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The Defense of Kobani: Jonathan Spyer, Middle East Forum, Sept. 27, 2014— This week witnessed the second determined attempt by Islamic State forces to destroy the Kurdish enclave around Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) city in northern Syria. Kobani is one of three autonomous enclaves maintained by the Kurds in Syria.
Obama Betrays the Kurds: Robert Zubrin, National Review, Sept. 30, 2014 — In his speech to the United Nations last week, President Obama pledged to the world that the United States would use its might to stop the horrific depredations of the terrorist movement variously known as the Islamic State, ISIS, or, as he calls it, ISIL.
Welcome, Kurdistan: Daniel Pipes, Washington Times, Sept. 9, 2014— Before welcoming the emerging state of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, I confess to having opposed its independence in the past.
Why Jews Need to Support the Kurds: Michelle Hubermann, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 22, 2014 — It all began when a video clip went viral of a tearful Yazidi MP in the Iraqi parliament.
Kurdish People Fast Facts (Timeline): CNN, Aug. 24, 2014
Islamic State Beheads Kurds as Coalition Jets Strike Group Near Turkish Border: Ynet, Oct. 1, 2014
Kurdish Hunger Strikers Stage Protests Seeking Support Against Isis Jihadis: Aaron Walawalkar & Ben Quinn, Guardian, Oct. 1, 2014
A Litmus Test for Kurdistan: Jenna Krajeski & Sebastian Meyer, New York Times, Sept. 30, 2014
Jonathan Spyer
Middle East Forum, Sept. 27, 2014
This week witnessed the second determined attempt by Islamic State forces to destroy the Kurdish enclave around Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) city in northern Syria. Kobani is one of three autonomous enclaves maintained by the Kurds in Syria. As of now, it appears that after initial lightning advances, the progress of the jihadis has been halted; they have not moved forward in the last 24 hours. The arrival of Kurdish forces from across the Turkish border is the key element in freezing the advance. Yet Islamic State has captured around 60 Kurdish villages in this latest assault, and its advanced positions remain perilously close – around 14.5 km. – from Kobani city. Around 100,000 people have fled Kobani for Turkey, from the enclave’s total population of around 400,0000. Islamic State employed tanks, artillery and Humvees in its assault, according to Kurdish sources. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have no comparable ordnance. However, their fighters were assisted by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerrillas who crossed in from Turkey, and appear to have played a vital role in halting the advance.
Whether the current situation will hold is not yet clear. But the commencement of US and allied bombing on Islamic State in Syria probably means the jihadi forces will have more pressing issues to attend to for the moment. The assault on Kobani indicates that Islamic State is turning its attention back to Syria. The Kurdish enclave has long been a thorn in the side of the jihadis; the Kurdish-controlled area interrupts the jihadis’ territorial contiguity, separating Tel Abyad from Jarabulus and making a large detour necessary from Islamic State’s capital in Raqqa city to the important border town of Jarabulus. For this reason, the jihadis have long sought to conquer the area. Abu Omar al-Shishani, the much feared Chechen Islamic State military commander, is reputed to have made the conquest of Kobani a personal mission. With the weapons systems captured in Mosul now fully integrated, and with further progress in Iraq impeded by the presence of US air power, it appears Islamic State is now making its most serious effort to achieve this goal.
The Kobani enclave has long been an isolated, beleaguered space. This reporter visited there this past May; at the time, Islamic State was trying to block the supply of electricity and water into the city. Skirmishes along the borders were a daily occurrence. Particularly notable also were the very strict border arrangements kept in place by the Turkish authorities to the north – in stark contrast to the much more lax regime maintained facing the areas of Arab population further west. As of now, a determined Kurdish mobilization appears to have stemmed the jihadi advance. Unless the picture radically changes again, Kobani looks set to remain a thorn in the side of Islamic State.
Perwer Mohammed, 28, an activist close to the YPG in Kobani, sounded worried but hopeful when speaking from the city on Monday: “They are now on the outskirts of Girê Sipî [Tel Abyad]. But they will have to pass through our flesh to get to Kobani, and they are no longer advancing from the east.” A variety of forces contributed to the mobilization; 1,500 PKK fighters arrived in Kobani city to reinforce the YPG there, according to Kurdish sources. In addition, forces loyal to both the Kurdistan Regional Government of Massoud Barzani and to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) are set to arrive in Kobani. The PUK forces, according to the organization’s website, are currently on the Iraq-Syria border, waiting to deploy. The YPG itself, meanwhile, is trying to push forces through from Ras al-Ain to Tel Abyad on the eastern edge of the enclave. A concerted Kurdish military effort is under way.
Suspicions remain regarding possible collusion between Turkish authorities and Islamic State. The Kurds have long maintained that at least in its initial phase, Islamic State was the beneficiary of Turkish support. Evidence has emerged of Turkish forces permitting Islamic State fighters to cross back and forth across the border during early clashes with the YPG. The subsequent picture remains shrouded in ambiguity, as Turkey officially denies any relationship with Islamic State. But the release of 49 Turkish hostages by the terror movement this week under unclear circumstances has once more cast a spotlight on the possible complex connection between the two. If the situation in Kobani holds, this will offer proof of the limitations of Islamic State forces. In Iraq, their advance has been stopped by the coordination of US air power with Iraqi and Kurdish forces. In Kobani, as of now at least, the jihadis appear to have been stalled by determined resistance on the ground alone. Yet the last chapter remains to be written. Should Kobani fall, large-scale massacres of the type which befell the Yazidi communities in the Mount Sinjar area in August would inevitably follow; this is likely to result in a massive new refugee problem. Moreover, an Islamic State victory would consolidate the borders of the jihadi entity considerably.
The clash between Islamic State and the Kurdish autonomous areas also has broader ramifications than merely tactical military significance – it shows the extent to which “Iraq” and “Syria” have become little more than names. In Kobani, two successor entities to these states are clashing. The Kurds have organized three autonomous cantons stretching east to west from the Syria-Iraq border to close to the Mediterranean coast. The Sunni jihadis, for their part, have organized their own “state,” going southeast to northwest. Kobani is the point at which these two projects collide. Hence, the outcome of the current fight will indicate the relative strength of these two very different projects. Yet the clash itself offers a broader lesson regarding the shape of things to come, in the ethnic/sectarian war now raging across what was once Iraq and Syria.
Robert Zubrin
National Review, Sept. 30, 2014
In his speech to the United Nations last week, President Obama pledged to the world that the United States would use its might to stop the horrific depredations of the terrorist movement variously known as the Islamic State, ISIS, or, as he calls it, ISIL. “This group has terrorized all who they come across in Iraq and Syria,” the president proclaimed. “Mothers, sisters, daughters have been subjected to rape as a weapon of war. Innocent children have been gunned down. Bodies have been dumped in mass graves. Religious minorities have been starved to death. In the most horrific crimes imaginable, innocent human beings have been beheaded, with videos of the atrocity distributed to shock the conscience of the world.” “No God condones this terror. No grievance justifies these actions,” he said. “There can be no reasoning — no negotiation — with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force. So the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death. . . . We will support Iraqis and Syrians fighting to reclaim their communities. We will use our military might in a campaign of air strikes to roll back ISIL. We will train and equip forces fighting against these terrorists on the ground.”
These are brave words that well and truly denounce evil for what it is. Unfortunately, the president’s actions since then have been anything but consistent with his pledge to stop the terrorism. As these lines are being written, some 400,000 Kurds in and around the town of Kobane in northern Syria, on the Turkish border, are being besieged and assaulted by massed legions of Islamic State killers armed with scores of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery. Against these, the Kurdish defenders have only AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. The Kurds have called on the U.S. to send in air strikes to take out the jihadist forces. In response, the administration sent in two fighter jets Saturday, which destroyed two Islamic State tanks and then flew away. The Kurds are begging for arms. The administration has not only refused to send arms, but is exerting pressure both on our NATO allies and on Israel not to send any either. Over 150,000 Kurds have fled their homes to try to escape to Turkey, but they are being blocked at the border by Turkish troops. Meanwhile, Turkey is allowing Islamist reinforcements to enter Syria to join the Islamic State, while Islamist elements of the Free Syrian Army, funded and armed by the United States, have joined forces with the group in the genocidal assault on the Kurdish enclave.
According to Kurdish sources, the Turks are massing troops on their own side of the border, with the apparent plan being to sit in place and allow the Kurds to be exterminated, and then move in to take over the region once they are gone. This is the same plan as Josef Stalin used when he allowed the Nazis to wipe out the Polish underground during the Warsaw rising of 1944, and only afterward sent in the Red Army to take control of what was left of the city. If anything, it is even more morally reprehensible, since it could be pointed out in Stalin’s defense that his forces were at least pummeling the enemy elsewhere while the Warsaw fight was under way. In contrast, the Turks are doing nothing of the sort. For an American administration to collude in such a mass atrocity is infamous. If we are to win the war against the Islamic State, we need ground forces, and the Obama administration has rejected the idea of sending in any of our own. The Kurds, who have demonstrated both their bravery and their willingness to be friends with America, are right there, and already engaged in the fight. If supplied with adequate arms and backed by serious U.S. tactical air support, they could roll up ISIS as rapidly as the similarly reinforced Northern Alliance did the Taliban in the fall of 2001. Done right, this war could be won in months, instead of waged inconclusively for years.
The administration, however, has rejected this alternative, and has instead opted for a Saudi-Qatari plan to allow the Syrian Kurds to be exterminated while training a new Sunni Arab army in Saudi Arabia. Given the Saudi role in the new army’s tutelage and officer selection, the Islamist nature of this force is a foregone conclusion. At best it might provide a more disciplined replacement for the Islamic State as an Islamist Syrian opposition at some point in the distant future (current official administration estimates are at least a year) when it is considered ready for combat. Meanwhile the killing will simply go on, with the United States doing its part to further Islamist recruitment by indulging in endless strategy-free bombing of Sunni villages. So now, to paraphrase the president, “Mothers, sisters, daughters will be subjected to rape as a weapon of war. Innocent children will be gunned down. Bodies will be dumped in mass graves. Religious minorities will be starved to death. In the most horrific crimes imaginable, innocent human beings will be beheaded, with videos of the atrocity distributed to shock the conscience of the world.” Surely we can do better.
Daniel Pipes
Washington Times, Sept. 9, 2014
Before welcoming the emerging state of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, I confess to having opposed its independence in the past. In 1991, after the Kuwait War had ended and as Saddam Hussein attacked Iraq’s 6 million Kurds, I made three arguments against American intervention on their behalf, arguments still commonly heard today: First, Kurdish independence would spell the end of Iraq as a state; second, it would embolden Kurdish agitation for independence in Syria, Turkey and Iran, leading to destabilization and border conflicts; and three, it would invite the persecution of non-Kurds, causing “large and bloody exchanges of population.”
All three expectations proved flat-out wrong. Given Iraq’s wretched domestic and foreign track record, the end of a unified Iraq promises relief, as do Kurdish stirrings in the neighboring countries. Syria has been fracturing into its three ethnic and sectarian components — Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — which promises benefits in the long term. Kurds departing Turkey usefully impede the reckless ambitions of now-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Similarly, Kurds decamping Iran helpfully diminishes that arch-aggressive mini-empire. Far from non-Kurds fleeing Iraqi Kurdistan, as I feared, the opposite has occurred: hundreds of thousands of refugees are pouring in from the rest of Iraq to benefit from Kurdistan’s security, tolerance and opportunities. I can account for these errors: In 1991, no one knew that autonomous Kurdish rule in Iraq would flourish as it has. The Kurdistan Regional Government, which came into existence the following year, can be called (with only some exaggeration) the Switzerland of the Muslim Middle East. Its armed, commercially minded mountain people seek to be left alone to prosper.
One could also not have known in 1991 that the Kurdish army, the peshmerga, would establish itself as a competent and disciplined force; that the Kurdistan Regional Government would reject the terrorist methods then notoriously in use by Kurds in Turkey; that the economy would boom; that the Kurds’ two leading political families, the Talabanis and Barzanis, would learn to coexist; that the Kurdistan Regional Government would engage in responsible diplomacy; that its leadership would sign international trade accords; that 10 institutions of higher learning would come into existence; and that Kurdish culture would blossom. All this did happen, though. As Israeli scholar Ofra Bengio describes it, “Autonomous Kurdistan has proved to be the most stable, prosperous, peaceful and democratic part of Iraq.”
What’s next on the Kurdistan Regional Government’s agenda? The first item, after severe losses to the Islamic State, is for the peshmerga to retrain, rearm and tactically ally with such former adversaries as the Iraqi central government and the Turkish Kurds, steps which have positive implications for Kurdistan’s future. Second, the Kurdistan Regional Government leadership has signaled its intention to hold a referendum on independence, which it rightly presumes will generate a ringing popular endorsement. Diplomacy, however, lags. The Iraqi central government, of course, opposes this goal, as do the great powers, reflecting their usual caution and concern for stability. (Recall George H.W. Bush’s 1991 “Chicken Kiev speech.”) However, given the Kurdistan Regional Government’s superior record, outside powers should encourage its independence. Pro-government media in Turkey already do. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden might build on his 2006 suggestion of “giving each ethno-religious group — Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests.” Third: What if Iraqi Kurds joined forces across three borders — as they have done on occasion — and form a single Kurdistan with a population of about 30 million and possibly a corridor to the Mediterranean Sea? One of the largest ethnic group in the world without a state (a debatable claim: e.g., the Kannadiga of India), the Kurds missed their chance in the post-World War I settlement because they lacked the requisite intellectuals and politicians.
The emergence now of a Kurdish state would profoundly alter the region by simultaneously adding a sizable new country and partially dismembering its four neighbors. This prospect would be dismaying in most of the world. However, the Middle East — still in the grip of the wretched Sykes-Picot deal secretly negotiated by European powers in 1916 — needs a salutary shake-up. From this perspective, the emergence of a Kurdish state is part of the regionwide destabilization, dangerous but necessary, that began in Tunisia in December 2010. Accordingly, I offer a hearty welcome to its four potential parts joining soon together to form a single, united Kurdistan.
Daniel Pipes is President of Middle East Forum and a CIJR Academic Fellow
WHY JEWS NEED TO SUPPORT THE KURDS
Michelle Huberman
Jerusalem Post, Aug. 22, 2014
It all began when a video clip went viral of a tearful Yazidi MP in the Iraqi parliament. Screaming in despair, Fiyan Dakheel begged the international community to save her people – they were being massacred, buried alive, their women taken away to be sold as slaves. Soon after images of dehydrated and starving figures, their faces beaten by sun and sand, began to appear on our TV screens. Here was a catastrophe of epic proportions – 50,000 Yazidis stranded on a mountain in northern Iraq. It was an opportunity for Harif – our association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa – to show that we stood in solidarity with the Yazidis and other beleaguered minorities fleeing the barbarism of Islamic State, the jihadist army sweeping across Syria and Iraq.
We were invited to take part in a predominantly Kurdish demonstration on Wednesday 13th August outside the Prime Minister”s residence in Downing Street reported here. The welcome was warm: Kurds addressed us in Hebrew and called us ”their brothers.” We were all chanting “Down with Isis, Solve the crisis”. “We are all Peshmergas!” I was interviewed for Kurdish TV and I told them I felt like I was watching the people board the train for Auschwitz. It was not enough just to drop emergency aid to let the Yazidis live a couple more days. Not since the Allied war against the Nazis had we been confronted with such evil. I felt that we needed to bomb the enemy into submission. To destroy ISIS.
Later, a Harif representative joined with Kurds, Hindus and Pakistani Christians to present a petition to the UK Prime minister to call for the government to strengthen Kurdish fighters and prevent a genocide. On Saturday we heard about a second demonstration: I had forsaken synagogue to be at the demo outside the BBC offices in Portland Place. The crowd was double the size of Wednesday’s – more like 1,000, and it swelled during the protest that culminated in a march down to Trafalgar Square. The red flags of the communist Turkish Kurds were in evidence, and some banners called for an end to Zionism and imperialism. We already had our Harif posters – which we had made for a protest three years earlier bringing attention to the non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities in the Middle East. They seemed appropriate once again, and probably more pressing now. To this demonstration I also brought some homemade posters showing both the Kurdish and Israeli flags – overprinted with WE SUPPORT THE KURDS – DOWN WITH ISIS.
The Christians, the Yazidis and other minorities in the Middle East need our support. They are experiencing the same brutality that the Iraqi and Kurdish Jews experienced when they lived there when Iraq was ruled by an Arab Sunni Muslim regime. I have met too many Jewish refugees and heard their first-hand testimonies to know that the Yazidis are experiencing the same persecution. It is a myth that minorities and Arab Muslims lived in harmony together. Hundreds of Jews were murdered in the pogrom of 1941- known as the Farhud. Many escaped Iraq through the south to Iran just before the state of Israel was born. Israel airlifted out 90 percent of the community in 1950 and 51 and in the 1970s the remnant of Iraqi Jewry were smuggled out at great risk by Kurdish people. The Kurds also had a discreet military alliance with the Israelis .
When I reached into my bag and pulled out my little A4 Israeli Kurdish flag, I hesitated at first but then held it high above my head so that everyone could see. I could feel the whole crowd slowly turning towards me. Slightly shocked at first, but then turning to smiles. People started coming over and saying, ”thank you”. I was joined by friends who also held up the same mini- posters and had the same experience. I was interviewed by an Italian journalist on what were my views on the Palestinians. “I told them that we feel very sorry for the Gazans and the problem was Hamas. They are like ISIS suppressing their people and murdering those that don’t agree with them. They need to be overthrown like ISIS.” To another journalist: “ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram – they’re all the same. An enemy to civilisation. They need to be destroyed.” Jews need to have a presence at these demonstrations. We need to show that we stand with other minorities against religious fascism and fanaticism. The Israeli and Kurdish flags need to flutter side by side.
Kurdish People Fast Facts (Timeline): CNN, Aug. 24, 2014
Islamic State Beheads Kurds as Coalition Jets Strike Group Near Turkish Border: Ynet, Oct. 1, 2014—Report says Islamic State group beheads group of Kurdsish men, women, while sources say US-led airstrikes have targeted group’s fighters; two blasts in Homs kill children and residents.
Kurdish Hunger Strikers Stage Protests Seeking Support Against Isis Jihadis: Aaron Walawalkar & Ben Quinn, Guardian, Oct. 1, 2014 —Members of the Kurdish diaspora have been staging protests and hunger strikes around the world in support of calls by Kurdish leaders in Syria for weapons to help their forces fighting Islamic State (Isis) in the besieged border town of Kobani, where they fear a massacre if support does not arrive soon.
A Litmus Test for Kurdistan: Jenna Krajeski & Sebastian Meyer, New York Times, Sept. 30, 2014—When Iraqi Kurds say that Kirkuk is their Jerusalem, they are referring both to the city’s cultural significance and to the trouble it causes.
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