Kurdish Redux

I wrote late last week about a Guardian article briefly detailing a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh. It's always a good idea to go to the source, which is exactly what I did when I picked up the June 28th issue that contains Hersh's article. Here is a little chunk along with the link to the full article on the New Yorker's website:

In a series of interviews in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, officials told me that by the end of last year Israel had concluded that the Bush Administration would not be able to bring stability or democracy to Iraq, and that Israel needed other options. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government decided, I was told, to minimize the damage that the war was causing to Israel's strategic position by expanding its long-standing relationship with Iraq's Kurds and establishing a significant presence on the ground in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Several officials depicted Sharon's decision, which involves a heavy financial commitment, as a potentially reckless move that could create even more chaos and violence as the insurgency in Iraq continues to grow. (click here for the full article)

I feel for the Kurds, I really do. They have suffered enormous oppression at the hands of Arabs, Turkomen, and Persians in the historically Kurdish regions of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. They have been exploited and abandoned on different occasions by the Americans. And now the Israelis are using them, with their only interest being a military stronghold in the midst of powerful Muslim states. If the Israelis can they will use the Kurds as Muslim proxies, who have intimate familiarity with the region and its cultures to act as saboteurs and shock troops causing instability for potential rivals of Israel.
Unfortunately, all this tactic will do is destabilize the region further, and likely drive Turkey, Syria, Iran along with Iraqi Shia and Sunni insurgents into unofficial alliance.

Hersh seems to buy a lot of the story from Israeli provided intelligence that Shia insurgents are being supported by Iran. While I agree that there is undoubtedly some kind of connection, the extent is likely over emphasized. Israel was clearly interested in extending the Iraq war to at the very least create a direct and intense military threat on Iran from the US. Although I think they were hoping more for a series of escalations that would lead to an Iran invasion, while Israel took care of Syria.

Iran's interest is in seeing Iraq find enough stability so that the Iraqi Shia majority can rule through democratic means. They can do that with the full appearance of democracy, and they have no need to engage in military action covert or overt. That said, they will be doing their best to make contact with the newly forming Iraqi Shia leadership, but they will undoubtedly be doing that on a covert level.

The Israeli argument that the Iranians want to keep the Americans tied up in Iraq has some measure of "realpolitik" validity, and it is seductive to then believe that Iran is prompting violence against the occupation. But Iran doesn't need to take that kind of risk, they simply can wait the situation out, and curry favour with Iraqi Shia.

The primary source of insurgents in Iraq, up until March, were largely Sunni Iraqis. The Shia flexed a little muscle by driving occupation forces out of Najaf, and a few other Shia dominated cities for a brief period, but I suspect that was as much for show, negotiating position, and recruiting, as any real determination to get rid of the occupation.

I think Israel is agitating for destabilization of the region leading to wider war. They want to pacify Arab countries in particular, and Middle East Muslim states in general, before those states can develop nuclear arsenals that will prevent Israel from being able to use conventional military attacks at their leisure. And to end the possibility of those states being a threat to Israel in the future.

Israel's approach is disastrously wrong-headed. Like all wars, it will spiral out of control, drawing in unexpected state actors. In fact, it could easily lead to nuclear war, with who knows what consequences.

Again I think the Kurds are being used by the Israelis as patsies in all this, and sadly it is the Kurds who will yet again suffer the most should the situation destabilize in the region.

I think the Kurds have been convinced that the US and Israel are their allies, because of the protection they were afforded by the Iraq no-fly zone in the decade preceding the Iraq war. It allowed the Kurds to build a nascent Kurdistan. They are willing to work with nations that they see as having protected them. I think they mistakenly assume that protection will extend into the future.