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Balochistan and The Line of
Evil
By: Dr.Dipak Basu
October 12, 2006
Views expressed here are author?s own and not of this website. Full
disclaimer is at the bottom.
The author is a Professor in
International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)
The events in Baluchistan have little or no impacts on the world and India
in particular. India government as usual failed to utilize the events to
dramatize the cause for the liberation of Balochistan. The reason is that
for the last 60 years, Baluchistan is forgotten. Although India?s
politicians particularly those who are called ?the left?, are very much
eager to express their solidarity to the people of Lebanon or Nicaragua,
they do not care about what is going on in India?s immediate neighbourhood.
Invasion and occupations of Tibet and Eastern Turkistan by China,
Balochistan, North-West Frontier Province by Pakistan, mass murder of the
Hindus in Kashmir, Bangladesh and Sri-Lanka cannot draw the attention of
so-called progressive people of India. Very few people even know that
Balochistan was not a part of Pakistan in 1947, but it was invaded in 1948
by Pakistan who is occupying it ever since without any protest from India or
any other countries of the world. The role of India, Britain and the world
community are the most shameful regarding both Balochistan and the North
West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P) of what is now Pakistan.
The government of Pakistan claims that the Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan
Bugti was killed recently by mistake recently. Nawab Bugti was not an
ordinary individual; he symbolized Baloch nationalism. The main Baloch
grievance is political in nature that, except for the short duration of
Ataullah Mengal"s government in the early 1970s, the Baluchistan governments
have comprised simple and crude nominees of Pakistani rulers. So much of
natural gas is taken out from Balochistan and consumed in other provinces
but the royalties are measly and have no relationship with the value of the
goods shipped out. No central government of Pakistan has ever cared for the
development of this vast and arid province; it is still the most
underdeveloped area of Pakistan.
Durand Line: the line of Evil
Balochistan, along with the North West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P) are the
victims of an imaginary line, called Durand Line, which was described by
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president as the ?line of Evil?. In deed that line
signifies both the British and Pakistani imperialism that have subjugated
the Baluchs and the Pushtuns.
In 1893, the Afghan and British governments agreed to demark a
2,450-kilometer (1,519 miles) long border dividing British India and
Afghanistan. The signatory of the document, known as The Durand Line
Agreement, were Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, ruler of Afghanistan, and Sir Henry
Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British Indian government.
After a series of battles and false treaties signed by the British, ?The
Durand Line Agreement? of 1893 divides boundaries between three sovereign
countries, namely Afghanistan, Balochistan and British India. According to
that agreement Britain had taken a lease of the area in N.W.F.P and
Balochistan, without the knowledge of Balochistan. Sir Durand gave verbal
assurance to Afghanistan that the lease will lat until 1993, but in the
written agreement there is no mention of it. Otherwise just like Hong Kong,
N.W.F.P would have gone back to Afghanistan in 1993.
The Durand Line Agreement should be a trilateral agreement and it legally
required the participation and signatures of all three countries. However,
the clever British drawn the agreement bilaterally between Afghanistan and
British India only, and it intentionally excluded Balochistan. Thus,
Balochistan has never accepted the validity of the Durand Line. The British,
under false pretenses, assured the Afghan rulers that Balochistan was part
of British India, and therefore, they were not required to have the consent
of anyone from Balochistan to agree on demarking borders. Meanwhile, the
British kept the Baloch rulers in the dark about the Durand Line Agreement
to avoid any complications. According to International Law, all affected
parties are required to agree to any changes in demarking their common
borders. Hence, under the rules of demarking boundaries of the International
Law, the Agreement of Durand Line was in error, and thus, it was null and
void as soon as it was signed.
Also, International Law states that boundary changes must be made among all
concerned parties; and a unilateral declaration by one party has no effect.
However, the British government disregarding the objection of Afghanistan
gave away the N.W.F.P to Pakistan after a fraud plebscite. However, it never
gave Baluchistan to Pakistan in the same way the British never gave away
Jammu & Kashmir to India.
When in 1949, Afghanistan?s ?Loya Jirga? (Grand Council) declared the Durand
Line Agreement invalid and also raised objections in the United Nations
against the creation of Pakistan and its boundary decalared by the British
alone, the so-called world body had ignored the plea of a small nation.
Pakistani Invasion of Indepent Baluchistan,
1948:
On August 11, 1947, the British acceded control of Balochistan to the ruler
of Balochistan, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan - the Khan of Kalat. The Khan immediately
declared the independence of Balochistan, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah signed the
proclamation of Balochistan?s sovereignty under the Khan.
The New York Times reported on August 12, 1947: ?Under the agreement,
Pakistan recognizes Kalat as an independent sovereign state with a status
different from that of the Indian States. An announcement from New Delhi
said that Kalat, Moslem State in Baluchistan, has reached an agreement with
Pakistan for free flow of communications and commerce, and would negotiate
for decisions on defense, external affairs and communications.? The next
day, the NY Times even printed a map of the world showing Balochistan as a
fully independent country.
On August 15, 1947 the Khan of Kalat addressed a large gathering in Kalat
and formally declared the full independence of Balochistan, and proclaimed
the 15th day of August a day of celebration. The Khan formed the lower and
upper house of Kalat Assembly, and during the first meeting of the Lower
House in early September 1947, the Assembly confirmed the independence of
Balochistan. Jinnah tried to persuade the Khan to join Pakistan, but the
Khan and both Houses of the Kalat Assembly refused. The Pakistani army then
invaded Balochistan on April 15th, 1948, and imprisoned all members of the
Kalat Assembly. India stood by silently. Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi,
Nehru or Maulana Azad, then the president of India?s Congress Party said
nothing about the rape of Baluchistan or later of N.W.F.P.
Throughout the period of British rule of India, the British never occupied
Baluchistan. There were treaties and lease agreements between the two
sovereign states, but neither state invaded the other. Although the treaties
signed between British India and Balochistan provided many concessions to
the British, but none of the treaties permitted the British to demark the
boundaries of Baluchistan without the consent of the Baluch rulers. Once
Balochistan was secured through invasion, the Pakistanis deceptively used
the law of uti possidetis juris to their advantage and continued occupation
of territories belonging to Afghanistan, the N.W.F.P with the full approval
of the British Army in India and their supreme commander Lord.Mountbatten.
As Pakistan is in illegal occupation of territories belonging to Afghanistan
and Balochistan under false pretenses, it is in Pakistan?s interest to have
a weak and destabilized government in Afghanistan so there is no one to
challenge the authenticity of the Durand Line Agreement.
That was the reason Pakistan has joined the conspiracy of President Carter
and his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (as described in the
interview given by Brzezinshi to the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur
on 15-21 January 1998) to destabilize the Afghan government of Noor Mohammed
Taraki in 1978 by using Pakistani army and destroy it completely through the
invasions of the Muzzahideens in 1992 and Talibans later in 1995 with the
approval of President Clinton who has sent his special adviser Robin Rafael
to Kandahar to congratulate the Talibans. In the same way Clinton
administration has sent 10,000 strong Mujahideen army, composed of Arabs, to
Bosnia in 1991 to murder the Christian Serbs.
Even after 2001, Pakistani intelligence agencies have provided shelter for
members of Al-Qaeada and Taliban who are committing acts of terrorism within
Afghanistan to destabilize the democratically elected government of
President Hamid Karzai. Pakistan has waged a proxy war against the United
States through Taliban, and continues to terrorize the Afghan nation in
hopes to frustrate the US to leave Afghanistan and weaken the Afghan
government.Meanwhil e, the Baloch have launched their ?War of Independence?
in Iran and Pakistan.
Liberation Movement in Balochistan:
Mir Azaad Khan Baloch, the General Secretary, The Government of Balochistan
in Exile in Jerusalem decalared recently, ?Afghanistan and Baluchistan
should form a legal team to challenge the illegal occupation of Afghan
territories and Baluchistan by Pakistan in the International Court of
Justice. Once the Durand Line Agreement is declared illegal, it will result
in the return of Pakistan-occupied territories back to Afghanistan. Also,
Baluchistan will be declared a country that was forcibly invaded through use
of force by the Pakistanis; and with international assistance, Baluchistan
can regain its independence.?
The Baloch freedom movement is not new but failed to draw the attention of
the world. A very serious crisis lasted from September 1961 to June 1963,
when diplomatic, trade, transit, and consular relations between Baluchistan
and Pakistan were suspended. Another insurgency erupted in Balochistan in
1973 into an insurgency that lasted four years and became increasingly
bitter. The insurgency was put down by the Pakistan Army, which employed
brutal methods and equipment, including helicopter gunship, provided by Iran
and flown by Iranian pilots. The shah of Iran, who feared a spread of the
insurrection among the Iranian Baloch, generously gave external assistance
to Bhutto. By early 1974, an armed revolt was underway in Baluchistan. By
2004 Baluchistan was up in arms against the federal government, with the
Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Liberation Front, and
People"s Liberation Army conducting operations. Rocket attacks and bomb
blasts have been a regular feature in the provincial capital, particularly
its cantonment areas, Kohlu and Sui town, since 2000, and had claimed over
25 lives by mid-2004.
The Gwadar Port project employed close to 500 Chinese nationals by 2004. On
03 May 2004, the BLA killed three Chinese engineers working on the Port.
Rockets attacked Gwadar airport at midnight on 21 May 2004. On 09 October
2004, two Chinese engineers were kidnapped in South Waziristan in the
northwest of Pakistan, one of whom was killed later on October 14 in a
botched rescue operation. Violence reached a crescendo in March of 2005 when
the Pakistani government attempting to target Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a
seventy-year- old Sardar (tribal leader) who had fought against the
government for decades, shelled the town of Dera Bugti. The fighting that
erupted between the tribal militia and government soldiers resulted in the
deaths of 67 people. Ultimately Nawab Bugti also became a martyr in the
cause of the liberation of Balochistan.
The Durand Line and N.W.F.P
To this date, the relations between Afghanistan, Balochistan and Pakistan
are characterized by rivalry, suspicion and resentment. The primary cause of
this hostility rests in the debate about the validity of the Durand Line
Agreement. Dubbing Durand line as a line of hatred Afghan President Hamid
Karzai has said he does not accept this line as it has raised a wall between
the two brothers, and slices a part of Afghanistan from the motherland. He
said this on 26 January 2006 after offering condolence over the death of
Khan Abdul Wali Khan, the last surviving son of the ?Frontier Gandhi? Khan
Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was betrayed by Mahatma Gandhi in 1947. Afghanistan
always vigorously protested the inclusion of Pashtun and Baluch areas within
Pakistan without providing the inhabitants with an opportunity for
self-determination.
In the 19th century, Afghanistan served as a strategic buffer state between
czarist Russia and the British Empire in the subcontinent. Afghanistan" s
relations with Moscow became more cordial after the Bolshevik Revolution in
1917. The Soviet Union was the first country to establish diplomatic
relations with Afghanistan after the Third Anglo-Afghan war and signed an
Afghan-Soviet non-aggression pact in 1921, which also provided for Afghan
transit rights through the Soviet Union. Early Soviet assistance included
financial aid, aircraft and attendant technical personnel, and telegraph
operators.
British during their Empire in India were anxious to award N.W.F.P to the
Muslim League to minimize the importance of Afghanistan, a pro-Soviet state.
The most important party in the N.W.F.P was the Khudai Khidmatgars who had
formed the government there since 1935 in collaboration with the Congress
party of India. The opinion of the British governor Sir George Cunningham
was the same of that of the Muslim League that, since the Hindus were not a
people of the Book, and since the Khudai Khidmatgars of Khan Abdul Gaffer
Khan were working in concerned with the Hindu Congress for national
independence and freedom from British slavery, hence this partnership was in
fact a partnership with heathenish Kafirs.
The Muslim League always had been an ally of the British, and it was wholly
unsympathetic to all the Muslim organizations fighting the British ? to the
righteous scholars and leaders of Deoband, whom it did no even desist from
abusing. It was not prepared to recognize the efforts of other individual
Muslims who were contributing to the national movement for independence. On
the contrary, it had kept pressing the British not to recognize any other
Muslim or Muslim organization except the Muslim League as representative of
the country?s entire Muslims, when it was very unpopular party among the
Muslims in Bengal, Sindh, and N.W.F.P, all Muslim majority areas of the
British India.
The British practically handed over the N.W.F.P to The Muslim League through
a referendum where the supporters of the Khudai Khidmatgars abstained
because of the absurd advice of Mahatma Gandhi. Khudai Khidmatgars and the
Congress Party of Gandhi used to have the political power of the N.W.F.P
since 1935. Gandhi gave them assurance that if they abstain the referendum
would be morally invalid and annulled. (Gandhi gave the same absurd advice
to the Hindus in the referendum in the Mayamansingh district of East Bengal
and as a result the whole of the district with about with about half of the
population as Hindus went to Pakistan). The British had managed to persuade
through bribing some members of the legislative assembly to support the
inclusion of N.W.F.P in Pakistan. Immediately after 1947 Pakistan had
started killing members of the Khudai Khidmatgars and most Pushtun leaders,
including Khan Abdul Gaffer Khan had to take sanctuary in Afghanistan, then
an anti-British and pro-Soviet country.
The Soviets began a major economic assistance program in Afghanistan in the
1950s. Between 1954 and 1978, Afghanistan received more than $1 billion in
Soviet aid, including substantial military assistance. In 1973, the two
countries announced a $200-million assistance agreement on gas and oil
development, trade, transport, irrigation, and factory construction. Since
1978, the Soviet Union started providing large-scale military assistance to
Afghanistan to protect the country from the invasion launched by Pakistan
with the full encouragement of the CIA to destroy the socialist government
of Noor Mahamed Taraki. When it became obvious that Afghanistan alone cannot
resist the aggression of Pakistan, the Soviet army came to Afghanistan in
December 1979 to help maintain its independence until 1992.
After 1979, the Soviets augmented their large aid commitments to shore up
the Afghan economy and rebuild the Afghan military. They provided the Karmal
regime an unprecedented $800 million. The Soviet Union supported the
Najibullah regime even after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in February
1989. Russia has provided military assistance to the Northern Alliance
against the Pakistan backed Talibans. Osama Bin Laden started off as a
Mujahideen, against the Soviet backed socialist government of Afghanistan.
He was actively sponsored by the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies
and was felicitated in both the White House of Washington and the White Hall
of London.
A grand Pakhtoon-Baloch tribal convention was held in Pesawar on 11 February
2006 where prominent Pakhtoon and Baloch leaders endorsed a call for the
elimination of the infamous and imaginary British-made Durand Line with the
objective of creating a Greater Balochistan. Awami National Party (ANP)
leader Asfandyar Wali Khan said that the Pakhtoon nation was passing through
a critical phase of its history, and therefore, the ANP had convened the
tribal convention to devise a strategy to counter the ongoing Pakistan
military operations in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The Pakhtoon Milli Wahdat revolves around the elimination of the Durand
Line, dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan, so that Pakhtoons living in NWFP,
Balochistan and tribal areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan could form a state
of their own.
A New Map for the Middle East:
Ralph Peter, in The Armed Forces Journal of the U.S, in June 2006, suggested
that there has to be a major changes in the map of the Middle East,
including Pakistan and Afghanistan to do justice to the ethnic groups who
were forced to live under alien governments because the British and the
French after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 have arbitrarily divided
up the Middle East without thinking about the consequences of their actions
on various nationalities who used to live under the Turkish Empire.
According to this ?New Map of the Middle East?, Iran, ?a state with madcap
boundaries?, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan,
Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the
provinces around Herat in today"s Afghanistan ? a region with a historical
and linguistic affinity for Iran. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic
Persian state again.
What Afghanistan would lose to Iran in the west, it would gain in the east,
as Pakistan"s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan
brethren. Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch
territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie
entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.
Thus, even among the most conservative circle of the USA the support for
free Baluchistan and N.W.F.P is gaining ground due to the treacherous
character of Pakistan. While it is receiving massive amount of military and
civilian aid from the U.S, Pakistan is still giving sanctuary to both
Taliban and Al Queada, giving them free areas to roam in the N.W.F.P.
Pakistan no longer enjoys the unconditional support of the United States. In
a lightning visit to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan in March 2006, US
president George Bush did not conceal where his favour lay. He left India
having signed a much-coveted deal on nuclear energy, while his visit to
Pakistan left Musharraf with nothing.
India enjoys support in Kabul from not only Karzai and his cabinet but many
political elements that fought the Taliban, especially the Northern Alliance
that was supported by Iran, the U.S. and its allies and continues to be
friendly towards India. A strong, stable Afghanistan, bolstered by American
military and diplomatic support, and further strengthened by an alliance
with India, could on the other hand make Pakistan very uncomfortable indeed.
India should take advantage of this historic opportunity to free both
Baluchistan and N.W.F.P from Pakistan by giving total support to the Baluch
freedom fighters and to the Afghan government, as Mrs. Indira Gandhi has
changed the map of Pakistan in 1971. While Pakistan is continuously drawing
the attention of the world about India?s so-called ?injustice? to Kashmir,
which Pakistan has invaded in October 1947, there is no reason for India to
conceal the fact that Pakistan has occupied an independent country
Balochistan in April 1948.
Dr.Dipak Basu
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Durand Line Agreement
November 12, 1893
Credits: Azmaray Khan
Agreement
between Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, G. C. S. I., and Sir Henry Mortimer Durand,
K. C. I. E., C. S. I.
Whereas certain questions
have arisen regarding the frontier of Afghanistan on the side of India, and
whereas both His Highness the Amir and the Government of India are desirous
of settling these questions by friendly understanding, and of fixing the
limit of their respective spheres of influence, so that for the future there
may be no difference of opinion on the subject between the allied
Governments, it is hereby agreed as follows:
- The eastern and
southern frontier of his Highness?s dominions, from Wakhan to the Persian
border, shall follow the line shown in the map attached to this agreement.
- The Government of
India will at no time exercise interference in the territories lying
beyond this line on the side of Afghanistan, and His Highness the Amir
will at no time exercise interference in the territories lying beyond this
line on the side of India.
- The British
Government thus agrees to His Highness the Amir retaining Asmar and the
valley above it, as far as Chanak. His Highness agrees, on the other hand,
that he will at no time exercise interference in Swat, Bajaur, or Chitral,
including the Arnawai or Bashgal valley. The British Government also
agrees to leave to His Highness the Birmal tract as shown in the detailed
map already given to his Highness, who relinquishes his claim to the rest
of the Waziri country and Dawar. His Highness also relinquishes his claim
to Chageh.
- The frontier line
will hereafter be laid down in detail and demarcated, wherever this may be
practicable and desirable, by joint British and Afghan commissioners,
whose object will be to arrive by mutual understanding at a boundary which
shall adhere with the greatest possible exactness to the line shown in the
map attached to this agreement, having due regard to the existing local
rights of villages adjoining the frontier.
- With reference to
the question of Chaman, the Amir withdraws his objection to the new
British cantonment and concedes to the British Governmeni the rights
purchased by him in the Sirkai Tilerai water. At this part of the frontier
the line will be drawn as follows:
From the crest of the Khwaja Amran range near the Psha Kotal, which
remains in British territory, the line will run in such a direction as to
leave Murgha Chaman and the Sharobo spring to Afghanistan, and to pass
half-way between the New Chaman Fort and the Afghan outpost known locally
as Lashkar Dand. The line will then pass half-way between the railway
station and the hill known as the Mian Baldak, and, turning south-wards,
will rejoin the Khwaja Amran range, leaving the Gwasha Post in British
territory, and the road to Shorawak to the west and south of Gwasha in
Afghanistan. The British Government will not exercise any interference
within half a mile of the road.
- The above articles
of' agreement are regarded by the Government of India and His Highness the
Amir of Afghanistan as a full and satisfactory settlement of all the
principal differences of opinion which have arisen between them in regard
to the frontier; and both the Government of India and His Highness the
Amir undertake that any differences of detail, such as those which will
have to be considered hereafter by the officers appointed to demarcate the
boundary line, shall be settled in a friendly spirit, so as to remove for
the future as far as possible all causes of doubt and misunderstanding
between the two Governments.
- Being fully
satisfied of His Highness?s goodwill to the British Government, and
wishing to see Afghanistan independent and strong, the Government of India
will raise no objection to the purchase and import by His Highness of
munitions of war, and they will themselves grant him some help in this
respect. Further, in order to mark their sense of the friendly spirit in
which His Highness the Amir has entered into these negotiations, the
Government of India undertake to increase by the sum of six lakhs of
rupees a year the subsidy of twelve lakhs now granted to His Highness.
H. M.
Durand,
Amir Abdur Rahman Khan.
Kabul, November 12, 1893.
http://www.khyber.org/
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Dividing Iraq and creating a
Kurdish state
Sunday, October 22, 2006
KurdishMedia.com - By Ardalan Hardi
Previously in his interview with Paul Gigot in the Wall Street Journal
President Bush said to partition Iraq would be "a mistake." Bush went on to
say "the Iraqi people are going to have to make that decision."
The current government that rules Iraq as a state exists only in name. The
division of - Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni - already has happened. Mistake or
not it is very much a reality we have to face. If our goal is to reform the
Middle East like President Bush suggests, then we have to accept the will of
the people of Iraq and accept the inevitable. Democracy is not forcing
people to live together that do not want to.
On Oct. 11 the Iraqi parliament approved a law that will allow Iraq to be
carved into a federation of autonomous regions. The bill passed the
275-member parliament by a vote of 141 to 0.
In his last interview on Fox News, President Bush said he would reject any
recommendation to partition Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines and that
creating semi-autonomous states for Kurds, Shiite and Sunni Muslims would
worsen divisions in Iraq. It would seem that Bush is back-tracking from his
earlier statement of letting the Iraqi people make their own decision.
It is understandable for the president to have reconsidered his earlier
comments when it comes to Iraq’s future since the U.S. has invested so much
money and manpower in freeing Iraq from tyranny. However, to emphatically
rule out the partition of Iraq is regrettable.
Staggering violence in Iraq, has now taken 2,791 American lives and
according to The Lancet, the British medical journal, 650,000 Iraqi lives
have been lost. It is time for a new approach in Iraq.
Many experts agree dividing Iraq is the only way to keep stability in the
region and to bring foreign troops home.
Senator Trent Lott, former republican party senate majority leader says
“When it comes to curbing Iraq’s sectarian violence, we should remember that
Iraq is essentially three peoples - Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites - lumped
together long ago by Colonial Britain into the manufactured nation of Iraq.
Suppressed by decades of dictatorship, these three peoples still have
distinct historical and cultural differences, manifesting themselves again
and threatening the stability of the region and the entire world” He goes on
to say “Iraq requires a new plan.”
Peter Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and author of a new book,
The End of Iraq,” says “Iraq has disintegrated into three parts v a
pro-Western Kurdistan in the north, an Iranian-dominated Shiite entity in
the south, and a chaotic Sunni Arab region in the center.” He goes on to say
“There can be no strategy of keeping Iraq together because it is not
together.”
U.S. senator Joe Biden says “resolving the problems in Iraq will require
separating the various factions there.” He added “the Kurds, Shiites and
Sunnis need to have their own mostly autonomous regions in Iraq, that
reconstruction assistance should be increased to the country and that most
U.S. troops should be withdrawn by 2008.” Biden said this plan would be
similar to what was done during the mid-1990s in Bosnia.
President Bush’s desire to keep Iraq as a unified country is hopeless and
unworkable. The sectarian violence that has plagued Iraq for last few years
is not going to go away like Shlomo Avineri, professor of political science
at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says “There seems to be no power able
to hold Iraq together. Attempts to set up a national unity government, in
which all groups will be represented, have failed.” Such attempts will
probably fail in the future as well, even if they are papered over by some
verbal, worthless face-saving formula.”
"Iraq is going the way of the former Yugoslavia. When ethnic and religious
groups are unable and unwilling to live together in a country held together
by force and lacking any democratic traditions, disintegration may be the
only way out."
"Maybe three separate states in what used to be Iraq have a better chance -
as occurred in Yugoslavia - of leading to some stabilization and even
democratic development."
"By calling the strife in Iraq "sectarian," observers and policymakers are
trying to minimize the deep chasms that divide Iraqi society - like calling
the bloody wars between Catholics and Protestants in 17th-century Europe
"sectarian." But those were not only about theological disagreements; they
were about identity, historical narrative and memory."
"The sooner one realizes their force - and their legitimacy within their
respective communities - the sooner illusions about abstract democracy and
non-existing unity can be replaced by more realistic policies."
However, President Bush maintains that such a move would increase violence
in the region and "create problems for Turkey". On the contrary, many,
including some Turkish experts, agree that a Kurdish state would be a
beneficial to Turkey’s security. Furthermore, Turkey would rather see a
democratic Kurdish state rather than another Islamic fundamentalist regime
on its border. Moreover, the Turkish economy is already benefiting from a
Kurdish regional government developing economy.
Sedat Laciner, director of the USAK says “Contrary to the general belief,
there is no fear of the establishment of a Kurdish state among Turkish
public opinion. The premise that a possible Kurdish state in Northern Iraq
will threaten Turkey is not a majority view in Turkey. On the contrary, a
Kurdish state in Northern Iraq may have some advantages for Turkey.”
This week another Republican from Bush's home state has come to the same
conclusion. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas expressed her openness to
consider the value of breaking up Iraq.
President Bush did the right thing by getting rid of the dictator Saddam.
Now it is time to come to the right conclusion by dividing Iraq and getting
our troops out of harms way.
A united Iraq does not exist and never will. Forcing unity in a country that
does not want to be unified creates a time bomb that could bring further
negative ramifications and greater consequences to the future of U.S.
foreign policy. It is false to think that a united Iraq keeps U.S.
interests at heart when it only benefits those neighboring countries that
lack democracy in their own states and are fearful that a true democratic
Kurdish state might coerce them to change their ways. By dividing Iraq, at
least we will gain the Kurdish nation as an ally in a region where true
friends are hard to come by. We might even gain some influence from the
Shiite’s in the south.
Like former senator Trent Lott says “I’d rather have 50 percent of something
than 100 percent of nothing.”
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