SYRIA & OBAMA, II: ASSAD-RUSSIAN CHEMICAL PROPOSALS A PLOY, ENABLE OBAMA TO DODGE (TEMPORARILY) DEFEAT ON BOMBING STRATEGY, AND DECISION ON IRAN

Contents:

Russia’s Absurd Proposal on Syria’s Weapons: Max Boot, Commentary, Sept. 9, 2013—The debate over Syria took a new turn on Monday when Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that Bashar Assad could avoid American airstrikes if he would “turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.” Kerry added that Assad “isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done.”
 
Lavrov may Have Helped Obama Dodge the Syrian Bullet: Noah Beck, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 10, 2013—Any diplomatic initiative on Syria coming from Russia, whose UN votes have perpetuated Assad's killing machine for over two years, should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Nevertheless, the latest Russian proposal merits serious consideration.
 
The Bed Obama and Kerry Made: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 2013—So much for John Kerry's "global test," circa 2004. So much for Barack Obama slamming the Bush administration for dismissing "European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war," circa 2007.
 
Obama Misunderstands Wartime Leadership: Michael Gerson, Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2013—In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt told his speechwriter Sam Rosenman, “It’s a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and to find no one there.” For President Obama to have arrived at this place is uncomfortable but not unprecedented.
 

Say It Again. Kurdish Independence Now: Jonathan Spyer, Tower Magazine, September 2013—The civil war in Syria and the increasing fragility of Iraq have thrown the long-term future of these states into question. For years, they were ruled by brutal regimes that held power in the name of Arab nationalism; as a result, they failed to knit together the populations they ruled into a coherent national identity.



Obama’s Dithering Frustrates Israelis: Vivian Bercovici ,Toronto Star, Sept. 10 2013—Consensus in the Middle East is rare, but it seems that President Barack Obama has forged one inadvertently. Whether supporting or opposing American military intervention in Syria, there is little, if any, enthusiasm in any quarter for his dithering decision-making.

 

On Topic Links

 
Blocking Action on Syria Makes an Attack on Iran More Likely: Dennis Ross, Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2013
Iran is Testing Obama in Syria: Saeed Ghasseminejad, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 9, 2013
How not to Deal with Syria: Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 10, 2013

Syria, America and Putin's Bluff: George Friedman, Stratfor, Sept. 10, 2013

 

 
The debate over Syria took a new turn on Monday when Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that Bashar Assad could avoid American airstrikes if he would “turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.” Kerry added that Assad “isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done.”
 
But that didn’t stop Russia and other nations from jumping on the idea after the Syrian government said it welcomed the idea. Now this seemingly offhand suggestion–which Kerry apparently did not mean to float as a serious proposal–is being seriously debated as an alternative to American military action.
 
If Assad were serious about turning over his entire chemical weapons stockpile–not to mention destroying all capacity to manufacture more such weapons in the future–this might conceivably be a deal worth taking even at the risk of Assad rebuilding his chemical weapons capacity sometime in the future. But the odds of Assad assenting to such a deal are slight: Why should he when he knows that, worst case, he faces an “unbelievably small” American airstrike, as Kerry himself has said?
 
Chemical weapons are an important source of power for the Assad regime, not only for the threat they pose to Israel but, more immediately, for the threat they pose to Assad’s rebellious subjects. He is unlikely to give up such an advantage, which is so crucial to his regime’s survival, unless he were convinced that his regime would crumble otherwise. But nothing that President Obama or his aides have said would lead him to come to that conclusion.
 
Even if Assad claimed to be serious about such a deal–and he has said no such thing yet, in fact he hasn’t even acknowledged that he possesses chemical weapons–it is hard to know how such a deal could be implemented or enforced. It is one thing for inspectors to travel to Libya in 2003 to make sure that Gaddafi was giving up his entire WMD program. Libya then was a peaceful if despotic place. It is quite another thing to do so now in Syria where violence is commonplace–in fact UN inspectors looking for evidence of chemical-weapons use have already been shot at. How on earth could international inspectors possibly roam Syria in the middle of a civil war to confirm that Assad has no more chemical weapons left?
 
The task is daunting, indeed nearly impossible, in no small part because of our lack of knowledge about the whereabouts of his arsenal. The New York Times reports: “A senior American official who has been briefed extensively on the intelligence noted in recent days that Washington has firm knowledge of only 19 of the 42 suspected chemical weapons sites. Those numbers are constantly changing, because Mr. Assad has been moving the stores, largely for fear some of them could fall into the hands of rebels.”
 
Even if we knew where all the stockpiles were, removing them and destroying them–presumably a process that would have to occur outside the country–would be an enormous undertaking that could easily involve thousands of foreign workers along with thousands, even tens of thousands, of soldiers to protect them. It is hard to imagine such an undertaking occurring in wartime; few if any nations will risk their troops on the ground in Syria to make the process possible and Syria’s government would be unlikely to grant them permission to do so.
 
This, then, is not a serious alternative to military action. It is a stalling tactic to allow Assad to retain his chemical-weapons capacity–and other weapons that have killed far more people. It is also a distraction from the real issue, which is not Assad’s chemical-weapons stockpile but the continuing existence of the Assad regime itself.
 
More than 100,000 people have already died in the Syrian civil war and more will continue to die as long as the Assad regime remains in power. There are admittedly real dangers in what post-Assad Syria will look like, but we already know what Syria under the Assad regime looks like today–it is a disaster, not only from a humanitarian but also from a strategic standpoint, because al-Qaeda is already consolidating control over parts of northern Syria while Iran is able to maintain a client regime in power in Damascus.
 
The U.S. policy should be not just the removal of the chemical-weapons stockpile but of the Assad regime itself. In fact Obama has said that is his goal–but he is not willing to take the actions necessary to bring it about. In the face of this leadership vacuum, it is hardly surprising that all sorts of odd ideas are being floated.

 
Any diplomatic initiative on Syria coming from Russia, whose UN votes have perpetuated Assad's killing machine for over two years, should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Nevertheless, the latest Russian proposal merits serious consideration.
 
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's proposal, which exploited an offhand remark by US Secretary of State John Kerry, calls for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal in exchange for a cancellation of the US military action against Syria being debated by Congress. Russian national interests underlie this proposal: helping Russia's last Mideast client state to survive, reinforcing the image of Russia as a Mideast power broker, and diminishing the perception that Russia supports chemical weapons use. But these interests intersect with US interests insofar as a diplomatic solution decreases the odds of an Islamist takeover of Syria (should US strikes actually alter the balance of power between the Syrian regime and the opposition) while possibly removing the need for potentially risky and costly US military action — without further undermining US credibility.
 
The humanitarian justification for intervention — with over two million Syrian refugees and 110,000 dead — grows stronger by the day. The geo-strategic reasons for US action are also manifest: Syria's chemical weapons could be used unpredictably by the Assad regime, its terrorist ally Hezbollah, or Islamist rebels; rogue regimes like North Korea and Iran will view US inaction as a green light to oppose US interests where they see fit (particularly with respect to their nuclear plans); and the toppling of Assad's regime — Iran's closest ally — would weaken the Iranian regime while signaling that it is next unless diplomacy quickly resolves the Iranian nuclear standoff.
 
But opinion polls have consistently revealed that the US public opposes involvement in the Syrian conflict. Had Obama shown more active and forceful leadership on the Syrian conflict back when the opposition was comprised mostly of secular rebels, it's unlikely that the tragedy — and related US policy options — would have deteriorated into what they are today. Had Obama not drawn a "red line" to show that the US still cares about international norms (particularly when their enforcement makes the US safer), the potential damage to US. credibility caused by inaction might not have been so great. Finally, had Obama strongly backed the Syrian rebels from the outset, Russia might not have opposed US interests as aggressively, US allies might have been more forthcoming with their support for any eventual military action, and Americans might not have reflected the ambivalence and confusion of their president when it comes to Syria.
 
Given these policy blunders and the unfortunate circumstances they produced, Obama's best move now is to explore the Russian proposal for the remote chance that it can improve the Syrian situation at little cost. Success would mean that Russia effectively enabled Obama to dodge the Syrian bullet. Failure would force Obama to return to the three bad options available before the Russian proposal: 1) stay out of the conflict (despite the damage to US credibility and the risk of an even bigger crisis requiring intervention later, 2) enter with the necessary strategy and commitment for victory, or, worst of all, 3) launch "symbolic strikes" that only boost Assad's standing (for successfully withstanding the "mighty" US before continuing with his murderous military campaign) and possibly draw the US into a much greater conflict on terms dictated by Assad, Hezbollah, and/or Iran.
 
Exploring the Russian diplomatic initiative offers two key advantages: 1) it will provide even greater legitimacy to any eventual US military strike, if the Syrian regime violates the terms of an agreement to destroy its chemical weapons, and 2) if properly executed, Syria's voluntary disarmament could actually be far more effective than military strikes, given the challenge of completely destroying all relevant targets comprising Syria's chemical arsenal and the attendant risks of military escalation and collateral damage. Moreover, if implementation of the Russian proposal actually eliminates Syria's chemical weapons, US deterrence will be somewhat restored, because the US will have demonstrated that it can rattle its saber and rally the international community to produce meaningful changes on the ground.
 
But to ensure that Russia's proposal isn't just a stalling tactic to benefit Assad, there should be very specific requirements and deadlines, any willful violation of which authorizes military action. The Assad regime must disclose a complete and accurate list of chemical weapons sites and materials, and this list must be verified and modified as needed using the best military intelligence available to the US and its allies. A timetable for the confirmed removal and destruction of all chemical weapons must involve just enough time for the disarmament to be done safely and should include detailed milestones that can be easily monitored.
 
The biggest challenge will be establishing an efficient and safe disarmament process that can be reasonably executed and verified in the middle of a civil war, while minimizing the opportunity for Syrian rebels to exploit the situation by trying to seize the chemical weapons and/or causing the Assad regime to violate its commitments under the disarmament schedule. Force might still be required to enforce any agreement with the ruthless and mendacious Assad regime, but the justification — and the domestic and international support — for military action will then be far greater.
 
The Russian proposal demonstrates what Obama himself acknowledged when discussing it: a credible military threat generates diplomatic openings that otherwise would not exist. Will Obama remember this truth when dealing with the far more serious threat of a nuclear Iran, looming just around the corner?
 
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

 

 
In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt told his speechwriter Sam Rosenman, “It’s a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and to find no one there.” For President Obama to have arrived at this place is uncomfortable but not unprecedented. Democratic majorities generally do not clamor for the application of violence in global affairs. Usually it is a president who sees a strategic problem requiring the use of force and must persuade his fellow citizens.
 
During his news conference following the Group of 20 summit in Russia, Obama’s reference to the example of FDR — trying to persuade a reluctant nation to help the British — was revealing. Roosevelt won the approval of historians by challenging, even circumventing, American resistance to war. His foreign-policy leadership consisted of opposing a shortsighted democratic consensus….
 
Obama affirmed in his news conference that he “was elected to end wars, not start them.” He then proceeded to show how unsuited his skills and strategies are to the task of beginning an armed conflict. His goal? To maintain an “international norm.” His current options? Not “appetizing.” His future methods? “Limited.” The level of opposition? “You know, our polling operations are pretty good.” His main argument? “I think that I have a well-deserved reputation for taking very seriously and soberly the idea of military engagement.”
 
So far, the president’s case for attacking Syria can be summarized as follows: Precisely because Obama has been hesitant and conflicted about intervention for two years, Americans should trust that the intervention he now proposes is unavoidable. His very ambivalence is the source of his credibility. And a war-weary nation can be assured that Obama has chosen minimal objectives and will employ minimal force — a strike Secretary of State John Kerry calls “unbelievably small.”
 
The questions arising from Congress and the public have been predictable. If the methods are so minimal, will they actually accomplish anything except risking retaliation? If the president is so ambivalent, why should people rally to his cause, particularly to the legal abstraction of enforcing a “norm”?
 
Obama’s approach represents a misunderstanding of wartime leadership. It is not possible for a president to justify the use of force by downplaying it. Americans support armed conflict when the stakes are highest, not when the costs are lowest. It is a tribute to their moral seriousness. There is no way for a president to accommodate American war weariness by setting “unbelievably small” goals; he must overcome it by explaining urgent, unavoidable national purposes. If Obama can’t define those purposes in Syria, his wartime leadership will not succeed.
 
He has a strong moral and strategic case to make. Bashar al-Assad is the author of poison gas attacks against children — the latest in a series of mass atrocities aimed at civilians. Tolerance for such butchery would be a source of historical shame and an invitation to future crimes. But this moral stand is located within a broader strategic argument. A dangerous alliance of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, with outside support from Russia, is seeking dominance in a region essential to U.S. interests. It is important to prevent their victory in the Syrian civil war and to avoid the destabilization of key allies. And it is necessary to make clear that Iran’s proxy, the Assad regime, cannot use weapons of mass destruction with impunity. For Congress to undercut Obama in his confrontation with Damascus would invite future miscalculations in Tehran.
 
The Obama administration already has elements of a regional strategy in place. It has imposed sanctions on the Assad regime and provided considerable aid to threatened neighbors. It is committed to training selected rebels. And it is hinting that strikes against Syrian targets may actually be larger than Kerry describes. “By degrading Assad’s capacity to deliver chemical weapons,” U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power recently argued, “we will also degrade his ability to strike at civilian populations by conventional means.” This sounds a lot like attacks on air bases, runways, aircraft and rocket launchers. It may be difficult, at this late date, to assemble these elements into a case that persuades Congress. But it is not even possible without the end of ambivalence.
 

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The civil war in Syria and the increasing fragility of Iraq have thrown the long-term future of these states into question. For years, they were ruled by brutal regimes that held power in the name of Arab nationalism; as a result, they failed to knit together the populations they ruled into a coherent national identity. With the decline of repressive centralized authority in Syria and Iraq, however, older nationalities and identities are reemerging. Chief among them are the Kurds. Indeed, current regional developments make Kurdish statehood a realistic possibility for the first time in living memory.
 
I have reported on a number of occasions from both Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan. I last visited these areas four months ago, and have an extensive network of friends and contacts there and in the wider Kurdish world. And it has become overwhelmingly clear to me that Kurdish sovereignty would be of benefit to the Kurds, the region as a whole, and Western interests in the Middle East. I find it unfortunate that the emerging Kurdish success story receives so little attention in the West—both among policymakers and the general public.
 
Kurdish statehood is good for the Kurds. It’s also good for the West.
The Kurds number around 30 million, and are generally considered to be the world’s largest stateless nation. A non-Semitic, non-Turkic people native to the Middle East, the Kurds believe themselves to be descendants of ancient Iranian tribes that predated the Turkish and Arab invasions.
 
When the Western powers carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, they promised the Kurds autonomy in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. Subsequent resistance to the treaty by the Turkish nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal led to its renegotiation at Lausanne in 1923, where the West recognized the borders of the new Turkish republic. As a result, the Kurds found themselves divided between the post-Ottoman states of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, with a small population in Iran.
 
Kurdish politics have been labyrinthine and divided ever since. No single, united pan-Kurdish national movement exists or has ever existed. Instead, the separated Kurdish populations each developed political movements of their own.
 
Unsurprisingly, the Kurds have developed a long tradition of heroic defeat over the course of the 20th century. Modern Kurdish nationalists like to trace the origins of their movement to the short-lived Mahabad Republic, the first attempt at Kurdish statehood. Officially known as the Republic of Kurdistan, it was declared in the Iranian city of Mahabad in early 1946, and was crushed by the Iranian army several months later.
 
The leader of the fleeting republic’s armed forces was Mulla Mustafa Barzani, an Iraqi Kurd and father of Massoud Barzani, the current president of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Kurdish agitation and uprisings continued under Barzani family leadership for years afterward. Most significantly, Mustafa Barzani led an unsuccessful military campaign in northern Iraq from 1961-70.
 
In 1983, the Iraqi Kurds rose up yet again, now led by Massoud Barzani and his Kurdish Democratic Party, in alliance with the younger Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani. This uprising was brutally crushed by Saddam Hussein in the infamous “Anfal” campaign, during which Hussein used poison gas against the civilians of the village Halabja in 1988, killing 3-5,000 people.
 
After the First Gulf War in 1991, a Kurdish autonomous zone was created in northern Iraq. Since the 2003 US invasion, this zone has emerged as a quasi-sovereign entity, with its own armed forces, political system, and economic interests. Traveling there today is to witness a little-known Mideast success story in the midst of regional chaos and meltdown. The autonomous zone is the most peaceful part of Iraq, and the absence of political violence is encouraging investment. Erbil, the capital city, feels like a boom town. There are construction cranes everywhere and brand new SUVs on the streets. Exxon Mobil has signed an agreement with the KRG to search for oil and develop an energy industry in the zone. The US, France, and a number of other countries now have consulates in the capital.
 
But Kurdish politics don’t start and finish in northern Iraq. The second major nationalist movement began with a 1984 uprising led by the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK) in southeast Turkey, with the goal of founding a Kurdish state. The rebellion and the Turkish response to it went on to claim more than 40,000 lives. But this year, a ceasefire was declared and a peace process begun in hopes of ending the conflict.
 
Meanwhile, the Syrian civil war has led to the emergence of a Kurdish-ruled enclave in the northeast of the country. This area is controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD), an offshoot of the PKK. This embryonic autonomous zone is poorer and more fragile than its Iraqi counterpart. But it too is the quietest and most peaceful part of that war-torn country. PYD-imposed authority is ubiquitous. The Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People’s Protection Units or YPG) militia does as much as possible to prevent the entry of both Islamist rebels and Assad regime soldiers. The militia and the Kurdish security service, the Asayish, maintain an extensive presence and a firm grip on the area.
 
It is very telling that the Kurdish areas in both Syria and Iraq have become destinations for Arab refugees from elsewhere in these countries. There is a simple reason for this: Generally speaking, where the Kurds are in control, things stay quiet.
 
The turbulent events of the last decade have brought an unexpected bonanza for the Kurds. Two powerful—if very different—Kurdish autonomous zones have emerged out of the collapsing societies of Iraq and Syria, while Turkey’s Kurds are engaged in negotiations to advance their rights. Only the Kurds of Iran remain firmly behind prison walls.
The question before the Kurds today is how to consolidate these gains and build on them. It is rarely discussed openly, but looming above it all is the question of Kurdish statehood and what it would mean for both the Kurds and the region in general. Will the Kurds continue to develop their quasi-states while avoiding a direct push toward sovereignty? Or are events leading inexorably toward Kurdish independence, with the resulting partition of Iraq and Syria?
 
The road to sovereignty for the Kurds remains strewn with obstacles. Not least among them is the absence of a united Kurdish national movement. As outlined above, there are two main forces in Kurdish politics today. One of them derives from the Iraqi Kurdish experience, the other from that of Turkey. In recent years, each of these factions has made considerable progress toward forming rival “pan-Kurdish” movements.
 
The first of these is Massoud Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party in Iraq. While the KDP is based in northern Iraq, it maintains smaller offshoots and sister parties in both Syria and Iran. The second is the PKK, still officially headed by its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan. Until recently, it was for all practical purposes led by Murat Karayilan, its commander in the Qandil mountains area, and is now headed by movement veteran Cemil Bayek. This movement and its various front organizations are the dominant force among both the Kurds of Turkey and the Kurdish autonomous zone in Syria. The PKK also has sister organizations among the Kurds of Iran and northern Iraq.
 
The KDP and the PKK have very different visions of the Kurdish future. The KDP is a traditional, conservative organization; it is pro-Western, pro-business, and pro-American in outlook, rooted in the clan and tribal structures of Iraqi Kurdish life. Its leader, after all, is a scion of the most prominent family in Iraqi Kurdish politics.
 
The PKK, by contrast, is a leftist organization, with its roots in the radical ferment of Turkey in the 1970s. Ocalan, its founder, is from a poor rural family. Although the movement has come a long way from its early days, it still represents a distinct, secular leftist nationalism of a type rarely found in today’s Middle East.
 
This is reflected in its very progressive approach to the role of women in society and politics, which is in stark contrast to the surrounding culture. Women, for example, serve in frontline units of PKK militias. This is not the case with the Pesh Merga, the armed forces of Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous zone.
 
Both of these movements are political-military organizations, and suffer from the authoritarian tendencies inherent in such groups. There have been verified instances of political repression in both the Kurdish zones of northern Iraq and northeast Syria.
 
The PKK remains on US and EU lists of terrorist organizations. But this designation is more a concession to Turkish sensibilities and interests than an objective assessment of the group’s current modus operandi. Whatever may have been the case in the past, the PKK today is a guerrilla organization at war with Turkish security forces, not a group that deliberately targets civilians.
 
Neither the KDP nor the PKK is openly committed to the achievement of Kurdish statehood, albeit for very different reasons. Iraqi Kurdish officials will privately concede that an independent Kurdish state is their goal, but stress the difficulties of achieving it and the need for a pragmatic, cautious strategy. Some PKK members speak in similar terms, but others stress the views of their leader Ocalan, who is opposed to very idea of the nation-state and advocates a system of “democratic autonomy” or “radical democracy” for the entire Middle East.
 
These two very different movements are set to dominate the next and possibly decisive chapter in the modern political history of the Kurds.
Neither of these movements is going to replace or defeat the other; so the future of the Kurds is likely to depend on whether they can find a way to cooperate. This will probably be difficult, however, because of the KRG’s burgeoning strategic relationship with Turkey.
 
For decades, the Turks have seen Kurdish national aspirations as an anathema, but this is no longer entirely the case. Over the last few years, Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish government have been building a close relationship based on mutual interests. Turkey currently relies on Russia and Iran for its oil supplies, and has deteriorating strategic relations with both. At the same time, the Kurdish zone is rich in oil and borders on Turkey. As a result, Turkey has recently been making private agreements with the Iraqi Kurds for the purchase of crude oil supplies. This is despite vocal objections from the US—which is opposed to any attempt by the Kurdish autonomous zone to secede from Iraq—and, of course, opposition from the central government in Baghdad.
 
The main obstacles to the burgeoning alliance between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds are the future status of Turkey’s Kurds and the Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria, which shares a long border with Turkey. The situation is even more complex because the PKK uses the Qandil Mountains, which are under the control of the Iraqi Kurds, as a base for its insurgency against Turkey. Although the Kurdish zone’s government does not officially sanction the presence of the PKK, it does nothing to prevent it.
 
The emergence of a Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria helped push Turkey toward resolving its long conflict with the PKK. Should open hostilities resume, however, there is a real possibility that the long border controlled by the Syrian Kurdish zone and the Assad regime will be used as a base for attacks on Turkey. Partly as a result, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has entered into peace negotiations with the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan; but talks have rapidly run aground. In mid-July, with the peace process frozen, the Kurdish leadership in northeast Syria declared an “interim administrative body” in the area under its control, alarming the Turkish government.
 
Relations between the Iraqi autonomous zone and its Syrian counterpart are similarly fraught; partly because of their differing relationships with Turkey. The Iraqi Kurds control the border between their own territory and that of the Syrian Kurds. When I crossed this border in March 2013 with a group of Syrian Kurdish fighters, it was necessary to avoid Iraqi Kurdish forces deployed along the border. At the same time, however, it was clear that a sort of ambiguous live-and-let-live attitude existed between the two groups, with each doing its best to ignore the other.
 
There is no likelihood of armed confrontation between these two nascent Kurdistans. But because of the role played by Turkey, unification seems equally elusive. The Iraqi Kurds needs their flourishing relationship with Turkey in order to continue on its path toward greater autonomy and possible independence. The PKK, however, has been at war with Turkey since 1984. For the Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish zones to unify, the PKK must move toward rapprochement with Turkey. This means that Turkey has an effective veto over Kurdish unity and possible independence. To achieve their goals, the PKK and the Iraqi Kurds must find a way to neutralize it.
 
One way to do so would be for the US and other Western powers to support Kurdish sovereignty as a legitimate goal. This would pave the way for greater Western investment and diplomatic support for Kurdish goals and weaken Turkey’s ability to snuff out a Kurdish bid for independence. A second way is, of course, Kurdish unity. The establishment of a single “national congress”-type organization could defeat Turkey’s strategy of divide and rule. An upcoming conference in Erbil is intended to lay the foundation for such an organization. It remains to be seen if it will succeed.
 
If Kurdish unity and a strategy for statehood cannot be achieved, the most likely result is two Kurdish quasi-states, existing on adjoining territories but unable to maintain good relations with each other or achieve complete sovereignty. Such quasi-states have become a familiar feature of the Middle East and the post-Cold War world in general. They combine de facto sovereignty with an absence of international recognition. Hamas has been running such an entity in the Gaza Strip since 2007. The Hezbollah state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon is arguably another example—though in that case the quasi-state appears to have largely devoured the legitimate state.
 
The problem with such entities is that while they can survive on the basis of their monopoly on the use of force, they cannot thrive. Their uncertain status precludes the development of their economies or their civil and political institutions. As a result, they also tend to become centers of paramilitary and criminal activity, such as Gaza and Lebanon, as well as Kosovo, Bosnian Serbia, and Transnistria.
 
The Middle East remains beset by deeply problematic political trends that undermine political stability and economic development. Extremist political Islam, deeply rooted anti-Western sentiment, widespread and pervasive anti-Semitism, and hostility to non-Muslim minorities are all on the rise across the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey.
 
In this context, the Kurds represent an anomaly. There is no need to romanticize either the Iraqi zone’s government or the PKK in order to see this. Each of these entities has their own problems. They show certain authoritarian tendencies and the enclaves they rule are unlikely to resemble US or EU-style democracies any time in the near future. But Kurdish political culture is largely free of the kind of extreme dysfunction noted above.
 
Political Islam exists among the Kurds, but because of the predominance of ethnic identification, it has demonstrably less appeal than among other Mideast peoples. That the two primary rivals in Kurdish politics are both secular nationalist movements is proof of this. In the Iraqi zone, Islamist parties support the Gorran movement, a reformist party that does not even profess political Islam; which testifies to the relative weakness of the area’s Islamic movement. In Syrian Kurdistan, there is no identifiable Islamist movement, and the its militia has been actively engaged in combat with Syrian rebel groups associated with Al Qaeda.
 
The Kurds are also notably less hostile to the West than many others in the region. For the most part, their grievances are directed not against the US or Europe, but the local oppressors of the Kurds. Indeed, other than Israel, the KRG in northern Iraq is the most pro-Western of all the non-monarchical governments in the region. The ruling KDP is openly and outspokenly pro-Western and pro-American. And unlike the Arab monarchies, its pro-Western orientation is deeply rooted in popular sentiment.
 
The PKK, however, is more of a question mark. Due to Turkey’s de facto veto over Kurdish independence and the lack of Western support for the Kurdish cause, the PKK might turn toward Turkey’s main rival for support—Iran. This would be a disaster, and an entirely unnecessary one. Western support for Kurdish national aspirations would almost certainly prevent it.
The moral and strategic case for Kurdish sovereignty is therefore a strong one. Western endorsement of the principle of Kurdish statehood, removal of the PKK from lists of terror organizations, and the development of closer relations with the Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish enclaves could help break the current stalemate on the issue.
 
There is neither benefit nor justice in a situation where the legitimate national aspirations of a largely pro-Western people are subject to the veto of the Islamist prime minister of Turkey. This is particularly the case given that Prime Minister Erdogan is adopting an increasingly problematic stance vis-a-vis the West and more and more repressive domestic policies.
 
Other opponents of Kurdish statehood include the Maliki government in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and Islamist groups among the Syrian rebels. Maliki and Assad are both clients of Iran, and the former is actively aiding the latter in his fight for survival. The Syrian rebels are Islamists and Arab nationalists who are determined to maintain the unity of the Syrian state. All of these forces are hostile to the West, and acquiescence to their rejection of Kurdish rights makes little or no sense.
 
The Middle East is in the midst of enormous historic changes, and the Kurds stand to be one of the main beneficiaries. Kurdish sovereignty would mean the establishment of a strong, pro-Western state in Middle East that is likely to be characterized by pragmatism, stable governance, and a pro-Western strategic outlook. It would also possess substantial natural resources and a mobilized populace willing to defend it. A Kurdish state in northern Iraq, moreover, would likely absorb the Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria, effectively breaking up Iraq and Syria—two failed states that have been a byword for war, repression, and terrorism for most of the last fifty years.
 
In order for this to happen, however, the US must adopt Kurdish sovereignty as a strategic goal. At the moment, caution, timidity, and the desire to withdraw from the region make this unlikely. The last of these is probably the most difficult to overcome. After all, if the US and other Western nations do not want to be involved in the Middle East, then there is no point in supporting the emergence of a pro-Western ally in the region. But recent events in Syria and Egypt have shown what happens when the West fails to cultivate allies or abandons reliable clients in the region: Chaos.
 
Moreover, the forces ready and willing to replace the US as the region’s strategic hegemon—above all, Iran and Russia—do not intend to manage it as custodians of order and stability. Their interest is in the promotion of movements and regimes aligned with them and hostile to the West. At the same time, the rise of the anti-Western Sunni Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic extremists with the support of Turkey and Qatar is leading to war and disorder across the eastern Mediterranean.
 
A sovereign Kurdish state could be a powerful bulwark against such disorder and a solid, pro-Western ally in this most troubled of regions. It would also realize the Kurds’ desire for long-delayed historic justice. It is an idea whose time has come.
 
Jonathan Spyer is a Senior Fellow at the Inter-Disciplinary Center at Herzliya.

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