http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?webcat=opinions&enewsid=5192
Foreign policy challenges (2): Iraq Elections in Iraq were the first phase of a test that the whole world will watch for years to come. For the time being, the Iraqis passed the first phase. Despite the threat and blackmail of Baathist thugs and the cihadi desperados, they demonstrated the firm determination and courage to shape their own life and future. The second step of the test will be creating a broad based consensus to keep Iraq in one piece and the political power sharing that will guarantee unity and stability. The third phase of the test will be making American and foreign troops redundant for peace maintenance. If this last phase is not attained, it will be because the second phase of the test has ended in failure. The outcome will be a �meltdown� in Iraq, i.e. regional, ethnic and denominational conflict that will involve neighboring countries as well. Hence whatever the outcome of the elections in terms of distribution of the seats in the national assembly, a fair representation and power sharing, in spite of the fact that a substantial portion of the Sunnis have boycotted or could not reach the ballot box, has to be realized. What could jeopardize this expectation is either the Shiite majority overreach or the Kurdish insistence on independence and claiming Kirkuk for the economic sustainability of their envisaged statehood. Thus, the most plausible set-up that will be built on election outcomes is a federation that will allow flexibility for local/regional rule. However, such a set-up should least be built on ethnicity and religious denominations because this runs counter to �nation-building�, the constitutive element being the citizen whose ethnic and religious affiliation should not make a difference at the public level. Where does Turkey stand on this political map? Turkey refused to give a hand to the Americans during their occupation of Iraq. The Turkish government, encouraged by popular opposition, first asked too much of a price to bear for the Americans in return and later flatly refused. The U.S. government by and large carried on with its own resources. However, it found a willing local ally, namely the Kurds. Kurds seized on this historical opportunity to get rid of the dictatorial tutelage of Baghdad over them and to lay the bricks of independent Kurdistan via a federative system that would give them unfettered autonomy for the time being. Devoid of the previous freedom of �hot pursuit� of PKK militants operating out of northern Iraq, Turkey was confined to the other side of the border sadly observing developments that it was able to prevent until American intervention. Crossing the border with arms meant crossing the Rubicon. It did not only entail clashing with American troops but their local allies, the Kurdish peshmerge that claimed sovereignty in what they called Kurdistan. This term gave goose bumps to the Turkish establishment, not that it was the name of the land on which the Kurds of Iraq have dwelled on since historical times but it gave a similar opportunity to the Kurds of Turkey to call the provinces, which they populated. Such a possibility meant �danger� for the dismemberment of the country for as the logo of the highest selling daily in Turkey, Hurriyet goes, �Turkey is for the Turks.� Others or non-Turks (read this as those who do not consider themselves as ethnic Turks although they are citizens of Turkey) have no right to hang on to the non-Turkish cultural-historical names of locations (villages, towns and regions) in which they live in. These old names that were coined by former peoples of Asia Minor have all been Turkified in recent decades with the fear that they could be claimed by minorities with subversive (or better divisive) political intentions. Hence, official Turkish rashness to the Kurds of Iraq is not because they are just Kurds seeking freedom and self-rule that is one of the basic human rights, but because they may evoke the same �subversive� sentiments among the Kurds of Turkey. But then, the Kurds of Iraq were always discriminated against, repressed and tried to be dissolved by Arab nationalism that was the dominant official ideology in Iraq. Indeed, Kurdish nationalism was forged between the anvil of Arab nationalism and the hammer of systematic oppression and discrimination. So it is no wonder that the Kurds of Iraq look at the U.S. as their savor and protector. By relying on the U.S., Iraqi Kurds not only guarantee their newly won freedom and autonomy but also plan to safeguard their independence in case of a possible political �meltdown� in Iraq. This is the basic difference between the Iraqi and Turkish Kurds. While the first rely on an external power for their political survival and harbor cessationist inclinations to safeguard their freedom, the latter want to stay on and acquire equal rights and status in Turkey with the prospects of EU membership. Hence, while the U.S. influence plays a �cessationist role in Iraq, the EU plays an integrative role in Turkey. If this is the case, the rulers of Turkey must stop threatening the Kurds of Iraq in their quest for self survival and a decent government on their own if a relatively democratic and equalitarian federative system in Iraq does not work, but rather further integrate its own Kurdish citizens through higher democratic, legal and economic standards which are part and parcel of EU membership requirements. Only then 4-million Iraqi Kurds will cease to be the yeast for the fermentation of the separatist urges of 15-million Turkish Kurds inspired by a higher quality of democracy and living standards to their south. Any reasonable statesman can see that the only way Turkey can influence developments in Iraq and protect her national interests, including the Kirkuk imbroglio and the emergence of a hostile government or for that matter balkanization of Iraq; the Kurds of this country are the most likely allies. Why? Because surrounded by a hostile Arab sea and inimical authoritarian regimes to the east and west that harbor Kurdish enclaves, Turkey is the most likely window for the Kurds opening up the world and the country where the majority of their relatives live. The sense of being �relatives� can only be cultivated if Turkey acknowledges this reality and ceases to declare the Turkmen as the only relatives of Turkey in Iraq and while trying to protect their interests in vain, disdain the Kurds as tribal, untrustworthy and �dangerous.� Let us not forget, Iraqi Kurds will be our neighbors, as either an autonomous part of democratic Iraq or an independent mini-state squeezed between superior powers that will all be hostile if Iraq is dismembered. Isn't it a wiser policy to win this entity and safeguard its hard won freedom rather than alienate it and let it rely on non-regional (super) powers that may have designs that may be undesirable for the countries of the region? -- When you're catching spies, you have a bad counterintelligence service. When you're not catching spies, you have a bad counterintelligence service. You can't have it both ways! -- William Webster, Director of Central Intelligence, 1987-1991 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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