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Why the U.S. Should Support a Kurdish State

(National Interest) Amitai Etzioni - The U.S. should support a Kurdish state since the Kurds have more than earned the right to independence. Moreover, such a move will help reassure other U.S. allies that the U.S. will stand by them rather than abandon them. The time has come to redraw the map. Iraq's borders were forged by the colonial powers at the end of World War I, throwing the Kurds in with other ethnic groups with whom they have little in common. Ever since, the Kurds have been fighting for the right to govern themselves. Rep. Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pointed out in December 2015, "The Kurds are the sole U.S. allied force operating on the ground against ISIS in Syria and Iraq....For the last year and a half, we've had one effective fighter in this fight: It is the 160,000-strong Peshmerga force." Turkish opposition is going to be fierce. The Turks fear that a Kurdish state on their borders will embolden the Turkish Kurds' quest for autonomy, if not for secession in order to join the new Kurdish state. Yet much of the problem stems from Turkey's extreme oppression of its Kurdish population. For decades, Ankara made it illegal for Kurds to use their own language, attempted to erase Kurdish culture, to deny their distinct identity by classifying them as "Mountain Turks," and banning the words "Kurdish" or "Kurdistan." The writer is Professor of International Relations at George Washington University.
2017-01-27 00:00:00
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