Exploiting the Kurds in Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], President-elect Donald Trump has his work cut out for him once ISIS is defeated. With U.S. and other coalition forces playing minor combat roles in Iraq and Syria, the Iraqis and Pentagon strategists have made use of the Kurds’ Peshmerga fighters as their surrogate fighting force. Hated by the Turks, Iraqis, Syrians and Iranians, the multiethnic-and-religious Kurds have been long forgotten in the region. Fighting to defeat ISIS at the U.S. request, the region can no longer ignore the Kurds right to a homeland. Peshmerga fighters have already planted Kurdish flags in territory once controlled by ISIS but now subject to new borders. It’s no mystery that Kurds spilling their blood to defeat ISIS want something in return: An independent state. White House officials walk a tightrope backing a Kurdish homeland.
Regional states of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran have all had their run-ins with the Kurds, opposing any attempts to carve out territory in Kurdish occupied lands around the vicinity of today’s fighting against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. When ISIS grabbed 30% of Iraq and Syria in 2014, the Kurds held their ground but lost territory. Since battling ISIS with Iraqis and U.S. advisors, Kurds have staked out borders for a future state. “It was our front line, now it’s our border, and we will stay forever,” said business magnate Sirwa Barzani whose uncle Kurdish Region President Massoud Barzani insists any land taken from ISIS will remain in Kurdish hands. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi can’t possibly think that the Kurd’s Peshmerga fighters are spilling their blood to defeat ISIS in vain, without some quid pro quo. Creating an independent Kurdistan dates back to ancient times and is long overdue.
Trump’s State Department must be prepared for the inevitable fight with Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, all of whom have no plans to cede territory to the Kurds. President Barack Obama largely avoided any discussion of a Kurdish homeland due to bitter rivalries with regional powers. When ISIS is driven from Mosul and Raqqa, the question of a Kurdish state will come front-and-center. Obama’s point man from the State Department in the region 43-year-old Brett McGurk knows the dangerous tightrope dealing with the Kurds. He also knows that ISIS could not be defeated in the region without the Kurd’s Peshmerga fighters. Fighting dutifully along side Iraqis and U.S. advisors, the Kurds have become the U.S.’s most faithful ally. McGurk knows opposition to Kurdish independent rule from Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran but understands its importance to the region.
When the battle ends for Mosul, Defense Secretary Ash Carter urges a continued U.S. troop presence in Iraq. He knows what happened Dec. 15, 2011 when Obama decided to pull out all combat troops from Iraq: ISIS filled the power vacuum. To assure that no power vacuum follows from defeating ISIS, Carter recommends a permanent U.S. troop presence. Carter didn’t say the obvious that the Kurd’s Peshmerga fighters must also have a permanent presence in the region to keep ISIS or other radical Wahhabi groups out of the region. Only the Kurds have the military presence to serve as a deterrent to another Islamic takeover like ISIS in 2014. Carving out boundaries for an independent Kurdish state would be the best way to keep Islamic extremists out the region. Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran don’t have the resources needed to prevent another radical Islamic takeover.
Iraq’s constitution Article 4 provides for what happens to the Kurds but only through an Iraqi referendum. Whether or not Iraqi citizens agree with ceding territory to the Kurds, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran have no choice. When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad defeats Saudi-U.S.-Turkey-funded insurgents in East Aleppo and Idlib, Syria, it’s questionable whether he’d agree to a Kurdish homeland in Syrian. Only with strong White House leadership supporting a Kurdish homeland can the region become secured without a growing presence of U.S. troops. More than Iraq, Syria or Iran, the Turks, who view the Kurds as their archenemy, have already sent forces into Iraq and Syria to battle the Kurds. Turkey harbors the largest Kurdish population of any country in the region. They would view an independent Kurdish state as an affront to Turkey’s national security, opposing it at all costs.
Trump’s big challenge in the Middle East happens the day ISIS is driven from Iraq and Syria. Already plotting their escape in the Iraqi and Syrian deserts, ISIS no longer sees occupying Iraq or Syria as viable. With the Kurds battling ISIS in every town and village, they remember well the ISIS massacre of the Yazidis near Mt. Sinjar August 10, 2014. Neither Turkey, Iraq, Syria nor Iran could stop the ISIS rampage where some 5,000 Yazidis lost their lives. If the Kurds had an independent state in 2014, ISIS could not have perpetrated the massacre. Unlike Obama, Trump’s State Department must be prepared to stop Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from persecuting the Kurds. There’s no group better at preventing Islamic radicalization in the region than the Kurd’s Peshmerga fighters. Once ISIS is defeated, it’s high time to cede Kurds territory for an independent state.
