Abe Greenwald: Saving Iraqi Kurdistan
[Abe Greenwald is associate editor of COMMENTARY and writes regularly for its blog CONTENTIONS.]
Erbil, Iraq. In the lobby of a certain hotel in the Kurdish city of Erbil, you find the familiar row of wall clocks indicating current time in various metropolitan hubs. Only something breaks your heart a little about the local twist put on this fixture of jet-set urbanity. Between clocks whose faces have been factory-stamped Istanbul or New York or Madrid, you see one displaying local time, and it looks like the others except for a single, small anomaly. The Erbil hasn’t been emblazoned onto the clock face by a manufacturer’s machine. It’s been printed out, in ordinary bold font, onto computer paper; cut down to a word-sized rectangle; and glued over the name of some other magnificent city.
The Kurds of the area known as the Kurdish Regional Government want to secure a free, democratic, and thriving Kurdistan. They are on their way to pulling it off. Personal safety here (where I am a guest of the KRG) is a given, so that most of the time, you forget you’re in Iraq. Parts of Erbil resemble Miami, Florida. There are rows of manicured palm trees, bustling retail strips, car dealerships, and everywhere the organized rubble of construction.
Other parts look more like the average Westerner’s conception of a Middle Eastern country: flat, dusty, and monochrome. In any case, the accomplishments go beyond the realm of the commercial or the aesthetic. The KRG is a free land. If you are an Iraqi Kurd, you don’t have to do what your leader orders. In fact, your leader does not order you to do anything. Nor do you have to do as your cleric says. In this corner of “the Muslim world,” liquor flows freely, journalists quote Tocqueville in conversation, and praise for Israel is easy to come by.
Praise for America is ubiquitous. The Kurdish foreign minister told my group matter-of-factly, “It was your men and women, in uniform who shed blood, who overthrew Saddam.” I heard a group of smart Kurdish students cite chapter and verse on American exceptionalism.
The Kurdish nation is bound to America like few others. Kurdish hopes for autonomy -- after a history of being the victims of ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter -- first became a precarious reality when George H.W. Bush instituted the northern no-fly zone over Iraq in 1991, three years after Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign wiped out up to 100,000 Kurds with chemical weapons. With American protection in place, the Kurds began building infrastructure and honing their political vision. When George W. Bush toppled Saddam’s regime in 2003, the Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the Iraqi population, began building what they promote as “the other Iraq” in earnest.
Kurdish identity is largely built on the Kurds’ long and heroic struggle for survival. KRG President, Massoud Barzani, is a national hero. So, too, was his late father, Mustafa Barzani, who preceded him as leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Both were Peshmerga warriors from a proud tribe who spent their lives fighting for Kurdish self-determination. An uncompromising career enemy of Saddam Hussein, President Barzani is as much a symbol of Kurdish pride as he is leader.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is also a Kurdish icon. Talabani, like Barzani, comes from a prominent tribe and was also Peshmerga. In the 1970s, his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) split off from, and fought against, the KDP. But the PUK now peacefully constitutes the other half of Kurdish party politics. The KRG and PUK share influence, and images of Barzani and Talabani are simply found everywhere in the region.
Kurdistan is bursting with everything the liberation of Iraq was intended to set free: pluralism, democracy, opportunity, and goodwill toward the U.S. But political realities in Iraq and America are bringing the first post-success phase of a free Iraq to an end. The future hangs on a few critical upcoming decisions in Baghdad, Kurdistan, and Washington...
Read entire article at Commentary
Erbil, Iraq. In the lobby of a certain hotel in the Kurdish city of Erbil, you find the familiar row of wall clocks indicating current time in various metropolitan hubs. Only something breaks your heart a little about the local twist put on this fixture of jet-set urbanity. Between clocks whose faces have been factory-stamped Istanbul or New York or Madrid, you see one displaying local time, and it looks like the others except for a single, small anomaly. The Erbil hasn’t been emblazoned onto the clock face by a manufacturer’s machine. It’s been printed out, in ordinary bold font, onto computer paper; cut down to a word-sized rectangle; and glued over the name of some other magnificent city.
The Kurds of the area known as the Kurdish Regional Government want to secure a free, democratic, and thriving Kurdistan. They are on their way to pulling it off. Personal safety here (where I am a guest of the KRG) is a given, so that most of the time, you forget you’re in Iraq. Parts of Erbil resemble Miami, Florida. There are rows of manicured palm trees, bustling retail strips, car dealerships, and everywhere the organized rubble of construction.
Other parts look more like the average Westerner’s conception of a Middle Eastern country: flat, dusty, and monochrome. In any case, the accomplishments go beyond the realm of the commercial or the aesthetic. The KRG is a free land. If you are an Iraqi Kurd, you don’t have to do what your leader orders. In fact, your leader does not order you to do anything. Nor do you have to do as your cleric says. In this corner of “the Muslim world,” liquor flows freely, journalists quote Tocqueville in conversation, and praise for Israel is easy to come by.
Praise for America is ubiquitous. The Kurdish foreign minister told my group matter-of-factly, “It was your men and women, in uniform who shed blood, who overthrew Saddam.” I heard a group of smart Kurdish students cite chapter and verse on American exceptionalism.
The Kurdish nation is bound to America like few others. Kurdish hopes for autonomy -- after a history of being the victims of ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter -- first became a precarious reality when George H.W. Bush instituted the northern no-fly zone over Iraq in 1991, three years after Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign wiped out up to 100,000 Kurds with chemical weapons. With American protection in place, the Kurds began building infrastructure and honing their political vision. When George W. Bush toppled Saddam’s regime in 2003, the Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the Iraqi population, began building what they promote as “the other Iraq” in earnest.
Kurdish identity is largely built on the Kurds’ long and heroic struggle for survival. KRG President, Massoud Barzani, is a national hero. So, too, was his late father, Mustafa Barzani, who preceded him as leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Both were Peshmerga warriors from a proud tribe who spent their lives fighting for Kurdish self-determination. An uncompromising career enemy of Saddam Hussein, President Barzani is as much a symbol of Kurdish pride as he is leader.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is also a Kurdish icon. Talabani, like Barzani, comes from a prominent tribe and was also Peshmerga. In the 1970s, his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) split off from, and fought against, the KDP. But the PUK now peacefully constitutes the other half of Kurdish party politics. The KRG and PUK share influence, and images of Barzani and Talabani are simply found everywhere in the region.
Kurdistan is bursting with everything the liberation of Iraq was intended to set free: pluralism, democracy, opportunity, and goodwill toward the U.S. But political realities in Iraq and America are bringing the first post-success phase of a free Iraq to an end. The future hangs on a few critical upcoming decisions in Baghdad, Kurdistan, and Washington...