The Kurds Can Transform the Middle East
I’m a big fan of the Kurdish cause, so this was heartening to read:
Policy makers in the U.S. and Europe need to set aside their traditional way of viewing the world exclusively as a collection of nation-states; recognize the possibilities and risks behind Kurdish empowerment; and craft a strategy to encourage this pro-Western population to gain more influence in the region without provoking a backlash.
Yep. The Kurds are spread across southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria, and northwestern Iran. They had been promised a state after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, but were denied. If anybody deserves their own state anywhere, the Kurds do – and much more so than the Palestinians. Writer Meghan O’Sullivan, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, advocates that the Kurds ditch the idea of a state and pursue a “globalization strategy.”
Rather than feeding new clamoring for a Kurdish state, an increase in influence may lead the region’s Kurds to adopt a “globalization” strategy. This approach would acknowledge the waning importance of state borders around the globe and focus on building strong cultural and economic links—and maybe ultimately institutions—that span political boundaries. Working toward a “virtual” Kurdistan, the Kurds of a transformed Middle East might realize many of their aspirations without incurring the ire of the region’s larger powers.
Professor O’Sullivan doesn’t explicitly state why the Kurds should settle for virtual Kurdistan (would she tell the Palestinians to do the same thing?) except for upsetting the local regimes of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Why are the national borders drawn up a century ago by the victors of World War I inviolate? And if national borders aren’t important to the point that they are trumped by a “virtual state”, why can’t the Palestinians settle for the same?
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