Daily Times

The Kurds as we know, thanks to the Sykes-Picot order that drafted the modern day map of the Middle East after World War I, are the largest stateless people in the world. The Kurds are spread between four nations in the region — Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey — along with a wider Kurdish diaspora dispersed mostly across Europe. Kurds have long dreamed of having their own homeland “Kurdistan,” and for that they sacrificed a great deal and collaborated with many regional and world powers. But Kurds were betrayed by almost all the powers with whom they partnered.

Recently, Turkish armour and soldiers rolled into northern Syria with America’s tacit support to push back Kurdish gains. The Kurds saw it perhaps prematurely as a replay of a century of betrayal by world powers going back to the end of World War I when they were promised and then denied their own state in the post-war settlement. The Kurdish national motto “The Kurds Have No Friends” is proving to be particularly apt in the current scenario. Especially the Syrian Kurds, who have been the most effective US ally in the war against ISIS in Syria, now see themselves as possible victims of international betrayal.

If we see the history of Kurds it is full of deception by others to them. At the end of World War I when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Treaty of Sevres recognised the Kurds’ right to their own state, and the then US president Woodrow Wilson pledged to support its creation within two years. But it never happened. Then at the end of World War II, Kurds in northern Iran briefly set up their own state called the Mahabad Republic, which offered them a brief taste of freedom. But the government in Tehran soon crushed this experiment, with the backing of the US and Britain. Qadhi Muhammad, the republic’s elected president, was publicly hanged along with several other Kurdish leaders.

The Kurds were betrayed again in 1991 just following the end of the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussain vented his bloody revenge against them, much the same as he did in March 1988, when 6,000 Kurdish civilians were killed in a gas attack in Halabja.

The Kurds are being betrayed again now in the Syrian conflict. In Syrian arena Kurds are now on the receiving end from everywhere. They are being attacked by Turkey, Syrian opposition backed by Turkey and Gulf States, ISIS and the Assad government.

Syria’s Kurds have been among the bravest and most effective forces in the war against the Islamic State. Moreover, the Kurds are the most pro-American people in the entire Middle East. They are more pro-American than the Israelis. It is a hard fact that the Syrian Kurdish militia, YPG, is the only military force in Syria to have carried out a humanitarian operation, rescuing thousands of sick and dying Yazidis in the Sinjar region from further massacres and other outrages, including the kidnapping of young girls, by IS terrorists in the winter of 2015. But despite all this, the Kurds are now abandoned by the world powers to fight on their own against all odds in Syria’s complicated battlefield. Once it was evident that the Kurds may be on the verge of achieving their century-old quest for independence in the Middle East undergoing the convulsions of Syria’s civil war, Iraq’s destabilisation, and conflict with the self-proclaimed Islamic State. But now Kurds are finding it very hard to safeguard the gains that they have made as they are left alone by the forces that once used them for their interest.

There is no doubt that the Kurds’ military capabilities and successes have strengthened their role on the international stage. Enhanced cooperation and recognition, however, have not yet translated into political backing but remain at a military level. The reluctance of western governments, such as the United States and United Kingdom, to embrace Kurdish advances toward independence or greater autonomy raise further questions of how these governments will act once ISIS is defeated and Kurdish military support no longer needed. In essence, the Kurds are the victims of an ugly, ruthless pincer movement, facing assault from every direction. But up to some extent, the Kurds themselves are also responsible for this kind of treatment to them. Weak leadership and antagonism between competing factions, often deliberately exacerbated by outside intervention, have greatly weakened the Kurds’ fight for freedom over the past several decades. The Kurdish people would need to rely on their own struggle, not Washington’s or Moscow’s false promises, in order to win their liberation.

The Kurds should also convince the international community that as they are religiously diverse moderates who prioritise their ethno-linguistic identity over religion, a Kurdish state would help to balance out the radical Mideast forces in both the Shiite and Sunni camps. For that Kurds have to run a very effective and extensive propaganda internationally.

The writer is a columnist for Middle East and Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and Editor, ViewsAround, a geopolitical news agency. He can be reached at manishraiva@gmail.com