One of the safest foreign policy positions to take in America today, is a call to arm the Kurds. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, including libertarian darling Rand Paul, have called for increased US support for the Kurds, as a solution to the civil wars in the Middle East today.
After all, it allows the United States government to influence events without expending much blood or treasure. However, as attractive as this option seems, it is no cure-all; there are many problems that threaten both American and libertarian interests in Kurdistan.
An obvious issue with calls to “arm the Kurds” is the question of which Kurds to arm? Between 20 and 30 million people speak Kurdish languages, most of them living in the border areas between Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria.
Kurds are politically, religiously and culturally diverse.
Most are Sunni Muslims, although there are additionally large numbers of Kurdish-speaking Jews, Shi’a Muslims, and atheists; as well as the Yazidi religious minority and the syncretic People of Truth (Ahl-e Haqq) who also speak Kurdish.
Groups with a specifically Kurdish outlook, include: the Kurdistan Workers Party (or PKK), a guerrilla uprising against the Turkish government; and the Federation of West (Rojava) Kurdistan-North Syria, an organization attempting to create a left-libertarian homeland in contested Syrian border regions.
The former group is considered a terrorist organization by the State Department, while the latter receives US support through the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance.
There are also Kurdish-speaking members of political organizations, ranging from Turkish paramilitaries to ISIS. Politicians, like Rand Paul, are most likely referring to the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) as a candidate for US support.
Technically ruled by Iraq (but self-governing in reality) the KRG has looked to America for support since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Ever since the fall of Mosul to ISIS, in 2014, they have been an important ally of the global coalition against terrorism, and have hoped to leverage this importance into a bid for secession.
However, the KRG is not as perfect a friend of the United States as it may seem. As a close ally of Turkey, the KRG takes a hard line against both the Kurdistan Workers Party, and the Syrian Democratic Forces. In fact, the KRG has been helping enforce a harsh economic blockade on the Federation of West Kurdistan-North Syria.
This regional rivalry has led the KRG to act in disturbing ways towards its minority communities.
After the Pêş Merge (Peshmerga) security forces of the KRG fled Mount Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Yezidi religious community was exposed to the genocidal onslaught of ISIS. It took twin interventions – one by the Kurdistan Workers Party and one by the United States – to liberate Mount Sinjar; however, thousands of Yezidi women and children remain in captivity, and countless communities are traumatized. As a sign of gratitude to the Kurdistan Workers Party, many Yezidi fighters joined its local branch, the Sinjar Resistance Unit.
Fearing a potential rival for control, and wishing to please Turkey, the KRG has attempted to punish the Yezidi communities on Mount Sinjar. Crushing economic regulations have slowed recovery to a halt, while Yazda, one of the most important Yezidi charities in the KRG, was forcibly shuttered by authorities.
Other religious and ethnic minorities have also come under attack for attracting the ire of the KRG. Assyrians and Syriacs, members of the Aramaic-speaking indigenous Christian churches of the region, have ethnic tensions with Kurds dating back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the British occupation of the region. As the KRG nears secession, many Assyrian and Syriac residents of the contested Nineveh Plains have complained of illegal property confiscations and other violations of their rights, aimed at forcing them to leave.
Beyond the ethnic element, the leadership of the KRG has shown disturbingly authoritarian tendencies.
Since the end of a bloody Kurdish civil war in 1994, the two major parties of the KRG have been the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The Democratic Party, which is widely seen as the personal dominion of the wealthy Barzanî family, is currently in power; however, a populist third party called The Movement for Change has recently upset this balance of power.
Despite the expiration of his term in 2013, President Mesûd Barzanî has refused to step down. Instead, the Democratic Party forced through a highly controversial two-year extension, and when that expired in 2015, physically prevented opposition legislators and cabinet members from entering the capital.
Parliament has been suspended indefinitely, in what many Change Movement and Patriotic Union supporters see as an unconstitutional coup d’état. Now holding absolute powers, the Barzanî family and the Democratic Party have treated the KRG as their personal dictatorship. Protests have been suppressed by force, and opposition journalists have been arrested, tortured, and killed. It is no coincidence that many important officials are named Barzanî, such as Mesûd’s nephew Nêçîrvan, who is Speaker of Parliament.
This concentration of power in one family has also lead to an artificial concentration of wealth.
Ron Paul’s assertion that “foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country” certainly holds true for the KRG.
Despite the billions of [taxpayer] dollars in foreign aid poured into Iraqi Kurdistan, the KRG itself remains $18 billion in debt. While teachers go months without receiving a salary from the government, and pensions dry up, the Kurdish Democratic Party has used foreign aid to buy votes with a mix of cronyism and welfare.
These problems are particularly relevant to libertarian discussions on secession. While the KRG is certainly an improvement over the genocidal regime of Saddam Hussein, the total stranglehold of the Kurdish Democratic Party has the potential to return full-blown tyranny to the region. Local control is not necessarily good for liberty if local leaders do not respect the rights of their people.
The United States may have to continue funding Kurdish groups, including the KRG, as the area recovers from the scourge of ISIS. However, such support should not extend to a “blank check” for an authoritarian regime. Ultimately, Rand Paul’s proposal falls victim to the same simplistic view of events as interventionism does.
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Great Article Matt. [One minor note: Nechirvan is prime minister of KRG. And if you want to add to the Barzani list: Masrour (Massoud’s son) is the security and intillegence chief accountable only to his father, i.e. not parliament]
How about arming all of them. Their freedom would reduce size and power of unfriendly states such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey such that we might finally have less efforts by them to attack their neighbors and less ability to build nuclear weapons.
Well then arm Rojava, and support alternative parties/movements in the KRG.
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