It’s Just the Kurds Against the World: How the West and the Middle East have failed the Kurdish Nation

Layout by Elle Bixby

On October 6th 2019, then-President Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw United States military troops and aid from northeastern Syria, leaving the Kurds, an essential ally in the fight against the Islamic State, on their own and at the mercy of attacks from Turkey. This sudden step back from the West was another move in destabilizing an already fragile geopolitical climate in the region. Indeed, in the days that followed US withdrawal, the Turkish military attacked Kurdish territories in Turkey and northern Syria. This was another episode in the ongoing struggle of the Kurdish nation, scattered across four countries with borders arbitrarily drawn by former colonial powers.

According to Juan Cole and Deniz Kandyoti, “the modern nation is made up of citizens with an affective and imaginative commitment to identity with co-citizens” and "a state that governs a particular territory and strives to impose a common identity on all citizens through state education, usually focusing on linguistic unity.” However, they also write that “originally, the word ‘nation’ simply meant a ‘people’ or a ‘race’ (Cole, Kandyoti; 190).’” This last definition applies to the Kurds, who constituted themselves “on claims of common descent, common language” and “some other set of commonalities that were felt to set them apart in some way from other such groups (Cole, Kandyoti; 191),” but who do not possess an officially recognized state. The Kurds are an ethnic group of 25 to 35 million people mainly living in a region known as Kurdistan, a territory spreading through four countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey. 

While these states were born in the aftermath of World War I through the mandate system and progressive decolonization, the Kurdish people, despite their nationalist aspirations, did not benefit from the same fate. As Lust explains, “the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne formalized the mandate system, and it recognized the borders of the new Turkish Republic,” thus ending “any hope for independent Kurdish and Armenian states as part of the Great War settlement (Lust; 30).” Whereas an Armenian nation-state has since emerged out of the ruins of the Soviet Empire in 1991, the Kurds have never been able to change their fate, torn between four countries.

The Kurds were arguably the most neglected nation in the Middle East by European powers during the post-World War I mandate system: “the ethnically distinct Kurdish population who mainly live in the southeast of the country faced the greatest difficulties in the new era (Lust; 44).” With the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire, “the sultan reluctantly signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, ceding huge swaths of territory to Britain, Italy, Greece, and France and tacitly agreeing to the establishment of Kurdish and Armenian states on former Ottoman territory (Lust; 42).” But things did not go that way for the Kurds. Indeed, while “at one point after World War I, there was some momentum to create a Kurdish mandate and eventually a state,” despite “resistance from the Great Powers who would have had to cede parts of their newly won territories scuttled those ideas (Lust; 44),” that momentum never capitalized. Kemalism brought continuous and concentrated state repression onto them. “For decades, Turkey relentlessly suppressed Kurdish language and culture (Lust; 44).” In fact, the well-known secular legislation outlawing traditional dress in Turkey “was aimed primarily at the Kurds, and until recently it was illegal to teach or even speak Kurdish in Turkey (Lust; 44).” 

The Kurds have also been subject to struggles with the other countries that its territory overlaps with. In Iran, Lust writes that the “late 1940s and early 1950s was a period of rising discontent and nationalist agitation (Lust; 47)” under Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule. The Kurdish people speak “an Indo-European language from the Iranian branch that is far more similar to Farsi than it is to Turkish (Lust; 47),” and unlike in the other Kurdish-populated countries, there are strong ties between the Kurds and Iran’s cultural and ethnolinguistical heritage. Despite those ties however, Kurds have nourished nationalist aspirations in Iran and often been at the heart of foreign intervention turmoil. During the Iran crisis of 1946 for example, the Soviets, who occupied the north and hoped to expand the territory they controlled, “encouraged Kurdish nationalists to establish their own short-lived Republic of Mahabad (Lust; 47).” While Iran has always been opposed to any suggestion of Kurdish separatism, successive Iranian governments and regimes never employed the same level of brutality against Kurds in their country as Turkey and Iraq. 

The Kurds in Iraq have undergone relentless oppression from the state. Lust writes that after World War I and the creation of the British mandate in Iraq, “in the semi-autonomous Kurdish north, the British devolved administrative and legal authority to Kurdish tribal leaders and other important figures such as sufi shaykhs in exchange for pledges of loyalty (Lust; 31).” With the 14 July Revolution in 1958, Abd el-Karim Qasim became Prime Minister of Iraq. While the Kurds were mostly left unscathed by the Hashemite monarchy that preceded, “the Qasim government soon took a more independent line and adopted a hybrid Iraqi-Arab nationalist position (Lust; 51).” These ideological commitments and the general low tolerance for opposition, “led the postrevolutionary Iraqi state into almost constant strife with Kurdish nationalists (Lust; 51).” While Qasim committed to ensuring Kurdish regional autonomy, he never fulfill his promise leading to a rebellion against his government by the Kurds and their militia, the Peshmerga. The Ba’athist government, which toppled Qasim, similarly duped the Kurds, and again, a rebellion broke out in 1974 and faced severe repression by Saddam Hussein’s government. “Only in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 did Iraqi Kurdistan finally gain officially recognized status in the new federal system (Lust; 53).” Whether it is in Iran with the Soviets or Iraq with the British, the Kurds have always been subject to geopolitical turmoil involving foreign states and oppression from the countries they inhabit.

            In the fight against the Islamic State since 2014, the Kurds have been the most vital ally and the foot soldiers of the United States and its coalition. The Peshmerga, trained and logistically supported by the US military, have taken upon themselves to roll back the jihadists and liberate their strongholds in Iraq and Syria. But President Trump’s October 2019 decision was yet another example of rushed and reckless foreign policy decision from the United States in the Middle East and backstabbing of a precious and decisive ally. As soon as ISIS seemed virtually defeated, the United States withdrew from Syria, leaving the Kurds without protection and giving Turkey the greenlight to attack them. What was meant to happen, happened. The days that followed US withdrawal, Erdogan ordered his military to strike Kurdish territories, killing and injuring civilians and undoing the work that took the US-coalition five years to complete. Indeed, with Kurdish territories in a state of chaos, many imprisoned ISIS fighters fled their jails. This counterproductive decision hurt not only the Kurds but the credibility of the United States, as they indirectly let jihadists loose, endangering local populations and its national security. When the Kurds had hoped that their sacrifice in the fight against ISIS could pave a path towards self-governance backed by the United States, the Kurdish nation was betrayed by the West, much like it was with the post-World War I European mandate system.

            The Kurds are often referred to as “the world’s largest nation without a state.” The struggles they have endured throughout the 20th century and since the beginning of the 21th  century have only fortified their unity, common heritage, and desire for an autonomous state. With their fragile semi-autonomy in Iraq and self-rule in Syria, endangered by the United States withdrawal from the country, the Kurdish nation’s hope for an independent state seems to be more of a distant dream than an attainable objective. Only if the West follows through with its promises, can the Kurds finally hope to one day form a nation-state.

Works Cited:

Cole, Juan and Deniz Kandiyoti. 2002. “Nationalism and the Colonial Legacy in the Middle East and Central Asia: Introduction.” International Journal of Middle East Studies

“The Modern Middle East, 14th Edition,” Ellen Lust, 2016

“Who Are the Kurds?” BBC News, BBC, 15 Oct. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29702440  

“Kurdish Politician among Nine Civilians Shot Dead by pro-Turkey Forces in Syria.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Oct. 2019, www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/female-kurdish-politician-among-nine-civilians-killed-by-pro-turkey-forces-in-syria-observers-say.

Berger, Miriam. “Here's What We Know about the ISIS Prisons Controlled by the Syrian Kurds.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 14 Oct. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/12/inside-isis-prisons-controlled-by-syrian-kurds. 

Leduc, Sarah. “The Kurds: The World's Largest Stateless Nation.” France 24, France 24, 30 July 2015, www.france24.com/en/20150730-who-are-kurds-turkey-syria-iraq-pkk-divided.

Engel, Richard, et al. “Kurdish Leader Says Trump Promised He Would Protect the Kurds.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 17 Oct. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/kurdish-leader-says-trump-promised-he-would-protect-kurds-n1068071.