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KURDISTAN: TIME TO MAKE GOOD ON A 95-YEAR OLD PROMISE
Jurist.org
Aug 115 2014
Friday 15 August 2014 at 3:55 PM ET edited by Alex Ferraro
JURIST Contributing Editor Michael Kelly of Creighton University
School of Law makes the historical legal case for a change in US
policy on Kurdistan ...
© WikiMedia (user)
Having existed through millennia of foreign dominance and occupation,
hard by the Zargos mountains, Kurds have a saying older than our
country. "The Kurd has no friend but the mountain." Now is the time for
Washington to change its policy of a unified Iraq and support Kurdish
independence. Now is the time to show the Kurds they have a friend who
will stand with them. Military operations by the US in northern Iraq
have begun that could pave the way for this long-delayed eventuality.
US airstrikes against ISIS and air drops for trapped Yazidi and
Christian minorities in northern Iraq are legal under the 1948 Genocide
Convention [PDF], which obligates member states to prevent and punish
genocide. US military actions to protect these minority groups are
in furtherance of the "prevent genocide" prong of that multilateral
treaty. According to UN estimates, over 200,000 members of these
groups are now fleeing into Iraqi Kurdistan as ISIS advances on Erbil,
the Kurdish capital city, under threat of death by ISIS forces. Many
of those minority groups are also ethnically Kurdish. By extension,
these airstrikes also protect Iraqi Kurdistan as the safe haven for
those groups.
The US has a long-standing obligation to protect the Kurds, and it
will not allow the Kurdish capital to fall to ISIS. Ever since the US
encouraged the Kurdish uprising of 1991, but then failed to support it
as Saddam savagely crushed the Kurds, American foreign policy has been
geared to protect Iraq's Kurds. Consequently, despite this betrayal,
the Kurdish government and people are the most ardent supporters of
the US in the Middle East outside Israel. Yet the Kurds continue to
exist under the control of other states; such has been their collective
political fate for almost a century.
It is time for the US and the international community to make good
on a 95-year old promise that the Kurds have their own state. Like
the Armenians, the Kurds were promised a homeland in the aftermath
of World War I. Upon the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Allied
Powers outlined an independent state for the Kurds in 1920 through
the Treaty of Sevres. However, the rise of Ataturk during the ensuing
Turkish War of Independence and his alliance with Lenin spelled the
end of independence for both the Armenians and the Kurds. Not wanting
another conflict, Britain and France replaced the Treaty of Sevres
with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, dividing the Kurdish population
outside Persia among the new states of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. The
US was not a party to either peace settlement as America was never
technically at war with the Ottomans during the First World War.
A population of 30 million spread over an area the size of France,
Kurds were victims of this legal double-cross and still do not have
a country of their own. The Kurds of northern Iraq have functionally
been a state since the US established a "no-fly" zone over their
territory to exclude Saddam Hussein's forces from massacring them
after 1991. While a de facto state with an independently functioning
government, economy, border control, military, and educational
and healthcare system, the Kurds remain formally part of the Iraqi
federation. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, US policy has favored
a unified Iraqi state with a federal power-sharing structure;
not independence for Kurdistan. The time has come to abandon this
outmoded idea. Facts on the ground have dramatically shifted and
American foreign policy on Iraq must catch up to this new reality. The
Shiite dominated Maliki government in Baghdad has collapsed and Iraq
is reforming itself into a new configuration. Washington needs to
be ahead of this reformation, not behind it trying to support the
preservation of what is quickly becoming a failed state.
Located in the mountainous convergence of Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq,
an independent Kurdistan would be a strategically important platform
for US foreign diplomatic and defense policy in the Middle East and
would establish a new player in the region on the international
stage that could alter the formula in favor of stability in the
Middle East. Last month, the Israeli Prime Minister called for the
establishment of an independent Kurdish state. Israel and Kurdistan
are natural allies against various combinations of Arab Sunni and
Shiite factions that have long been arrayed against them.
Kurdistan has recently begun shipping petroleum through a pipeline out
of Turkey from the reserves it controls, and Israel has received four
of these shipments. American diplomatic efforts would only benefit
from the addition of Kurdistan to the ranks of Israel and Turkey as
its most dependable allies there.
That said, territorial guarantees must be made reassuring Turkey
and Iran that the Kurdish areas in those states would not join a
newly independent Kurdistan. Turkey and Iran have traditionally
been opposed to a Kurdish state carved out of northern Iraq for
fear of losing the Kurdish parts of their own territories. Yet both
have developed lucrative cross-border trade relationships during the
past 20 years with Iraqi Kurdistan and have come to view the area as
stable and reliable. Syria has also opposed an independent Kurdistan
for the same reasons, but that is irrelevant at this point. Almost
as irrelevant as the current American policy on Iraq is becoming.
Michael J. Kelly is Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Creighton
University School of Law. He has consulted with the Kurdish government
on their constitution and is the author of the book "Ghosts of
Halabja: Saddam Hussein & the Kurdish Genocide" (2008) and the article
"The Kurdish Regional Constitution within the Framework of the Iraqi
Federal Constitution: A Struggle for Sovereignty, Oil, Ethnic Identity,
and the Prospects for a Reverse Supremacy Clause" in vol.
114:3 of the Penn State Law Review (2010).
Suggested Citation: Michael Kelly, Kurdistan: Time to Make
Good on a 95-Year Old Promise, JURIST - Forum, August 15, 2014,
http://jurist.org/forum/2014/08/michael-kelly-kurdistan-promise.
http://jurist.org/forum/2014/08/michael-kelly-kurdistan-promise.php
Jurist.org
Aug 115 2014
Friday 15 August 2014 at 3:55 PM ET edited by Alex Ferraro
JURIST Contributing Editor Michael Kelly of Creighton University
School of Law makes the historical legal case for a change in US
policy on Kurdistan ...
© WikiMedia (user)
Having existed through millennia of foreign dominance and occupation,
hard by the Zargos mountains, Kurds have a saying older than our
country. "The Kurd has no friend but the mountain." Now is the time for
Washington to change its policy of a unified Iraq and support Kurdish
independence. Now is the time to show the Kurds they have a friend who
will stand with them. Military operations by the US in northern Iraq
have begun that could pave the way for this long-delayed eventuality.
US airstrikes against ISIS and air drops for trapped Yazidi and
Christian minorities in northern Iraq are legal under the 1948 Genocide
Convention [PDF], which obligates member states to prevent and punish
genocide. US military actions to protect these minority groups are
in furtherance of the "prevent genocide" prong of that multilateral
treaty. According to UN estimates, over 200,000 members of these
groups are now fleeing into Iraqi Kurdistan as ISIS advances on Erbil,
the Kurdish capital city, under threat of death by ISIS forces. Many
of those minority groups are also ethnically Kurdish. By extension,
these airstrikes also protect Iraqi Kurdistan as the safe haven for
those groups.
The US has a long-standing obligation to protect the Kurds, and it
will not allow the Kurdish capital to fall to ISIS. Ever since the US
encouraged the Kurdish uprising of 1991, but then failed to support it
as Saddam savagely crushed the Kurds, American foreign policy has been
geared to protect Iraq's Kurds. Consequently, despite this betrayal,
the Kurdish government and people are the most ardent supporters of
the US in the Middle East outside Israel. Yet the Kurds continue to
exist under the control of other states; such has been their collective
political fate for almost a century.
It is time for the US and the international community to make good
on a 95-year old promise that the Kurds have their own state. Like
the Armenians, the Kurds were promised a homeland in the aftermath
of World War I. Upon the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Allied
Powers outlined an independent state for the Kurds in 1920 through
the Treaty of Sevres. However, the rise of Ataturk during the ensuing
Turkish War of Independence and his alliance with Lenin spelled the
end of independence for both the Armenians and the Kurds. Not wanting
another conflict, Britain and France replaced the Treaty of Sevres
with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, dividing the Kurdish population
outside Persia among the new states of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. The
US was not a party to either peace settlement as America was never
technically at war with the Ottomans during the First World War.
A population of 30 million spread over an area the size of France,
Kurds were victims of this legal double-cross and still do not have
a country of their own. The Kurds of northern Iraq have functionally
been a state since the US established a "no-fly" zone over their
territory to exclude Saddam Hussein's forces from massacring them
after 1991. While a de facto state with an independently functioning
government, economy, border control, military, and educational
and healthcare system, the Kurds remain formally part of the Iraqi
federation. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, US policy has favored
a unified Iraqi state with a federal power-sharing structure;
not independence for Kurdistan. The time has come to abandon this
outmoded idea. Facts on the ground have dramatically shifted and
American foreign policy on Iraq must catch up to this new reality. The
Shiite dominated Maliki government in Baghdad has collapsed and Iraq
is reforming itself into a new configuration. Washington needs to
be ahead of this reformation, not behind it trying to support the
preservation of what is quickly becoming a failed state.
Located in the mountainous convergence of Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq,
an independent Kurdistan would be a strategically important platform
for US foreign diplomatic and defense policy in the Middle East and
would establish a new player in the region on the international
stage that could alter the formula in favor of stability in the
Middle East. Last month, the Israeli Prime Minister called for the
establishment of an independent Kurdish state. Israel and Kurdistan
are natural allies against various combinations of Arab Sunni and
Shiite factions that have long been arrayed against them.
Kurdistan has recently begun shipping petroleum through a pipeline out
of Turkey from the reserves it controls, and Israel has received four
of these shipments. American diplomatic efforts would only benefit
from the addition of Kurdistan to the ranks of Israel and Turkey as
its most dependable allies there.
That said, territorial guarantees must be made reassuring Turkey
and Iran that the Kurdish areas in those states would not join a
newly independent Kurdistan. Turkey and Iran have traditionally
been opposed to a Kurdish state carved out of northern Iraq for
fear of losing the Kurdish parts of their own territories. Yet both
have developed lucrative cross-border trade relationships during the
past 20 years with Iraqi Kurdistan and have come to view the area as
stable and reliable. Syria has also opposed an independent Kurdistan
for the same reasons, but that is irrelevant at this point. Almost
as irrelevant as the current American policy on Iraq is becoming.
Michael J. Kelly is Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Creighton
University School of Law. He has consulted with the Kurdish government
on their constitution and is the author of the book "Ghosts of
Halabja: Saddam Hussein & the Kurdish Genocide" (2008) and the article
"The Kurdish Regional Constitution within the Framework of the Iraqi
Federal Constitution: A Struggle for Sovereignty, Oil, Ethnic Identity,
and the Prospects for a Reverse Supremacy Clause" in vol.
114:3 of the Penn State Law Review (2010).
Suggested Citation: Michael Kelly, Kurdistan: Time to Make
Good on a 95-Year Old Promise, JURIST - Forum, August 15, 2014,
http://jurist.org/forum/2014/08/michael-kelly-kurdistan-promise.
http://jurist.org/forum/2014/08/michael-kelly-kurdistan-promise.php