Betting on Stability

“Returning then to the ethnoscapes with which I began, the central paradox of ethnic politics in today’s world is that primordia (whether langage or skin color or neighborhood or kinship) have become globalized. That is, sentiments, whose greatest force is in their ability to ignite intimacy into a political state and turn locality into a staging ground for identity, have become spread over vast and irregular spaces as groups move yet stay linked to one another through sophisticated media capabilities” (p. 41).
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization

As I prepare for next semester, I find myself clicking through websites to understand more about the world. I recently switched my class schedule around, dropping a political psychology class to take an international topics class in political science; I made the change partially because I think the class will be more beneficial. I also decided to accept an offer to teach a class about understanding the American news media.

I would like to enter my classes this fall with some basic grasp of international relations, so I have sought out information about which I always felt unsure. I think one of the most difficult differences for me to understand is the difference between Sunni Muslims and Shi’ite Muslims; understanding these differences forms a basic comprehension of both the history and current political environment in the Persian Gulf region. Cursory looks so far indicate that scholars disagree about the origins; some say the differences derive from Muhammad's death and his chosen successor. Throughout the years, though, these differences have manifested deeply into the culture leading to fundamental differences, such as how both the Quran and Hadith are written and interpreted.

As I work through these differences, I also find myself drawn to stories about the problems in Iraq, caused by sectarian violence and militias. In addition to pulling apart concepts like “Sunni” and “Shi’ite”, I also find myself picking through articles to understand the term, “militia.” Often, many of these articles fail to explain the differences between the two groups; in fact, a consistent theme of the Mehdi Army is anti-American. While I do not dispute this perspective, for lack of information, I wonder how I would react if others invaded my country. Given that I am originally from Oklahoma, I know how I would feel if Texas decided to annex the state.

As I stated in my post on Kurdistan, many believe that the U.S. government is aiding PJAK, which is aligned with the PKK and is causing problems in Iran. Both Iran and Turkey have shelled and amassed troops along the Iraqi border, as part of a solution to root out what both countries believe are “insurgent” groups. But as the American news media cover the meeting among officials from Iraq, Iran, and the United States in Baghdad, the focus – at least publicly – has been on the Shi’ite militia in Iraq. The Shi’ite militia baffled me because Iraq’s current government is predominantly Shi’ite and apparently many Sunnis are not participating.

In addition to the Shi’ite militia, Iraq also has an al Qaeda problem . I have no doubt that al Qaeda found its way to Iraq; the group seems to like a good fight with Americans. The L.A. Times article quoted in my Kurdistan post indicated that many insurgents held U.S. military custody are Saudi nationals, presumably Sunni Muslims who fight for al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, however, is not considered a militia, but rather a terrorist organization. The difference between viewing the Shi’ite group as a militia and Al Qaeda is still unclear to me; I would like to investigate that further.

It was a big week for the Persian Gulf region. While the U.S. Ambassador met with Iraqi and the Iranian ambassador for a second round of talks, the U.S. government has entertained the idea of selling arms to many countries in the area, and the U.S. military has sought out local Sunni tribesmen to work in the security forces. Bush also tied Al Qaeda in Iraq to al Qaeda responsible for the September 11 attacks: “Al Qaeda in Iraq is a group funded by foreign terrorists, led largely by foreign terrorists, and loyal to a foreign leader: Osama bin Laden.” Of course, those fighting for al Qaeda in Iraq are thought to be Iraqi, though the leadership is foreign and is centered around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

I have to say, though, I am not sure how al Qaeda is still funded, as I thought their sources of funding had been frozen by the U.S. government. I understand the argument that Iran is giving guns to the Shi'ite militia, but I'm still not clear on how or why the Sunnis are armed. If you put all of the information below together in an expose in an everyday weekly American newspaper, I wonder what the reaction would be.

Playing with fire
Before the meeting with Iran and the United States, Al-Maliki called on the countries to help support stability and security in Iraq. Tensions between Iran and the United States aside, the meeting’s aim was meant to seek ways to bring security and stability to Iraq, including containing Sunni militants, or al Qaeda, in the country. As I mentioned in my previous post, some believe the U.S. government is supporting PJAK, and both Turkey and Iran have had troops positioned along the Iraqi border. Following the meeting U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said Iran has not dealt with Iraq in an effective, efficient way, though I am not too sure what this means. The U.S. contends that Iran is supporting the Shi’ite militias; the U.S. military also has two suspected Iranian terrorists in custody. The two were caught during a raid, bringing EFPs into Iraq. However, Iran denies this charge, and the Khamenei in Iran still views the United States and Israel as enemies. The meeting did yield a trilateral committee that will seek ways of bring the violence in Iraq to an end. While this meeting took place, at least three stories emerged about the U.S. military’s idea for using armed local Sunni tribesmen for security.

The idea has its roots in the experiences of the U.S. military personnel in Iraq; many of the Sunni tribesmen have expressed frustration with militias and have aided the U.S. military in several cases. While it enables Iraqis to participate in the protection of their country, the Iraqi government is cautious and concerned about the program. In fact, one major difficulty with training the security forces resides in ridding trainees of their sectarian loyalties. While the Shi’ite dominated government has felt pressure to do away with the militias, a concern arises over the focus. If the government focuses on Shi’ite militias, does it legitimize the problems caused by militant Sunni groups? The government also wants the ability to screen volunteers before they are armed, in addition to bringing these groups under government control. One Iraqi official has called it the "seed for civil war." The military emphasized it is not arming the groups, but it is authorized to give them money and ink contracts with these groups to perform certain tasks, especially the protection of “critical infrastructure.” It is a way to then pull these residents into security forces to eventually train them to use weapons and understand the “American rules of engagement.” (Oddly enough, the deck on that story was: "Irregulars to patrol own neighborhoods").

Clashes with militia are common, like the U.S. military recent run-in with the Shi’ite militia, the Medhi army, while looking for one of its commanders in Kerbala. Although the news media consistently says Kerbala is one of the most protected areas in Iraq – because it is a holy Shi’ite city – 17 militiamen were killed in the city during the clash. The Medhi army is led by Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whom U.S. officials believe is fueling sectarian violence.

But it takes two to tango. Saudi Arabia is consistently frustrating the Bush administration; during a meeting in January in Riyadh, the Saudi government produced documents meant to debunk the legitimacy of al-Maliki in Iraq, illustrating that he has had contact with al-Sadr and that he is an Iranian agent. While U.S. officials reportedly believe the documents to be forgeries, tension between Saudi Arabia and Iraq have increased. And some believe it is NOT Iran or Syria contributing to the instability of Iraq but Saudi Arabia:

“Of course, the Saudi government has hardly masked its intention to prop up Sunni groups in Iraq and has for the past two years...the need to counterbalance the influence Iran has there.”

Despite these frustrations, the Bush administration is preparing a proposal to take to Congress; it is seeking approval of an arms package for Saudi Arabia and surrounding countries. The arms package is partially a response to Iran but to secure American influence in the area as well. In addition to selling the arms to Saudi Arabia, the United States also seeks to bolster its deal with Israel, a “significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.” Egypt would also receive a similar deal. Other countries in the area that will likely receive weaponry include: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates. Despite the U.S. government's concerns about Saudi Arabia and unlike its pressure on Iran, it has sought no public support from Saudi Arabia for the war in Iraq.

“In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.”

Although I have not heard a great deal about increasing U.S. troops in Iraq lately, I did notice the British are talking about withdrawing their troops from Basra. Iraqis fear the lack of a major military presence in Southern Iraq, as they believe the security force is infiltrated by those competing for control of Basra's oil. One British military official described the difference between Northern Iraq and Southern Iraq as "a problem of gangsterism not sectarian violence." Eventually the Iraqis will need to stabilize their own country, as not only the British mentioned but the Iranians have argued, as well.

As American officials search for solutions, the Iraq war has created a diaspora of refugees, fleeing to neighboring countries, which is rarely mentioned in the American news media. It seems a gamble to pump guns into the region, especially since it remains unclear who bats for which team. While I have no doubt that a link between the Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Al Qaeda responsible for September 11, I also know a link exists between the Al Qaeda responsible for the September 11 attacks and the nationalities of the terrorists involved. If gambling is indeed an art based on probable outcomes, it would seem the Bush administration would place far less faith in Saudi Arabia. And even if Iran's influence had grown in the region and its support for the Shi'ite militia was painfully obvious, to provide more weaponry to a country that has illustrated a propensity for creating terrorists seems reckless, if not hypocritical. In fact, I would say about Saudi Arabia what Sean McCormack, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, said about Iran:

"They say they want strategic stability in Iraq. Well, they should start acting like it."

Whose freedom?

I have begun to realize how difficult it must be for many to truly understand world events. Finding information is difficult enough, but how do we assess that information? For instance, my previous post about RED completely skirted an explanation of foreign aid and investment in Africa. As some theorists have suggested, it is not possible to know everything. Nonetheless, it is difficult to understand situations without understanding the local context.

I check the news each day, completely bypassing the print and broadcast media entirely now. While I do not discount them as viable media, they simply do not allow for the navigation that I prefer. I wonder now if I’m a little ADD because of my interaction with the Internet; it is a medium that doesn’t necessarily require my complete attention at any given point. I hop around, from page to page and site to site, though this ability is not always negative. It enables me to travel through the course of a story, checking out related stories that I might not get through more traditional forms of media. One such story concerns the developments in Turkey. It was an AP headline that first peaked my attention about Turkey and Northern Iraq.

It is always interesting to me who follows what in the news. One of my colleagues said she had been following the developments in Turkey; of course, she’s one of those who reads the Sunday edition of the Times. Another friend said she had not been following, and I was relieved to know that she was like me – no clue. Interestingly, the one who was following the developments said, “What I think is interesting is how the word “insurgent” has been used.” Again, it seems like an ancillary connection, but is it? Ultimately the word depends on your perspective.

Turkey, Iran, and Kurdistan
The headline was this: “Will Turkey invade Northern Iraq?” I have to say that I was a little concerned. Isn’t Turkey our ally? What is Turkey’s problem any way? What was in Iraq that Turkey wanted? I am sure there were a number of readers out there who saw this headline and did not know what to think, especially since our military is in Iraq. And speaking of our military, why weren’t military officials worried about this? If they are, we might never know considering it’s probably been filed in the “National Security” category. This category overlaps with the American’s freedom - transparency and the right to know, to engage in knowledgeable participation. When our federal government must act toward the public good, these two categories often conflict.

It was the word invasion that worried me. No doubt that word is immediately tied to the First Gulf war and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, or further back, Russia's invasion of Poland or Germany's invasion of Russia. Typically it conjures the idea of one nation-state taking land or resource away from another nation-state. A trite analogy: in the geopolitical sandbox, it would be like a little kid expanding his or her space into a space already occupied. So I wanted answers to these questions, and it led me on a journey through several websites. And what I found pulled me into several layers of complexity that seem difficult to untangle. I shall touch on some, knowing well I am merely scratching the surface.We'll start with Turkish elections and work through the different stories that I found. Elections hindered plans to cross into Norther Iraq, according to The Turkish Daily News. Almost a week later, The Guardian reported Vice President Cheney has placed pressure on President Bush to invade Iran, which is all we need, right? We’re in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can’t manage the real estate that we have already, so expansion seems the next logical step. In addition, women are not faring well in Kurdistan, and some believe the U.S. government is actually aiding Kurds in attacks on Iran. Turkey and Iran have also found a friendship in one another; they signed an agreement – a Memorandum of Understanding – to transport natural gas, and both countries have led operations in Kurdistan. All of this seems simple, right? But wait, what the hell is Kurdistan?

The other Iraq
Kurdistan is Northern Iraq. I am not sure if it is a country, though most of the information that I have found indicates that it is. It possesses its own democratically elected Prime Minister and National Assembly. It seems like both its government and national identity should be recognized as legitimate. Perhaps some history will make things more clear?

Some history of Kurdistan
The Treaty of Sevres provided for autonomy for the Kurds; however, the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 invalidated the treaty. The League of Nations placed Kurdistan under the protection of the UK in 1925 for 25 years to ensure autonomy. In addition, the Kurdistan Democratic Party also received an agreement from Baghdad for its autonomy and political representation in 1970; however, from 1971 to 1980, the Iraqi government expelled thousands of Shia Kurds from Iraq. The Algiers Agreement between Kurdistan and Iran in 1975 settled disputes over land in exchange for Iran ending its support of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Kurds in Kurdistan are predominantly Sunni Muslims, but some are other faiths and religions, as well. Kurdistan has had its problems, marred by internal strife. A unification treaty, signed in January 2006, served to end disturbances and civil fighting. Problems aside, websites indicate Kurdistan is its own politically autonomous entity. Why, then, does Turkey and Iran insist on shelling the “stateless nation?”

PKK and PJAK
The Kurdistan Worker’s Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, PKK) is a Marxist separatist group seeking to create an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey and parts of neighboring countries; I'm up in the air about this one. Do they seek to expand the already existing Kurdistan, or do they want their own parcel of land? The group reportedly has participated in guerilla warfare and terrorism, resulting in the eventual military crackdown by Turkey. Members of the group withdrew to Northern Iraq, and is considered by the United States as a terrorist organization. Turkey, of course, regards the group as a terrorist organization, but the group has actively sought independence from Turkey, which does not recognize its Kurdish minority.
These two groups have caused a tremendous amount of trouble in Turkey and Iran.

One concern of Turkey could be the size of its Kurdish population; about 12 million Kurds live in Turkey. PKK began in 1973 and eventually moved its base of operations to Syria. The “invasion” into Kurdistan is an ongoing situation; on June 8, Turkish troops crossed into Kurdistan pursing members of PKK, and Iranian aircraft bombed the camps of the Party of Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK. PJAK is seen as PKK’s sister party in Iran, though some of the literature suggests that PJAK has an entirely different politcal persuasion. Interestingly, the Financial Times Deutschland suggested the organization is not helping Turkey’s entry into the European Union. While countries like Syria and Iran entertained and helped train some of the members of PKK, the tide has changed; Syria has arrested its members, and Iran has now paired with Turkey to fight the organization. Would they be considered “insurgents”?

Insurgent
You have to ask yourself, what is an insurgent? What does that mean? According to WordNet, a “lexical database” from the Cognitive Science Lab at Princeton University, insurgent has two different meanings. As a noun, it carries both a positive and negative connotation. Take a look:

1. Insurgent, insurrectionist, freedom fighter, rebel: "a rebel who takes part in an armed rebellion against the constituted authority, especially in the hope of improving conditions";
-or-
2. Guerilla, irregular, insurgent: "a member of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment."

I wondered how the word would be used; I guessed that it would belong to the negative category, as I recall few instances where people were fighting legitimate battles for freedom. Oh, I’m sure they exist; however, it is a matter of knowing about them. I entered the word into Google; I just wanted to see who was using the word. I ignored the stories dealing with Afghanistan and Iraq. Below are the first five stories that I found:

*More violence in Mogadishu

*Insurgents could strike in Bangkok, warns Sonthi (not a stable link)

*Insurgents make another attack as troops deploy in Northwest (Sidenote: the headline mentioned here is the teaser that came up in the search; the headline on the story is different, and the story makes no mention of the word, insurgent).

*Military clashes with Insurgents in Sri Lanka

*Three Insurgents killed in Manipur

I will let you follow the links, but the word is used in areas around the world, and it seems to have replaced the word ‘rebel.’ Regardless of its use, it indicates a relation between or among groups. Again, it depends on your perspective.

And Back to Kurdistan
What does the word insurgent have to do with Kurdistan? Some believe the United States is aiding PKK's waging attacks in Iran, while on the other hand condemning its attacks in Turkey. In fact, some regard PKK as a legitimate resistance group. But this is the same behavior from the U.S. government that has led to problems in the past. The United States helped the Mujahadeen resist the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. And according to Ned Parker’s recent article in the Los Angeles Times, the Saudi intelligence service sponsored Sunni Muslims in the 1980s to help the U.S.-backed Afghan Mujahadeen fight the Soviets. Again, the word insurgent is relational.

Parker’s article is enlightening, even if spin-off articles are less intelligent and actually somewhat offensive. Matthew Mainen’s article describes Syria as the “highest exporter of insurgents,” which belies the complexity involved. As if there’s an insurgent making factory that simply needs eradication – if it were only that simple. Parker’s article provides a great deal of context and information, and it adds a whole other level to insurgency. According to Parker, most of the insurgents in Iraq are NOT from Iraq. In fact, nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. custody are Saudi. This distinction - NOT from Iraq - adds a layer of complexity to the word insurgent; are there domestic insurgents, and if so, who are they? And these insurgents pose the "greatest short-term threat to Iraq's security," which provides a glimpse into the stability of the country. What are the long-term threats, I wonder. One official in Saudi Arabia has said its government believes it is the disbanded army in Iraq that is the source of the insurgence and "backbone of the situation there today." That's great, but it fails to explain the number of Saudi captives in U.S. custody; some speculate the Saudis are happy to slough off some of the extremists to avoid problems in their own backyard. It seems almost like religious extremism is the ship of fools of the 21st Century.

Sometimes I find it difficult to sort through the immense amount of information out there. In backtracking to find the links for this post, I found a number of more recent articles, on the unhappiness of the United States with the agreement between Iran and Turkey, of the U.S.'s stance that it has not aided PKK, of the Turkish elections. It seems, though, to simply speak about insurgents in Iraq is to sweep under the carpet the number of groups involved and the connections between the groups. Am I to believe insurgents are good when they attack Iran and bad when they attack Turkey? When we talk about insurgents in Iraq, does that include PKK in Northern Iraq, aka Kurdistan?

Personally, I would not want to be a soldier in Iraq, and I could never begin to imagine determining who is good and who is bad. It has a familiar sound, like the stories I heard from men who fought in Vietnam, trying to distinguish the Viet Cong and the civilian. The task of the active democratic participant seems less arduous, but not by much. Ultimately it could be our voice that brings our troops home, perhaps to leave a fledgling Iraqi government to fend for itself. We assume as active participants that we have access to information that aids in our decision making process. But in my searches over the past few days, I made a minute dent in the history and human connectivity of these groups. I find in my searches for information, I am paralyzed by the sheer amount of it. How do I sort? And once I have it, what do I do with it? If knowledge is power, then whose freedom do I choose when I vote by proxy?