The New Anatolian, Turkey
Aug 17 2006
Opinions
Maps and illusions
by Cem Oguz
I read retired U.S. Col. Ralph Peters’ scholarly article on the
adjustment of Middle Eastern borders on the first day it was published
in the Armed Forces Journal nearly a month ago.
At the time, however, I humbly didn’t deign to touch on that esteemed
and unique piece of mental effort.
The reason I refrained was not because the ideas forwarded by Peters
are absurd. Supposedly Peters is one of those "brilliant" experts in
the U.S. who, in contrast to such illiterate mortals as ourselves, has
managed to grasp precisely the very essence of Middle Eastern dynamics
as well as its problems.
I didn’t comment straightaway because I wanted to see how Washington
would inevitably respond. That response, though amusing and far from
convincing, was not late in coming: The U.S. Embassy in Ankara issued
a statement on Aug. 3 emphasizing that neither the author nor the
publication had any affiliation with the U.S. government and that the
opinions in the article "in no way" reflected U.S. policy.
Can we then consider the file closed?
Not at all
Peters’ line of thinking is increasingly coming to represent a new
trend in Washington: A blindly emotional and idealized Kurdophilism
among a newly emerging, but for the time being very narrow, group,
most members of which have served or are still serving in Iraq, for
the Pentagon in particular. One important element of such sentiments
is unfortunately a rapidly growing Turcophobia, apparently stemming
from turbulences in bilateral relations ever since the Turkish
Parliament’s rejection of the Bush administration’s request to permit
the transit of U.S. troops (March 1, 2003). The fact that Turkey has
been made a scapegoat for failures in Iraq is another factor that
strengthens this psychological state.
Let’s analyze how this line of thinking is trying to justify itself
within the framework of Peters’s arguments in the said article.
According to this eminent Middle East expert, "The region’s
comprehensive failure isn’t Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct
international boundaries worshipped by [their] own diplomats."
Presumably, "the most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust
lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of
an independent Kurdish state."
So far there is intellectually nothing worth criticizing and the
arguments seem to be nothing more than wishful thinking. The problem,
at least for me, surfaces when Peters unperturbedly dares to claim
subsequently that "the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as
occupied territory." He eventually elaborates on how the Kurds are
suppressed by Turks. To justify his thoughts in that regard, Peters
chooses to resort to playing that popular anti-Turkish card, namely
the alleged Armenian genocide, saying, "And one haunting wrong can
never be redressed with a reward of territory: The genocide
perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire."
He then astutely argues, "The current human divisions and forced
unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region’s
self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious
extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as
anyone could design." However, a "Free Kurdistan, stretching from
Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between
Bulgaria and Japan." In fact, "Iraq should have been divided into
three smaller states immediately after Baghdad’s fall."
He finally lists Turkey as one of the losers in the future he foresees
and forwards the map he suggests as the "new Middle East." on this
map, Turkey’s entire eastern Anatolian territory is part of "Free
Kurdistan."
I am pretty sure that my sensible friends, those from the
U.S. included, will criticize me by saying that arguments like Peters’
are nonsense; commenting on them is only wasting time. If it was just
this one map, I could definitely agree with them.
A short while ago, I saw a map which I was told was hanging on the
walls of official buildings in northern Iraq. Much to my "surprise," I
found out that the map Peters suggests is almost the same as the one
prepared by our Kurdish neighbors. The only exception is their
inclusion of Hatay, a city just next to Syria, into greater Kurdistan
as well. Those who know how lobbying in the U.S. political system
works would better understand what kind of relationships might have
played a role behind the collusion of both maps.
The solution the U.S. government has suggested for terrorist Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq is always the same:
Cooperation with the Iraqi authorities, our Kurdish friends
included. At a recent press conference, U.S. Ambassador to Ankara Ross
Wilson stated that the U.S. government would be following up in the
coming days "with the same sense of urgency" that Turkey attaches to
ending PKK terrorism. He, too, suggested consultations as well as
cooperation between the U.S., Turkish and Iraqi
authorities. Nevertheless, he also confessed that the meetings of this
trilateral mechanism "have not been as productive as [they] would have
liked them to be."
Could Mr. Ambassador please tell me whether he sincerely believes that
these meetings in such circumstances will yield any results? If one of
these meetings is held in northern Iraq in the coming days, will these
maps hang on the walls of the office where the delegations will
gather? In what respect is the situation different from Syria where
maps claiming Hatay as part of their territory were hanging on the
walls of official buildings? Given this backdrop, is trust indeed
possible?
Last, but not least, will our American friends, who have repeatedly
accused the Turkish state of acting too passively to rising
anti-U.S. feeling in Turkey, be lifting a finger to deal with the
growing anti-Turkish bias in their own country? Or are such absurd
considerations indeed part of plans for "a new Middle East"?