1. "Iran training Kurds for counter insurgency", The pro-PKK/Kongra-Gel "Ozgur Politika" and "Ortadogu," an Istanbul daily that supports the right-wing Nationalist Action Party, reported on 6 November that the Iranian government intends to use Kurdish tribesmen as militiamen.

2."Corpses of 11 Kurdish villagers detained by Turkish Military found in mass grave", A mass grave was uncovered in an arable field of Kulp, in Diyarbakir province. It is claimed that the corpses belong to villagers taken into custody during an operation by Turkish Army forces in 1993.

3. "3 Kurds beheaded in Northern Iraq", In Mousul, the 3rd biggest city of Iraq and located in the North, where the danger of internal war is experienced 3 Kurds beheaded by Iraqi militants obtaining major sovereignty over the region.

4. "U.S.-Turkey alliance; It ain't what it used to be", For more than four decades in the last century, Turkey was America's first frontier.

5. "Chirac points to third way on Turkey", French President Jacques Chirac has pointed to a third way for Turkey, which would see it have a strong link to the EU but not actual membership.

6. "Mosul quickly becoming a trouble spot", Violence in Iraq's north shows rebels far from crushed. As Iraqi leaders trumpeted a swift victory in Fallujah, guerrillas pressed their claim Sunday on the northern city of Mosul, which is fast becoming Iraq's newest front.

7. "Kurds should not let language deepen divisions", A disturbing trend has arisen: few young Kurds speak Arabic. Instead, they learn English as their second language.

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1. RFE/RL (KurdishMedia) - Iran training Kurds for counter insurgency

15 November 2004 / By Bill Samii

The pro-PKK/Kongra-Gel "Ozgur Politika" and "Ortadugu," an Istanbul daily that supports the right-wing Nationalist Action Party, reported on 6 November that the Iranian government intends to use Kurdish tribesmen as militiamen.

Iranian officials are quoted as having told their Turkish counterparts that they will train, arm, and pay the Kurds. "Ozgur Politika" added that these forces are cooperating with Iran’s Intelligence and Security Ministry, they will be used against Kurdish insurgents, and this is part of an earlier Iran-Turkey joint security operation.

"The Boston Globe" on 7 November cited PUK officials who charged that Iran is aiding members of the Kurdish Ansar Al-Islam group and Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s group in Iraq.

A firefight erupted between Iranian soldiers and eight men with the PKK/Kongra Gel, the Baztab website reported on 9 November, and one soldier was wounded. The incident occurred in the Dalman region near the West Azerbaijan Province city of Urumiyeh. According to Baztab, PKK splinter groups sometimes infiltrate to extort food or money from villagers.

Tehran’s imputed actions could be linked with a report in the 28 June issue of "The New Yorker" suggesting that Israeli military and intelligence specialists are training Kurdish commandos and have penetrated Iranian territory to install devices that target suspected Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran’s arming of villagers in the northwest and forming them into civil-defense units could have another explanation. An identical development took place along the eastern borders several years ago (see "RFE/RL Iran Report," 18 September and 30 October 2000), and the creation of such units is a common counterinsurgency tool.

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2. Azadiya Welat (KurdishMedia) - Corpses of 11 Kurdish villagers detained by Turkish Military found in mass grave

DIYARBAKIR / 15 November 2004

Diyarbakir -- A mass grave was uncovered in an arable field of Kulp, in Diyarbakir province. It is claimed that the corpses belong to villagers taken into custody during an operation by Turkish Army forces in 1993. No information about these people has been received since their arrest. The remains and contents of thegrave have been delivered to the public prosecutor.

Inhabitants of Alacakoy village notified the Diyarbakir brach of the Human Rights Association (IHD) on 2 November that they had found the grave of relatives who disappeared after being taken into custody by the Turkish Army in 1993 during an operation in which villages were burned to force the villagers to leave the area. A delegation organized by the Human Rights Association to investigate the claims went to the aforementioned area on 4 November and attained the remains and clothing of those buried at the site. The delegation documented with photographs and video recordings.

BRUTALITY

According to the statement of Süleyman Yamuk, who filed the applicatuion to IHD, troops from the Kulp Gendarmary Commandary raided the village in October 1993.

The villagers called: Mehmet Sah Atala, Nusrettin Yerlikaya, Turan Demir, Behçet Tutus, Bahri Simsek, Serif ve Hasan Avar, M. Salih Akdeniz, Celil Aydogdu, Umit Tas and Abdi Yamuk were taken into custody.

The 11 detained villagers were taken to Keper arable field, far from the village -- almost 20 minutes, and held for ten days with their hands tied and not allowed to stand up. During those ten days the relatives were allowed to take some food to the eleven persons. The last day the soldiers ordered not to bring food anymore. Subsequently, another military operation occurred and the village was burnt and the villagers forced to flee. Some of the villagers were not able to take belongings from their buildings.

No further contact was made with the 11 detained villagers. And the Alacakoy authorities pronounced the region a forbidden military zone until 2001, during which time it was impossible to discover their fate or find their bodies.

Eventually the villagers applied to the European Court of Human Rights in Strassbourg. After the Court examined the case, Turkey was convicted and sentenced. But the fate of the villagers was still not clear.

THE FAMILIES DIAGNOSED

One IHD official, Mehdi Perincek, who participated in the delegation says: "We were confronted with a shocking sight. There were human remains and clothing. When we removed the remnants of a shirt perceptible under the soil, one family member with us said that her husband was wearing the shirt when he was detained."

REMAINS IN THE GRAVE DELIVERED TO PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Perincek said, "We met Public Prosecutor Hakan Ali Erkan and gave him the remains and clothing we found in the grave. He said he would send them to Mus (nearest city) with a request for DNA testing."

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3. - DIHA - 3 Kurds beheaded in Northern Iraq

MUSUL / 15 November 2004

In Mousul, the 3rd biggest city of Iraq and located in the North, where the danger of internal war is experienced 3 Kurds beheaded by Iraqi militants obtaining major sovereignty over the region. It has been reported that upon US military operations Islamic fundamentalists beheaded 3 Kurds taken prisoner. The corpses of the 3 were found nearby Salam Hospital by Iraqi security forces that came to get the city under control. Aziz M?stafa Goran was reported to be one of the 3 killed, who was from Mousul's Berderesh Village and 45 years old. Other two Kurd's identities have not been recognized yet although it's said that they are from Akre, Northern Iraq. Within the last month more than 50 Kurds were killed by Islamic Fundamentalists and the supporters of Baas regime, upon this Peshmerge forces deployed to Erbil (Hewler) and Suleymaniah in order to defend Kurdish offices and corporations.

Beside the clashes experienced in Felluja, tension is exorbitant in Mousul, where many are mounting beside the clashes experienced in Felluja.

Meanwhile, last night Kurdistan Islamic Party's office and the house of Mousul's Governor, Dured Mouhammed Keshmula,(in El-Rafai District) were set on fire.

Claims

Kurdish side claimed that Iraqi police handed the 3 Kurds over to Fundamentalists. While an inquiry was launched against police related to the case, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) by drawing attention to a possible internal war said they would retort the attacks.

'More than 50 Kurds were killed'

Yunus Rojbeyani, an official from KDP, in his statement made last week, told that within the last 20 days nearly 50 Kurds were killed and, a massacre against Kurd had been held.'' If they hit us secretly, we will hit them clearly. We are going to take our revenge.50 Kurds have been killed in this holy Ramadan month. Kurds cannot bear any more. The offices of KDP and of PUK were hit many times. Apart from the people being threatened, 10 persons were abducted'' he had said in the declaration.

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi says '' Iraqi police and special forces get to Mousul last night, and today more armed Iraqi units will reach the city. We are making calls from all the mosques in Mousul in order public peace and security to be promoted. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will take action to regulate the laws and rural in Mousul''

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4. - Paradise Post - U.S.-Turkey alliance; It ain't what it used to be

15 November 2004 / By Lowell Blankfort

For more than four decades in the last century, Turkey was America's first frontier.
Bordering the Soviet Union, Turkish soil for more than half that era held American nuclear missiles pointed at Moscow and the heart of the Soviet empire (until they were removed in return for the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba).

Today Turkey is again a front-line state for America. It borders on Iraq - and also on Iran and Syria, other crucial pieces in the Middle East power game into which Washington has intruded itself.
Turkey also is the only Muslim nation that is secular; the only Muslim nation that recognizes American ally Israel; the only nation in the NATO military alliance, with a 500,000-strong military, second in size in the alliance only to America itself.

Straddling both Europe and Asia, and led now by a moderate party seeking to join the European Union, Turkey would seem a natural buddy to America, like during the Cold War.
And technically Turkey is still an American ally.

President Bush showered nice words upon Turkey in a visit to Istanbul in June (while 40,000 Turkish demonstrators, kept out of his sight, jeered him). The Turks responded a few months later by agreeing to help train Iraqi soldiers, after earlier allowing the United States to use an air base in southern Turkey to rotate troops in Iraq.

But beneath the cooperation, there is anger and tension.

The Americans are angry because, just before the U.S. started the war, Turkey refused to let the Bush administration use Turkish military bases for 62,000 American troops to invade Iraq from the north. The U.S. responded by reneging on $6 billion in crucial aid it had promised Turkey.

Turkish officials are angry because the U.S. wouldn't let the Turks invade the border areas in Iraq to beat up on Kurds from Turkey they call terrorists, who were using the area as a sanctuary to fight for the rights of the Kurdish minority in Turkey.

But underlying the Turkish tension is a general resentment - they don't like the war in Iraq one bit.
Because it serves the interests of Turkish officials they will cooperate - the United States, after all, has the big bucks that can, and has, helped Turkey's economy and military - but they bite their lips as they do.

Overwhelmingly, the Turkish public is contemptuous of the war against fellow Muslims and of the United States.

Polls last year showed 80 percent were against the American invasion. Four years ago, asked to name the country that is Turkey's best friend, 60 percent of Turks chose the United States. Last month a Pew Research poll showed 85 percent of Turks considered America "the most dangerous country in the world."

Dr. Seyfi Ashan, professor of international relations at Bilkent University just outside of Istanbul, was the founder of Turkey's first private foreign policy think tank 30 years ago, and has close relations with American think tanks, like the conservative Heritage Foundation. He says American officials have no respect for Turkey.

"We were not treated as allies," he said of the United States. "When the Americans first approached us, we thought the attempt to remove Saddam would be a joint endeavor but they wanted to do it alone. They did not even give us the courtesy of notifying us before the invasion began. We are a people who know Iraq much better than the Americans. We ran Iraq (under Turkey's Ottoman Empire) for four centuries. But we were not consulted by the Americans.

"We wanted to put Turkish troops into Iraq's border area, only 35 miles deep, to attack PKK (Kurdish) terrorists, but they did not want this. We wanted them to treat protection of our Turkomans in Iraq (families of Turkish descent) as a main element, but they didn't do it. All they wanted Turkey for was to use our territory as a good way to attack Iraq."

Now, Tashan said, the U.S. has no choice but to stay in Iraq.

"They have to create a big Iraq army," he said. "But I don't know what will come out of it. Maybe another Saddam? The idea of a democracy in Iraq is far-fetched."

At Turkey's Foreign Ministry in the capital of Ankara, the head of its foreign policy and planning department (he asked to remain anonymous) said, "We never wanted war. We knew it would bring more problems. We tried to tell our apprehensions to the United States, and then to the United Nations Security Council. But the U.N. arms inspectors were not allowed (by Washington) to complete their mission. It was a great mistake."

The foreign policy and planning department that the speaker heads is composed of seven former ambassadors. He himself is a recent former ambassador to Iraq.

"It makes me sick to watch TV and see the terrible things that are happening there," he said.
"We dreaded this war. Turkey suffered more than any other country from the first Gulf War.
The embargo against Iraq cost us $20-to-$30 billion; oil (which was sent though Turkish pipelines) stopped flowing.

It gave a safe haven in northern Iraq to the PKK (Turkish Kurd) terrorists. The Americans wouldn't let us go after them."

He fears that, in a split up of Iraq, that nation's 3.5 million Kurds on Turkey's border could form a separate Kurd nation in the north that could either be a base for rebellious Turkish Kurds or encourage Turkish Kurds to join them and fulfill the dream of a Kurdish nation.
Talking of the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk in the north, which the Iraqi Kurds want to control, he said, "no ethnic group should control energy sources.

"We wouldn't send troops now (into Kurdish areas of Iraq); it's too much of a mess," he said. "But will there be a civil war? Things in Iraq could be a lot better, but they also can be worse."

The head of Turkey's Land Forces Command, Aytac Yalman, has not been hesitant regarding northern Iraq. He recently accused the U.S. of "harboring a secret plan to establish an independent state of Iraqi Kurdistan," according to an article in the October "Foreign Policy" magazine. He also praised Turkish academics who have called for cutting ties with "imperialist America and the European Union."

The influential Turkish military has been historically supportive of a strong U.S.-Turkish alliance.
It reportedly had told American military officials that it favored allowing the U.S. to invade Iraq through Turkey, which was rejected by the Turkish parliament - a measure of the military's diminishing influence and the Turkish public's anger at the U.S.

Meanwhile, Turkey's brass is reportedly split over how far Turkey should go in yielding to European Union membership demands, among the foremost of which is strong civilian control over the military.
Beginning serious negotiations to join the EU is Turkey's No. 1 foreign policy goal. On Dec. 17 the European parliament will decide whether to okay this. The U.S. has long pushed its European allies to admit Turkey. But, in a Eur-ope where attitudes toward the U.S. have hardened since the Iraq invasion, the EU's enlargement commissioner, Gunter Verheugen, warned that Turkey's cause risked being damaged by "counter-productive" U.S. pressure.

Meanwhile, unlike the first Gulf War, Turkey is making money off this one.

"We are the only country that exports food, industrial goods and other products to Iraq," the chief of the Foreign Ministry's policy planning group said.

The kidnapping and killing of Turkish truck drivers by insurgents, he stated, has reduced the flow of Turkish trucks into Iraq from about 1,500 to 800, most now going in convoys, but trade remains brisk. The speaker also said Turkey is embarking on outreach to other Middle East countries, even those not on good terms with the Americans.

"We want to improve relations with Iran and Syria (both on Turkey's borders)," he said. "Iran is apprehensive because it is surrounded by American troops (in Afghan-istan and Iraq) on both sides."
(But one overture to Iran failed. After our conversation, isolationist Iran notified Turkey it does not want to do business with the Turks, because it thinks business deals should be confined to Iranian firms.)

Another close Turkish relationship long encouraged by the United States but cooled by current events - has been Turkey's coziness with Israel.

For a decade, the Muslim and Jewish states have enjoyed very friendly military and economic relations, even holding joint military exercises.

But Israel's bloody attacks against Palestinians in its occupied territories, shown in living color on Turkish television, were too much for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the spring. Calling Israel's actions "state terror," he said, "the violent policies that Israel is following cannot be accepted."

Israel, facing the loss of its closest and largest Muslim ally, a few weeks later invited Erdogan to visit - which he declined to do. Instead he called home Turkey's ambassador to Israel and its consul in Jerusalem for consultations.

In September three Turkish parliamentary deputies, said to be close to Erdogan, went to visit, with unknown results.
Turks like Americans as individuals. In three weeks there, my wife and I met no Turk who was not warm and friendly and only one or two rather cold waiters. American chains, particularly fast-food ones like McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, appear to be flourishing.

A California woman who knows more about this is Patricia Langlais, who likes Turks so much she has lived in Istanbul 10 years doing charity work for ecclesiastical groups.

She says Turks have a genuine fondness for the American people - but not American foreign policy."
"They separate the two," she said. "They don't blame Americans for the terrible things they see on TV happening in Iraq and Palestine."

But that was before Nov. 2.

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5. - EUobserver.com - Chirac points to third way on Turkey

16 November 2004 / By Honor Mahony

French President Jacques Chirac has pointed to a third way for Turkey, which would see it have a strong link to the EU but not actual membership.

Speaking on Sunday in Marseilles, Mr Chirac said, "Either it works and Turkey joins with all our values. This will take 10 to 15 years" or on the other hand, he said "... Turkey cannot or will not make the necessary effort, then we will stop".

"There is a third hypothesis that in three to four years, things have progressed but there are still obstacles that we will not surmount. We will therefore need to find another solution, to create a sufficiently strong link for our ambitions for peace and co-operation but without integration into the EU", said the French President.

If such an option were to be written into the conclusions of the European Council, when EU leaders gather next month in Brussels to decide whether negotiations should be opened with Turkey, it would mean a significant step back for Ankara.

Countries such as Austria and the Netherlands may favour moves in this direction.

Referendum promise
Mr Chirac's words are intended as a reassurance to French citizens - a majority of whom have doubts about Turkey joining the bloc.

The French president has pledged that his country will have referendums on future EU enlargements - which will include Turkey.

There is already concern in Paris that the planned referendum on the European Constitution to be held next year may become entangled to the question of whether Turkey should join the EU.

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6. - Chicago Tribune - Mosul quickly becoming a trouble spot

Violence in Iraq's north shows rebels far from crushed

BAGHDAD / November 15, 2004 / By Alex Rodriguez

As Iraqi leaders trumpeted a swift victory in Fallujah, guerrillas pressed their claim Sunday on the northern city of Mosul, which is fast becoming Iraq's newest front.

An outbreak of rebel attacks on police stations and government buildings has paralyzed parts of the city. Corpses have been splayed on city streets. Police have said they fear going back to their jobs.

Families are fleeing en masse. Insurgents have assured city bureaucrats that it is safe to return to work, that rebels will secure city streets.

"The situation is very bad here, and it's getting worse," said Abdul Wahab Ibrahim, who is fleeing with his family. "People are afraid that the same thing that happened to Fallujah will happen to Mosul."

The violence in Mosul serves as a troubling postscript to the military success of the weeklong assault on guerrillas in Fallujah, described Sunday by Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, who designed the ground attack, as a "flawless execution of the plan we drew up."

While the U.S.-led force has been fighting through Fallujah, once regarded as the symbol of rebel resistance in Iraq, a wave of violence has swept through several cities across central and northern Iraq, killing dozens of people and wounding scores.

On Sunday, insurgents in Mosul raided two police stations and torched the governor's house. Violence also erupted in Baghdad and other towns.

The attacks have given currency to guerrilla warnings that no matter what happens in Fallujah, the fight against the American occupation of Iraq will continue and even escalate as national elections in January approach.

But Iraqi leaders and top U.S. commanders have expressed confidence that they can snuff out flare-ups of insurgency violence when they occur.

"This is all Iraqis against terrorists," said Prime Minister Ayad Allawi during a visit to Nasiriyah during the weekend. "We are going to keep on breaking their back everywhere in Iraq. We are not going to allow them to win."

That battle to crush the insurgency had to begin in Fallujah, U.S. and Iraqi leaders decided. Fallujah's guerrillas, largely a mix of foreign fighters, Sunni Muslim radicals and Saddam Hussein regime loyalists, put up fierce fighting when Marines launched a major offensive in April. U.S. officials ordered the offensive after the killings and mutilations of four American contractors in the city in late March.

Marines abandoned the offensive after Iraqi leaders complained about the devastating toll the assault was taking on Fallujah civilians -- an assertion U.S. leaders disputed.

Fallujah soon became a nerve center for insurgency operations, many of them masterminded by militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Jordanian, who recently renamed his Tawhid and Jihad group Al Qaeda in Iraq, has been blamed for many of the recent kidnappings, beheadings and suicide car bombings in Iraq.

U.S. forces have spread through Fallujah, but it could take several more days before the area is secured, U.S. officials said.

"The perception of Fallujah being a safe haven for terrorists, that perception and the reality of it will be completely wiped off before the conclusion of this operation," said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

But U.S. military leaders have acknowledged that many fighters escaped before the fighting began, including al-Zarqawi. And as the assault intensified, so did attacks outside Fallujah.

Especially troubling has been the brazenness of the attacks in Mosul, a northern city of about 1.7 million with a mix of Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmens.

Last week, insurgents hit nine police stations, looting flak jackets, rifles and arms from several of them. Other stations were burned. Two more stations were attacked Sunday, leaving at least six Iraqi troops dead.

Just as disturbing has been the Fallujah assault's impact on Iraq's political scene, with the elections less than three months away. An influential Sunni Muslim clerics association has called for a boycott of the elections. Nonparticipation of Sunni Muslims could undermine the election's legitimacy and push Iraq to the brink of civil conflict.

On Sunday, hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated in the Sunni Triangle city of Buhriz to protest the assault and Allawi's government.

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7. - Financial Times / Kurdish Media - Kurds should not let language deepen divisions

16 November 2004 / By Nikolas Gvosdev and Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic

After more than a decade of de facto independence, Iraq’s Kurds are readjusting to living with their Arabic-speaking countrymen. After the Iraq war, the international community made it clear that a common Iraqi destiny is the only way forward. There will be no partition of Iraq. To their credit, Iraq’s two main ethnic-Kurdish leaders, Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, have accepted this reality.

But a disturbing trend has arisen: few young Kurds speak Arabic. Instead, they learn English as their second language. English may be the lingua globalica but Arabic remains the lingua regionala. In a generation’s time, most Iraqi Kurds will no longer be able to communicate with their compatriots.

Linguistic separation opens the door for the dissolution of a panoply of other shared political, social and economic interests. Within a generation, Iraq’s Kurds may see no justification for continuing a political and economic union with Iraq’s Arabic-speaking populations, triggering a crisis with profound implications for the stability of the greater Middle East.

An event in the mid-1970s in the Balkans illustrates the importance of finding a way to correct the linguistic challenge facing Iraq. In 1974, the university of Pristina was established as an independent institution of higher learning. This meant Kosovo’s young Albanian elite no longer had to go to Belgrade for a college education. They no longer had to communicate in Yugoslavia’s predominant language, and they no longer mixed with future political and business leaders from other parts of Yugoslavia.

Certainly, the tyrannical policies of Slobodan Milosevic helped advance the Kosovo crisis and the Albanian dream of self-determination but one cannot overlook the linguistic separation that helped lay the foundation for conflict. Finding common solutions to the problems of Kosovo has been made more difficult as people cannot directly communicate with one another.

And it is not accidental that the rise of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army, which rejected efforts to find a negotiated solution for Kosovo within the framework of Yugoslavia, coincided with the coming of age of Kosovo Albanians unable to speak Serbo-Croatian.

Today’s Iraq is different from contemporary Serbia and its southern province of Kosovo but it is indisputable that the loss of a common frame of reference in a volatile region makes forging a common future a more difficult enterprise. Consider Cyprus, where 1974 was also a fateful year. The island was divided as a result of civil war along ethno-linguistic lines (a southern Greek zone and a northern Turkish one).

In spite of several valiant efforts at reunification, including one by the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, the two sides remain unable to reconcile. While the elderly leaders of both sides speak each other’s languages, their successors do not. The likelihood of the island unifying decreases even further with the passing of this generation.

No one suggests Iraq’s Kurds sacrifice their culture for the sake of the unity of Iraq, as has been the failed Kurdish policy of Iraq’s neighbour, Turkey. But experience tells us forging a common future in states with no democratic past and a history of conflict is difficult enough even when the parties share a tongue - witness Bosnia.

Iraq’s Kurds might take a lesson from America’s Hispanic community, which retains a thriving Spanish-language culture (the US has the world’s fifth largest Spanish-speaking population) but strongly supports fluency in English for its members. In some surveys of Latino immigrants, nearly all indicated they wanted their children to learn to read and write English "perfectly".

This growing and diverse community of Americans understands that its future in the US lies in forging a common enterprise with fellow citizens of different backgrounds. The key to success in the US is the ability to speak English, the national language.

Iraq’s Kurds must understand that fluency in Arabic is not a betrayal of their culture but a reality in a state where Arabic is the first tongue of more than 80 per cent of the population. Assigning constitutional status to the Kurdish language is to be encouraged to the degree that Iraq’s Kurds understand the absolute necessity for them to take part in national life and the forging of a common destiny.

Not speaking Arabic may be a point of national pride for young Kurds. While no one suggests that Arab Iraqis have not behaved in a ghastly way towards Iraq’s Kurds, choosing to embrace their resentments and not their interests is to move forward into Iraq’s past. If Iraq’s Kurds reject geopolitical reality, they will relegate themselves to second-class citizenship. They will have no one to blame but themselves.

Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic is a former managing editor at The National Interest and fellow in European studies at The Nixon Center. Nikolas Gvosdev is the executive editor of The National Interest and a senior fellow in security studies at The Nixon Center.