey's territorial integrity and geopolitical standing in the region.

This fundamental fear is the basic reason for Turkish political decisions regarding ongoing developments since the early 2000s. This is also where the "Islamic State" comes into play now, as a new actor on the regional political stage, and – again – Turkish politics vis-à-vis ISIS are dictated by a schizophrenic impulse to rein in Kurdish efforts North and South of the border, while at the same time maintaining a reasonably good relationship with the Kurdish enclaves of Iraq, from where Turkey gets cheap oil thanks to the smuggling routes established by the "Islamic State". Additionally, ISIS also acts as a de facto proxy for Turkish interests in Syria and Iraq, limiting Kurdish expansion and ambitions in the area.

It is these cynical "realpolitiks" that will be the subject of a separate second account, focusing specifically on the triangular conflict between the various Kurdish militias, the "Islamic State" and other Jihadi groups in the Middle-East, and the State sponsors of both these set of actors.

Comments

[Kunuri]

Thank you Patrick Bahzad, nothing I can disagree here, I think we are saying the same thing and your approach to this subject is well informed and enlightening. However, things are changing here in Turkey regarding the Kurdish situation incredibly rapidly, perhaps irreversibly. And for worse, I am afraid. I am looking forward to your second installation, but I am afraid reality on the ground may change as you write it.

[Patrick Bahzad]

Just have to hope things won't change beyond point of no return or beyond repair.
In the short run, I'm not very optimistic either, but medium term, things are happening that may result in a gradual shift in Turkish politics and open a window of opportunity for people of good will on both sides (provided realism about possible outcome prevails ... independence and a Kurdish Superstate stretching over parts of Eastern Turkey, Northern Syria and North Eastern Iraq is not in the cards though).

[mike]

That is good news. Baghdad tends to send everything to the PUK side of the Pesh.

[Kunuri]

Agreed, there is a middle way between denial of Kurdish reality and a greater truly independent purely ethnic Kurdish state. And there are more rational, level headed and idealistic people on both sides than a spot poll would reveal.

[Kunuri]

Really BM, in comparison, I have been following your posts here for many years now.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I am not an academic.

[Kunuri]

Dear BM, therefore you are not a wimp, because all academics are wimps. I wonder if anyone knows if that was true in WWII, Korea and Vietnam wars.

I would take a world populated by wimpy academics than macho ignoramuses though.

[confusedponderer]

charly,
"How much is that German unification propaganda?"

Very little.

You should travel through Germany. You'd better understand.

A suggested route would be from Flensburg to Freiburg and then into, Basel, Switzerland. Then go to Eupen, Belgium and travel to Aachen through the Ruhrbebiet to Berlin to Görlitz. Then go to Dresden, from there to Prague and then to Vienna.

[Akira]

Like almost everyone else in the world, the PKK has abandoned Marxist Leninism as an ideology.
This may be difficult for people still living in the last century to accept, but it is
hardly a surprise to anyone else.

Anarchism is perfectly compatible with violence against the state,
as it was anarchists who pioneered the methods of modern terrorism.

There was a peace process that appeared to be going somewhere.
It was destroyed by Turkey's
Jihadist project in Syria.

[Patrick Bahzad]

Holy guacamole! Sounds like you're a strategy genius in the making ... Thx for lecturing us, think we had been waiting for intellectual mentoring from an ex communist and now anarchist supporter of terrorist organisations. Got to be pretty lonely for you out there !

[William R. Cumming]

WOW! 99%?