Could Masrour Barzani Be the Next Manuel Noriega?
Juin 07, 2024
By Michael Rubin*
Source:https://www.meforum.org/65967/could-masrour-barzani-be-the-next-manuel-noriega
Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and heir-apparent to
the Barzani family's multi-billion dollar business empire, is not having a good year.
Earlier this year, dissident Maki Revend and the U.S.-based Kurdistan Victims Fund
filed an expansive lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
against Masrour, his father Masoud, and several of his brothers and associates for
a variety of crimes ranging from murder and kidnapping to counterfeiting and racketeering.
The plaintiffs have access to the "Pedawi Papers," the private banking records of
long-time Barzani aide Sarwar Pedawi, who for decades helped the Barzanis squirrel
away hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, in offshore shell
companies.
Masrour may believe that he can ignore the lawsuit because of sovereign immunity,
but he misunderstands the laws and precedents, many of which the U.S. District Court
in which the case will be tried itself set. His lawyer, Joe R. Reeder, a former U.S.
undersecretary of the Army who himself is now a defendant in the case due to information
exposed by the Pedawi Papers, may also have misled him as Reeder balances his own
interests with those of the Barzanis. Also undermining Masrour's case is the fact
that the Kurdistan Victim Funds' lawyers have acquired a copy of Masrour's green
card showing that he has had American permanent residency for two decades. The combination
of assets channeled through companies in the British Virgin Islands and Masrour's
obligations to file U.S. tax returns may also open Barzani up to tax fraud charges
and perhaps even jail time.
Masrour may now believe that his U.S. security partnerships will immunize him from
the consequences of the alleged crimes listed in the case. Prior to rising to the
regional premiership, Masrour served as chancellor of the Kurdish region's National
Security Council, a position from, which he regularly liaised with the Central Intelligence
Agency. Masrour and younger brother Waysi also head special units of the Peshmerga
and intelligence service that, in theory, work alongside U.S. partners to counter
terror but also serve as a personal militia and moonlight as death squads.
Kurdish counterterror partnership is important, but Masrour overestimates the immunity
it buys him. No single individual or family is essential; there is always someone
willing to take their place. Some even turn state's evidence in order to ingratiate
as downfall becomes more likely.
Here, Masrour should reflect instead on the case of Manuel Noriega, the former leader
of Panama. Noriega could not rely on nepotism to rise through the ranks; rather,
he was a hard-scrabble climber who ingratiated himself to Panama's sitting president,
often using his national guard perch to beat demonstrators and imprison and torture
detainees. His reputation for brutality and deviance extended into his personal life.
In 1966, as a second lieutenant, he attended the School of the Americas. Over subsequent
years, he trained with Americans both in the Canal Zone and at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina.
After helping crush a coup against President Omar Torrijos two years later, Noriega
rose quickly through the military ranks, ultimately becoming head of intelligence,
a portfolio Masrour also held in Iraqi Kurdistan. As with Masrour, the CIA considered
Noriega an ally and asset, often paying him for services. Declassified documents
show that U.S. officials understood privately that Noriega sought to profit off his
American ties, even selling U.S. intelligence to Cuba. The same now is true with
the U.S. intelligence and diplomatic communities. The Kurdistan Victims Fund case,
meanwhile, documents the murder of an American intelligence officer by Barzani's
henchmen as they sought to "sell" him to Iran.
Ultimately, Noriega first rose to become Panama's de facto leader after Torrijos'
death, just as Masrour's power grew as he sidelined his aging father Masoud. After
several years, Noriega and Masrour ultimately took the helm of their respective governments.
Relations between the United States and Panama grew strong during the Reagan administration.
Noriega might have been a brute, but strategic necessity trumped value judgments.
Panama provided crucial bases as the United States sought to counter socialist regimes
and insurgencies in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Colombia. Once again, there is a
parallel as the major reason for the American embrace of Iraqi Kurdistan has less
to do with moral imperative and more with the Barzanis' willingness to allow American
forces and intelligence agencies to operate in their region to monitor and perhaps
even run operations against neighboring states.
Believing he had a pass from the Americans, Noriega grew even more corrupt. Beyond
demanding kickbacks from those seeking legitimate business, the Panamanian leader
used his position to provide cover for Colombian drug cartels as they shipped their
product northward.
The Kurdistan Victims Fund case alleges Barzani involvement in the drug trade. Paragraph
726 reads:
The largest source of illegal drug revenue for the Barzani Continuing Criminal Enterprise,
according to Confidential Human Source #8, who has direct clandestine access to senior
ranking officials of the Defendant Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, is crystal
meth and cocaine. The cocaine is unlawfully imported and distributed principally
to Europe and Asia. The Barzani Continuing Criminal Enterprise partners with international
drug cartels and the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] to obtain cocaine,
and manufacture crystal meth. In the business association with the IRGC and international
drug cartels, the IRGC is the lead member because of Iran's desperate need for cash.
Defendant Masrour Barzani manages the illegal drug operation through the intelligence
agency of the Defendant Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, which is controlled
by the Barzani Continuing Criminal Enterprise. Raw material of Sudafed is imported
from China and India in blister packaging. In Erbil, the capital city of the Defendant
Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, the Sudafed is taken out of the blister packs
and shipped in bulk to Iran for chemical processing. The product comes back to Erbil
as meth and is then distributed to world markets, principally Europe and Asia. Under
the direct control and command of Defendant Masrour Barzani.
Despite extensive ties between Noriega and George H.W. Bush in Bush's role as CIA
director, vice president, and president, Bush eventually concluded that the arrogance
and criminality of Noriega was too much to tolerate. In December 1989, after unsuccessful
efforts to compel Noriega to resign, Bush ordered the U.S. military to remove Noriega
so that the United States could prosecute him for his crimes against Americans.
On January 3, 1990, Noriega surrendered and transferred to Miami, where the following
year he faced a trial. The court ultimately convicted the former Panamanian leader
and U.S. ally on eight counts of drug trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering.
Masrour may believe that he is immune, but he might consider that during his visit
to Washington earlier this year, successive U.S. officials reportedly turned down
his requests to set aside the Kurdistan Victims Fund case, and President Joe Biden
refused to meet him.
While Noriega ruled an entire country, the Barzanis controlled only one portion of
one region within a larger country. If anything, then, Reagan and Bush administration
officials considered Noriega more indispensable than recent administrations have
viewed Masrour.
American humorist Mark Twain reportedly said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but
it often rhymes." It is a lesson both Barzani and Kurds suffering his corruption
might consider.
*Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential.
He is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and senior fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute.
Türkiye Is Not An Important NATO Member. Stop Pretending It Is.
Jan 18, 2023
By Michael Rubin*
Source:https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/01/turkiye-is-not-an-important-nato-member-stop-pretending-it-is/
Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu will visit Washington, D.C. today. High
on his agenda will be Türkiye’s request for American F-16s. The White House is pushing
the sale as a consolation prize after Congress removed the country from the more
advanced F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program over Türkiye’s alliance with Russia.
The White House’s logic is two-fold. First, it wants to entice Ankara to drop objections
to Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership. Second, Biden’s security aides argue that
Türkiye is an important NATO member because it has the second-greatest number of
men under arms in the alliance after the United States.
U.S. Concessions to Türkiye, or Coercion
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are
wrong on both counts.
To accede to Turkish blackmail is to justify it.
Because NATO is a consensus-driven alliance, Türkiye might collect F-16s as payment
to drop its veto on accession, only to raise its demands the day after their accession,
under threat of paralyzing day-to-day NATO functions. Sweden’s civil liberties, meanwhile
would be a casualty of the process.
The Biden administration, like each of its predecessors dating back to the Eisenhower
era, coveted Türkiye’s NATO membership because of what it might bring to the table:
Türkiye has 355,000 active duty men under arms. Compare that to France, with only
slightly more than 200,000 active duty personnel in its armed forces, or the United
Kingdom, which has just less than 200,000. To include the total military—active duty,
reserve forces, and paramilitaries—is to inflate Türkiye’s numbers even more. Türkiye
then brings almost 900,000 men into the equation, more than the 19 smallest NATO
members combined.
NATO Participation
In Brussels this past weekend, I had an opportunity to speak to a former military
planner who had worked on a NATO operation. He made a good point: Statistics about
the size of the armed forces of NATO members are often irrelevant. When planning
a NATO operation, NATO leaders go to each country and ask what they are willing to
contribute. A country might have 100,000-strong forces, but if the political leadership
is unwilling to contribute even five percent to a NATO mission, then the total size
is irrelevant.
Put another way: If Türkiye promises 5,000 troops but Poland offers 10,000, then
it is right to suggest that Türkiye is more than four times more important to the
alliance?
This was the case with NATO’s Operation Resolution Support in Afghanistan. In February
2021, the United States contributed 2,500 troops, Türkiye just 600, less than Italy,
Romania, Germany, the United Kingdom, and even non-NATO member Georgia, a country
with just one-twenty-third Türkiye’s population. And, even when Türkiye’s contribution
was larger, often it used its forces for missions beyond NATO parameters.
When I would walk the streets of Kabul, for example, I would see billboards far from
NATO headquarters promoting bilateral Turkey-Afghanistan diplomatic relations and
business ties based not on NATO principles but rather on Islamic solidarity.
Simply put, Türkiye’s on-paper statistics do not translate to on-the-ground importance
to NATO. The country is simply not as vital as it was during the Cold War when it
was a frontline state with the Soviet Union, contributed to the Korean War, and was
Western-oriented.
The time has come to call Türkiye’s bluff.
*Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he
specializes in Iran, Turkey, and the broader Middle East. A former Pentagon official,
Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq.
He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught
classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism,
to deployed US Navy and Marine units.
The US Should Stop Deferring to Turkey on the PKK
Feb 03, 2023
By Michael Rubin
Washington Examiner
Source:https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-us-should-stop-deferring-to-turkey-on-the-pkk/
After meeting his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu at the State Department last
month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised “close coordination and collaboration
in the efforts to fight against terrorist organizations” such as the Islamic State
and the Kurdistan Workers Party, or the PKK.
This might be boilerplate diplomatic language, but it hides a logical problem: The
defeat of ISIS and the PKK are mutually exclusive. Syrian Kurds sacrificed more than
12,000 men and women to fight ISIS at a time when Turkey and its Syrian proxies supported
the group. Still, whether in Syria or Sweden, Turkey makes supposed Western tolerance
of the PKK original sin. This is stated reason No. 1, for example, why Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan now vetoes Sweden’s NATO membership.
Rather than indulge Turkey, it is time to stop pretending that the Syrian Kurds —
whatever their affiliation — are anything but allies in the war against terror and
the fight for democracy.
True, the PKK started as a Marxist insurgency if not terror group. So too did Nelson
Mandela’s African National Congress. Both evolved. Unlike the Mujahedin-e-Khalq ,
the group never killed Americans. Belgium has concluded that the PKK is not a terror
group. Frankly, the United States should follow suit. The State Department did not
designate the PKK as a terror group during the height of its violence during the
1980s. That designation came later when President Bill Clinton wanted to clinch a
multibillion-dollar weapons deal with Turkey. Ironically, this victimized the PKK
twice: first by stigmatizing it and second by giving Turkey the weapons to slaughter
not only members of the group, but also ordinary farmers.
Turkey’s partisans will say that such a move will destroy U.S.-Turkey relations.
They exaggerate. For decades, State Department handwringing led the White House to
sidestep recognition of the Armenian genocide. Finally, President Joe Biden simply
ripped the Band-Aid off. So too did French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis,
Germany’s Bundestag, Russia’s Duma, and other states. When they called Turkey’s bluff,
Erdogan blustered but ultimately did nothing. Nationalist tantrums aside, he needs
the outside world more than the world needs Turkey.
Peace will not be possible if Washington embraces Erdogan’s irrational hatred of
the PKK. Nor should policymakers accept the alarmism of Turkey’s partisans in the
State Department or think tanks. After all, Turgut Ozal, who dominated Turkish politics
as prime minister and president between 1983 and 1993, was prepared to negotiate
with the PKK until a heart attack felled him. Thirty years on, it is time to recognize
his wisdom.
Biden repeats “diplomacy is back” like a mantra, but sometimes, diplomacy means more
than making opponents happy. It is time for a major course correction in U.S. policy
in the Eastern Mediterranean. Only when Washington recognizes that Syrian Kurds are
America’s best ally in a tumultuous region and stops succumbing to Turkish blackmail
can a new, more peaceful order move forward, both within Turkey and throughout the
region.
Biden: Rip the Band-Aid off. Delist the PKK. Reward allies. Be a peacemaker. Tell
Turkey the age of ethnic incitement is over.
Americans Shouldn’t Accept Erdogan’s Cynical Stance On The PKK
Dec 08, 2022
By Michel Rubin
Source:https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/12/americans-shouldnt-accept-erdogans-cynical-stance-on-the-pkk/
“We are determined to root out this terrorist organization,” Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan declared shortly after a bomb exploded on an Istanbul pedestrian mall,
calling the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) “enemies of Islam and humanity.”
For NATO leaders, diplomats, and those in Washington prone to accept and amplify
Turkish talking points, Erdogan’s concerns were “legitimate.” Many repeated Turkey’s
charge that PKK affiliates in Syria were responsible for the attack, something both
Syrian Kurds and the PKK deny.
Such deference to Erdogan has a cost.
Turkey today uses the Istanbul bomb both as a reason to conduct a preplanned operation
to eradicate Kurdish self-governance across northern and eastern Syria, and to incite
the Turkish public against the United States. “We know the identity, location and
track record of the terrorists. We also know very well who patronizes, arms and encourages
terrorists,” Erdogan declared, trying to incite anger toward the United States, which
has supported the Syrian Defense Forces’ fight against the Islamic State.
While there are legitimate arguments for close U.S.-Turkish ties, it is a mistake
to both conflate Turkey with Erdogan and to assume principle rather than politics
shapes the Turkish position toward the PKK.
From the very formation of modern Turkey, the country’s leaders discriminated against
the country’s Kurds. For Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his successor İsmet İnönü, the
problem was the Kurds’ religiosity and resistance to laicism. Subsequently, Turks
sought to repress Kurdish ethnic and cultural identity. It was against this milieu
and outright racism that Abdullah Öcalan broke with Turkish leftists and founded
the PKK on ethnic grounds.
At first, the PKK did engage in terrorism against fellow Kurds and Turks, and embraced
Marxist ideology. In August 1984 PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan launched an insurgency
and terror campaign, seizing towns in southeastern Turkey and using loudspeakers
to declare separatist goals. Over the following decade, fighting between the PKK
and the Turkish army resulted in perhaps 20,000 deaths. While Turkey engaged in systematic
human rights abuses both before and after the PKK insurgency, PKK attacks on civilians
were a tactical mistake as the Turkish public began to see the Kurds as an enemy
group rather than a victimized minority, a fact that set the Kurdish cause back decades.
With the end of the Cold War, the PKK liberalized its economic philosophy and shed
its separatist demands. With time, PKK evolved first into a more traditional insurgency,
and then a far more dormant one. This is the major reason why the United States did
not initially designate the PKK to be a terror group; it did so only in 1997 not
on the merits of the group’s actions but rather because Ankara demanded it as a condition
of a multi-billion dollar arms sale.
None other than Turgut Özal, prime minister and then president during the height
of the PKK’s violent campaign, recognized the change in the PKK. Özal repeatedly
stood up to Turkey’s ossified elite and broke the taboo surrounding liberalization
of Turkey’s Kurdish policies to include allowing the Kurdish language, Kurdish education
and television broadcasts. Özal also first proposed establishment of the Kurdish
safe-haven in Iraq, albeit to avoid a refugee influx into Turkey. As the Turkish
military gained the upper hand over the PKK in the early 1990s, Özal even pushed
the Turkish government to address the economic discrimination that fueled separatist
fire. Had a heart attack not felled Özal in his prime, it is possible if not even
likely the PKK and Turkish state would have begun formal negotiations to end the
insurgency.
Özal was not the only leader who sought to end the conflict with the PKK, although
he was in hindsight the most sincere. Öcalan welcomed talks and shed doctrinaire
inflexibility. Indeed, the PKK evolved with time just as Turkey had. Erdogan repeatedly
reached out to the group and its proxies in the belief that his brand of Islamism
might form a common bond and that Kurds might offer him electoral support. PKK members
even agreed to lay down arms and move to Syria, where, with very few resources, they
established a successful and progressive government. For Erdogan to complain that
PKK members live in northern Syria is disingenuous since he sent them there as part
of a peace deal.
Erdogan’s cynicism and dishonesty run deep. He made myriad promises to Turkish Kurds
prior to each election, only to renege on them after. Ultimately, Turkey’s Kurds
saw through his cynicism. They voted in earnest for the predominantly Kurdish Peoples’
Democratic Party (or its earlier iteration), breaking through the ten percent threshold
to loosen Erdogan’s grip on parliament. Erdogan responded not by respecting the democratic
will, but by arresting its leadership.
This brings us back to the present. Diplomats might appease the Turkish government
in the mistaken belief they can appease Erdogan. They err in the belief that short-term
appeasement will discourage further violence. Academics and think tank analysts should
not be constrained by existing government policy, however. To substitute volume and
repetition of Erdogan statements for research is both dishonest and poor research
methodology. It is also anachronistic given developments in Turkish-Kurdish relations
from the 1990s to the present. Here, there is a parallel to South Africa. Nelson
Mandela’s African National Congress was both Marxist and engaged in terrorism in
its origin, but both Mandela and the group he led evolved to seek compromise and
peace.
There is something very wrong when Americans who have never interacted with or confronted
the Syrian Kurdish leadership with their concerns, let alone bothered to visit the
region to see whether Erdogan’s characterizations are accurate, seek to be more Turkish
than the most ardent, intolerant, and extreme Turkish political groupings. The tragedy
is that such academic malpractice can lead to very real consequence with the furtherance
of conflict and the murder of even more innocents.
NATO Should Apply Turkey’s Counterterrorism Principle Against Turkey
Nov 12, 2022
By Michael Rubin
Source:https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/nato-should-apply-turkeys-counterterrorism-principle-against-turkey/
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to use Sweden’s desire to join NATO
as an opportunity both to humiliate the Scandinavian nation and to extort it. By
forcing Swedish politicians repeatedly into submission and servility, Erdogan signals
to his followers, not only inside Turkey but also among the sizeable diaspora community
in Europe, that democracies are weak and unprincipled, while his brand of strongman
rule can bring greatness.
Erdogan frames his latest demands as a campaign against terrorism although, in reality,
he conflates terrorism with political opposition and journalism.
Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa Sentop, Erdogan’s chief rubber-stamp in Turkey’s
legislative branch, cares little about such reality, instead insisting that Turkey
demanded an end to “propaganda, financing and recruitment activities” from groups
it deems to be terrorists.
Before Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson further Neville Chamberlains himself
before Erdogan, he might consider whether it would be better to remind Erdogan of
NATO’s definition of terrorism:
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence, instilling fear and terror,
against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments
or societies, or to gain control over a population, to achieve political, religious
or ideological objectives.
NATO is a consensus-driven organization and it should be neither Erdogan’s role unilaterally
to redefine terrorism nor Kristersson’s role to affirm Erdogan’s incongruence.
Rather, a better NATO response would be for each NATO member to deliver a list to
Erdogan of Turks and others to extradite based on very real evidence of terrorism.
Consider Hamas, a Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood group that openly calls for genocide
against Jews. Erdogan not only shelters the group but also gives Turkish passports
to its leaders to ease their travel. While Israel demanded Erdogan crackdown on Hamas
as a condition of reconciliation, the Turkish leader has reneged on his commitment.
Then there is the Islamic State. One of the main drivers of Erdogan’s irrational
anger at exiled journalists is that they have exposed the extent of his, his family’s,
and his administration’s ties to the Islamic State. Intelligence debriefings of captured
Islamic State fighters suggest that there are numerous safe houses in Turkey and
sympathizers throughout Turkey’s Interior Ministry and intelligence service. Perhaps
Kristersson and NATO leaders should demand Erdogan put his principle where his mouth
is and extradite these individuals for trial.
Next is Somalia. Erdogan went all in on Mohamed Farmajo, the now-former president
of the troubled country. After Somalis rebelled against Farmajo at the polls, nearly
his entire administration (Farmajo excepted) fled to exile in Turkey. This includes
Fahad Yasin, Farmajo’s former intelligence chief and a man allegedly neck-deep in
terrorism. Indeed, he should face a trial for his crimes against Somalis.
Finally there are the Gülenists. Prior to 2013, Erdogan worked closely with dissident
cleric Fethullah Gülen to marginalize Turkey’s secularists and Kemalists. Erdogan
and Gulen’s falling out had more to do with the spoils of Turkey and Erdogan’s desire
to monopolize power than any other reason. Erdogan’s anger toward the Gülenists is
deeply personal but that does not make them terrorists. Indeed, even the accusation
that the 2016 coup attempt was a Gülenist conspiracy is not certain. But, for the
sake of argument, if they were, would that not make Erdogan himself complicit in
terrorism? His former Foreign Minister and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu owes his
career to Gülen. Why should Sweden sacrifice its citizens and residents when Erdogan
allows Davutoglu to go free? Such hypocrisy alone should negate any further claims.
Sweden must today decide whether it values its democratic character more than more
immediate NATO membership. At the same time, NATO should respond to Erdogan’s antics
by applying its definition of terrorism to Turkey, drawing up and delivering lists
of radicals to extradite or imprison. Should Erdogan refuse to uphold the standard
he demands, then each NATO member should designate Turkey as a terror sponsor under
their own national laws, applying whatever legislative sanctions such designation
requires.
Turkey’s concerns about PKK are not legitimate
Jun 28, 2022
By MICHAEL RUBIN
Source:https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/turkeys-concerns-about-pkk-are-not-legitimate
It’s become boilerplate diplomatic and journalistic language whenever Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan throws a temper tantrum about Kurdish self-governance in Syria.
"These are legitimate [Turkish] concerns. This is about terrorism. It's about weapons
exports," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during a visit to Finland.
Previewing the Group of Seven and NATO summits, Biden administration officials spoke
of "Ankara’s state and security concerns." "Turkey has legitimate security concerns
on its borders," declared Asli Aydintasbas, an Istanbul-based contributor to the
Washington Post.
It is time to stop buying the idea that Turkey’s concerns are legitimate.
True, in the 1980s, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, waged an insurgency in
pursuit of a separate state after decades of Turkish discrimination against Kurds.
At the time, the PKK engaged in horrific abuses against those whom it saw as agents
of the Turkish state. By the early 1990s, however, Turgut Ozal, who dominated Turkey
for a decade first as prime minister and then as president, proposed negotiating
with the PKK. Danger persisted, even after Turkish special forces captured PKK leader
Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya in 1999. Turkish security-enhanced precautions for bus,
train, and plane travel across the country through the early 2000s. Nor was the PKK
threat limited to Turkey. When I first visited Iraqi Kurdistan in 2000, travel between
Duhok and Erbil was risky after sundown because of PKK raids. In 2003, while working
for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the PKK briefly held me at gunpoint while
I was traveling in the mountains a few miles south of the Turkish border.
Much has changed in recent decades, however.
First, the PKK abandoned its quest for a separate state. For decades, it has pursued
federalism based not on ethnicity but on local districts. While Erdogan has transformed
Turkey into a state sponsor of terrorism — there likely would have been no Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria had Turkey not facilitated the group’s movements and supply
across its borders — Syrian Kurdish forces that evolved ideologically from the PKK
rallied to fight and defeat the Islamic State.
The world rallied around Yazidi victims of genocide but will not listen to them.
Ask Yazidis and they will describe how Syrian Kurdish militias defended them after
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga abandoned them and Turkey targeted them. Turkey’s complaints
about cross-border terrorism are fiction. Syrian Kurdish authorities protect their
border. Turkey repeatedly violates it and kills scores annually. Turkish aggression
toward Iraqi Kurds in Sinjar and Qandil is likewise one-sided.
To suggest that Turkish concerns about the Kurdish diaspora in Sweden or Finland
are legitimate is to legitimize racism. It is akin to allowing Russia to hunt down
and demand disempowerment, detention, or expulsion of ethnic Ukrainians in Europe
and Central Asia. It sets a precedent for China to use its membership in international
organizations to extract concessions against Uyghurs or Taiwanese.
The Biden administration is right to be concerned. Erdogan’s behavior raises questions
about the future viability of NATO. Rather than assuage Turkey, however, or appease
it at the expense of human rights and the rule of law, it is time to ask whether
NATO can survive Turkey.
Appeasement will not work. Blackmailers seldom have personal honor. Bargaining with
Erdogan will only encourage further demands. Rather, it is time for a united front
in which the United States and Europe are willing to use sanctions and other elements
of coercion until Erdogan understands holding NATO hostage will bring Turkey not
glory but only pain.