Angry Planet - The Kurds are In a "Double Colonial Bind"

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

The Kurds are a people without a country. They occupy large swaths of land in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran but have no central government. Kurdish fighters have been constant allies in America’s fight against ISIS, and Peshmerga troops fighting on behalf of the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq fought against the militants after they stormed Mosul. Without the help of Kurdish forces in Mosul, Raqqa, and across the Levant, America couldn’t have defeated ISIS so handily. In December, after a conversation with Turkey’s president, President Donald Trump announced U.S. troops would be leaving Syria on grounds that ISIS is defeated.Things have gotten complicated since then.It’s unclear if the withdrawal will actually take place, Turkey thinks the Kurds are terrorists, and the Kurds are caught between regional power in one of the most complicated conflicts in the world. Here to help us sort this out is Mohammed Salih. Mohammed spent years working as a journalist for international media in Kurdistan. He’s currently a doctoral student at University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. At times of hardship and difficulty, the mountains are your best friend, are your refuge. But also, you know, the other sort of beater side of this story is that the Kurds have been really, you know, betrayed by. by both the international powers and also the regional powers. I usually like to refer to the situation or the circumstances of the Kurds as some sort of a double colonial bind. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts. Hello, welcome to War College.

I'm Matthew Golt. And I'm Derek Cannon. The Kurds are a people without a country. They occupy large swaths of lands in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, but have no central government. Kurdish fighters have been constant allies in America's fight against ISIS, and Peshmerga troops fighting on behalf of the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in Iraq, fought against the militants after they stormed Mosul. Without the help of Kurdish forces, said Mosul, Raqa, and across the Levant,

America couldn't have defeated ISIS so handedly. In December, after a conversation with Turkey's president, President Donald Trump announced U.S. troops would be leaving Syria on grounds that ISIS was defeated. Then things got complicated. It's unclear if the withdrawal will actually take place. Turkey thinks the Kurds are terrorists and the Kurds are caught between regional powers and one of the most complicated conflicts in the world. Here to help us sort this out and get the Kurdish perspective is Muhammad Salee. Muhammad spent years working as a journalist for international media in Kurdistan. He's currently a doctoral student at University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. Mohamed, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. So really want to start with some really basic stuff for the audience here, Muhammad. What is Kurdistan? Where is it? And who are the Kurds? Well, Kurdistan is basically the land that has been historically populated by the Kurdish people. There are also a number of other, you know, ethnic and religious groups who have been, you know,

leaving or populating that region for a very long time. But geographically, it is located on the border areas between the states of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. And the Kurds are generally referred to at the largest nation or national group without a state of their own. And, you know, this has been basically a result of the great power, you know, dealings and agreements following World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a result of that war. So what happened after World War I or the first World War was that the British and French colonial powers divided the Ottoman Empire into a number of different nation states. And there was supposed to be, as part of, you know, a series of agreements, there was supposed to be a

Kurdish nation-state as well. But, you know, that did not happen. And so the result, the outcome of that was that the Kurds have been divided among these four nation states in the region. And unfortunately, they have been grossly mistreated by the governments of these states, you know, over the past century or so. Okay. So why do these regional governments, Turkey, Iraq, have so many. different ideas about who the Kurds are, where the territory sits? Yeah, well, the primary, you know, the primary reason why, if your question is, you know, why these states and their governments have not been treating the Kurds justly, I think, you know, the primary reason really has to do with the very conception of the idea of the nation in these

newly emerging, you know, nation estates after the first World War. So what has happened in all of these countries, but particularly in places like Turkey and Syria, the dominant nationalisms have been sort of defined along very narrow lines and terms. And they have been effectively ethno-nationalist regimes that have seen Kurds, you know, primarily as some sort of a threat to the well-being, to the survival of their nation-est state, of their nation-estate projects. And, you know, this viewing of the Kurds as the other as a threat to the survival of these nation-states, as a threat to the survival of these nationalisms,

has basically meant that these states have not really refrained from any sort of means in order to suppress the Kurds and to ensure that the Kurds would remain, you know, as a subordinate group within the borders of these national states. I think the clearest example of that, and the one we've talked about on the show before, is in Turkey, correct? Yes, yes, that's correct. So in the case of Turkey, you know, right from the beginning, when Atta Turk basically launched, you know, his war of independence,

and later the, you know, the national state of Turkey. Well, at the beginning, he made some overtures to the Kurds and, you know, tried to rally the Kurds around his struggle for the independence of Turkey, mostly along religious lines, which was kind of, you know, the common identity threat between both the Turkish population and the Kurdish population in the country, as, you know, both groups are largely Sunni-Muslim,

groups. But after the, you know, the state of Turkey, the Republic of Turkey was established by Ataturg, he basically, you know, backpedaled from any promises of, you know, of inclusion that he had given to the Kurds prior to that moment. And in the case of Turkey in particular, you know, there has been a very sort of uncompromising view of what the character of this nation state is and should. should be like. And so the Turkish, you know, nation estate has been a purely ethnic Turkish, or has been conceived as a purely ethnic Turkish nation estate that has meant that, you know, every other group in that country. And as we know, you know, that country,

the country that we call Turkey today has been historically a very diverse, you know, territory and land. But with the, with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the state has been constantly, you know, on sort of some sort of crusade or campaign in various forms, military and, you know, cultural and other forms as well to ensure the subordination and in many cases actually the erasure of the culture or of the identity of these other non-Turkish groups within the borders of that the nation estate. And they, you know, they have been pretty successful in a way in terms of melting to a very large extent. A lot of these other, you know, sort of rival identities into this

Turkish national identity. But in the case of the Kurds, because, you know, the Kurds constitute such a large sort of, you know, portion of the population of Turkey is something around 20%. And, you know, there's a lot of. And, you know, there. has been a sense of Kurdish national awareness since the late Ottoman times. So it has not been really a very successful project as far as the Turkish, you know, nation estate project has been concerned. They have not been really able to assimilate or melt, you know, the Kurdish identity into this newly forged Turkish national identity. So, you know, there have been different rounds of armed struggle and political struggle by the Kurds toward, you know, this sort of exclusionary

vision that has been at work within this nation estate, which is Turkey. There's a dream of a United Kurdistan with what you've just said along with how Turkey's kind of handling the Kurdish, you know, positions and the Kurdish people. Is it possible in the future? Do you feel that there could be a united Kurdistan? Well, it is very difficult to tell because of the very difficult geopolitical circumstances in the region and also because of the reluctance of the major world powers to recognize an independent Kurdish entity. Like a lot of people when, you know, they talk about Kurds or Kurdistan would usually, you know, say that the eventual dream is some sort of a united Kurdish state.

But I think, you know, that is not really necessarily the case. First of all, because, you know, the Kurdish populations in each of these countries have, you know, their own sort of particular characteristics, their own particular condition that, you know, they have been working with and struggling within. And not the aim of all these, you know, Kurdish populations in each of these countries. is even necessarily to establish an independent state, you know, we like that that would secede from that country, you know, let's say, for example, an independent Kurdish state that would succeed from Turkey

or an independent Kurdish state that would secede from Syria. The ultimate goal for the Kurds is really the recognition of their cultural and political rights, a recognition of their identity. And, you know, and as long as the national states, as long as the, you know, central governments or regimes within these national states are, you know, willing to genuinely accept this and, you know, to work with Kurds as, you know, as an important component of their states and allow them to enjoy cultural and political rights within, you know, within the territory that they. populate or occupy, I think that would be quite satisfactory, you know, to a lot of the Kurds. But the problem has been that, you know, the policy, the attitude from these central governments has been really by and large, one of denial or, you know, just colossal oppression, amounting to, you know, genocide or ethnic cleansing.

So, you know, within this kind of circumstances, the Kurds have been. you know, naturally resisting and reacting to, you know, to this kind of oppressive measures. And, you know, these really oppressive policies of these central governments and regimes has really fueled, you know, the Kurdish desire for, you know, for wanting to have some sort of of an entity, whether, you know, that is in the form of an autonomous, genuinely autonomous, entity within the borders of the nation states or, you know, in the form of independence. So, you know, having said that again, even if, hypothetically, you know, the Kurds would be able to secede from these governments, from these states in each of the four countries,

I think, you know, there are also some genuine differences among the Kurdish populations that might not necessarily be conducive to the creation of a united, independent Kurdistan. And I think, you know, that is fine. And, you know, there are like a lot of other cases of like, you know, one nation sort of having, you know, sort of being divided into more than one state, right? You have like a number, you know, over 20 Arab states or, you know, even in cases like in Europe. You know, for example, you have Germany and Austria, which, you know, share the same language more or less and, you know, sort of ethnically are pretty close or the same, but, you know, there is more than one nation-state. So, you know, that would not be necessarily

sort of, you know, something that Kurds would not be happy with. But the most important thing, as I said, is really the recognition of the cultural and political rights. And there is more than one way to get there to achieve that and it doesn't have to be necessarily in the form of the creation of a new nation estate of a new Kurdish nation estate although that would be ideal to many Kurds if it did not you know lead to a major regional conflict but again the you know the the the recognition of the political and cultural rights are really what the Kurds are after now that's something that's something more along the lines of how I dealt with and what I was exposed to when I was in special forces when I was in Iraq I worked with very very closely with a lot of Kurdish soldiers within the Iraqi special operations command we built rapport with them you know some of these guys I still actually have actually talked to through some some form of social media recently you know the American troops have kind of been given a withdrawal order what's the general feeling you know especially

with the Kurds in Syria and how do they feel about that withdrawal? Is it something that they're taking personally? Or is there an opinion left or right there within the Kurdish population? In general, it has not been taken wool at all. And there is a sense of abandonment, if not betrayal among many Kurds toward the U.S.

You know, this has been probably one of the most successful examples of, you know, of a relationship between the U.S. and a local population, really. And the Kurds have been, you know, very grateful and happy for this, you know, assistance and cooperation that they have gotten from the United States in the fight against ISIS. But, you know, things are not sort of on a path yet that the Kurds would feel secure enough you know, to be sort of to be acting on their own. So the news of the U.S. military, you know, with the role or pull out from Syria has been really very worrying and concerning to a lot of Kurds. They, you know, given the circumstances of the Kurds and given the general atmosphere of a lack of willingness,

whether it's within Syria or the broader region and Turkey, you know, being such a major actor now in the Syrian affairs, because of this unwillingness, this regional unwillingness to embrace the Kurds and accept some sort of, you know, genuine political status for the Kurds. Many of the Kurds are very rightfully concerned, you know, that once the U.S. troops are out, that would actually encourage the Syrian government backed by the, you know, by Russian military and Iran, on the one hand. and Turkey enjoying, you know, the support of the NATO and the protection of the NATO, on the other hand, trying to sort of bring an end to the, you know, to the Kurdish-led political entity that has been sort of established in northern Syria since, you know, 2012. But particularly, you know, since the, you know, they're joining forces with U.S. military in, beating back ISIS in northern Syria. So it is in no way, you know, a really good news to Kurds in Syria or to Kurds in general in the region. And very interestingly, you know, it's one of those

things that the Kurds across the board, no matter what their, you know, political or ideological differences otherwise, they agree on, you know, on this, that, you know, that this is not a good thing and that, you know, this is going to expose Kurds to, you know, to the brutality of these regimes in the region. And we already, I mean, you know, the know-how regimes like the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad or, you know, or Erdogans really have been treating and dealing with the Kurds. In the case of, you know, Erdogan and Turkey, for example, last year, right around this time, you know, they conducted a military operation in Afrin region in northern Syria, which is a predominantly Kurdish populated region.

And what the Turks really did with the help of their Syrian rebel allies, you know, that have many jihadi groups among them, that they have committed a larger scale ethnic cleansing of Afrin from the Kurds. So what they have done is basically, you know, expelled the Kurds from their homes, take over their property and settle, you know, Arab refugees, Syrian Arab refugees or, you know, Turkmen refugees who move to Turkey or have been displaced from the, you know, environs of Damascus, and like settle these people in the homes and properties of the local, you know, Kurdish, Yazidi and Christian populations of Afrin.

So, you know, there is really no benefit of doubt. that the Kurds can extend to Turkey or even to Syria, but probably to a much lesser extent to Syria when it comes to, you know, to dealing with these governments and regimes in the region, really. Who do you believe is the biggest threat to the Kurds in the region, both in Syria and Iraq? Who do you believe that? You had mentioned jihadi groups working along with the pro-Assad forces, correct?

Well, no, working along the Turkish military in Afrin. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I would, at the moment, the way that things appear, I think, you know, there is more or less a consensus among many Kurds, you know, that Turkey probably poses the greatest threat in some ways. And, I mean, it's a very complicated picture. I don't want to simplify it. You know, Turkey, for example, deals with the Kurdistan regional government in Iraq, has, you know,

you know, relatively strong economic ties in particular with them. But at the same time, you know, there is this undertone of animosity, even in the case of Iraqi Kurdistan, you know, that is coming out of Ankara. But in particular, with regard to the Kurds in Syria and the Kurds in Turkey, you know, the Turkish government has been very vocal and serious in stating, you know, that it sees, you know, the Kurds in these countries, the Kurdish political movements as, you know, as a threat to its national security. And now you can debate, you know, whether that's a fair and legitimate, you know, sort of perception to have or not. but also given, you know, the fact that Turkey is a member of the NATO and is the strongest of all the states in the region that have Kurdish populations inside them, Turkey definitely, you know, given it's highly aggressive and Beliko's attitude and policies toward the Kurds and also, you know, the sort of the international position that it enjoys, you know, know, at the moment, poses really the most serious sort of threat to Kurdish ambitions in the region.

And even though, you know, I mentioned that Turkey has been dealing with the Kurdistan regional government, there have been, you know, very strong economic relations and political relations to some extent as well, diplomatic engagement. But Turkish officials, including President Erdogan himself, have, you know, said, like on a number of occasions, that they do not really view, you know, a Kurdish entity anywhere in the region favorably. And that applies to the Kurdistan region because they see any sort of, you know, success of the Kurdish political movements in any of the states as some sort of threat to the, you know, to the territorial integrity and national

security of their country. But, you know, as I said also, you know, this is something that is really debatable. And if Turkey were to modify its, you know, position, the way that it ideologically seed the Kurds. And if it were to, you know, to be willing to engage with the Kurds in the region, it could really gain and benefit much from, you know, having the Kurds on side. And as I said, especially in the case of Turkey and also Syria, the Kurdish political movements, there are not pursuing, you know, a project of an independent Kurdish estate. So, you know, Turkey should welcome that, should embrace that and, you know, should try to accommodate Kurdish political demands and aspirations. And, you know, then that would really open the doors

to extensive cooperation, you know, between Turkey and the Kurds, whether it's within Turkey or in Syria or Iraq, you know, or generally across the region. Do you see Turkey flexing to recognize the Kurdish regime or at least give them political recognition? Do you see them leaning towards that? You mean in Syria? In Syria, yeah. Well, I mean, there have been some signals recently coming out of Ankara that, you know, there is apparently, I don't want to see some sort of effort, but this idea has been floated, you know, that a military campaign against Syrian Kurds would not necessarily be, you know, successful for Turkey. And there seems to be some, you know, serious concern within Turkish military establishment, like about this, which led the Turkish president actually, apparently, to replace the two may,

the two main generals who were assigned with the task of a, you know, of a military operation into northern Syria because they had voiced, you know, a skepticism about the success of any such military campaign. So, you know, this idea has been floated recently that maybe, you know, the best way to tackle this is to, a, revive, you know, the so-called peace process within Turkey. between the Turkish government and, you know, the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is the main, you know, Kurdish political organization in Turkey, although it is, you know, an outlawed one in Turkey. And, you know, so the idea is if this peace process were to be revived and if, you know, Turkey and Kurds meant, you know, fences, that would smooth things when it comes to Syria. And if that happened, you know, that is quite likely that any serious rapprochement inside Turkey between the Turkish government and the Kurds or the Kurdish political movement in Turkey would really play a very important role in facilitating and understanding a positive, you know, relationship between Turkey and, you know, the Syrian Kurdish political entity.

So, but, you know, given the circumstances, of Turkey and the dynamics within, you know, Turkish national politics, this is not also something, you know, that is easy to happen. It is not impossible. It could be achieved. It could happen. But the dynamics, especially, you know, the political dynamics within the, you know, ethnic Turkish sphere in Turkey are such that, you know, any sort of aggressive or bellicose policies toward, you know, the Kurds or, you know, the Kurdish political movement in Turkey is always, you know, quite conducive to the parties in power in terms of helping them, you know, maintain sort of their, you know, their status and being able to, you know, to win votes and

succeed in elections. And Erdogan has been doing, you know, quite a lot of that and pretty successfully over the past few years, as we have seen that, you know, usually around the time of any major elections in Turkey, whether it is, you know, the parliamentary elections or municipal elections or presidential elections. You know, Erdogan has been sort of starting some sort of military operation against PKK or Syria, you know, or, you know, the Kurdish-led entity in northern Syria. And he has been able to use that to his advantage to win over you know, those sections of the Turkish population who do not favor, you know, a sort of rapprochmo or agreement with the Kurds. So it seems to be, even though, you know, it's bad policy, so to speak, it's been really good politics for Erdogan.

And he has been able to use, you know, this anti-Kurdish sort of, you know, attitude and policy to advantage within the sphere of domestic Turkish national politics. Let me ask a dumb American question if I can. Well, they say, you know, there is no dumb question. There can only dumb answers. Well, let me ask an ignorant American question then. It seems to me that from the outside looking in, I know this is a really complicated conflict, but the Kurds were, the Kurds in various regions and in various ways were

instrumental in defeating a what was ISIS, which was a not just an existential threat, but a direct threat to a lot of these regional powers. Did that not buy them any kind of political goodwill from anybody? Why does it feel like that didn't earn them anything? Well, I would say unfortunately no, and that's actually a great question. You know, one would think that given the prominent role that the Kurds have played in, you know, in defeating the Islamic State or, you know, the so-called ISIS, that, you know, that there should be some sort of change in regional attitudes, both maybe at the popular level, but also sort of at the more elite political level. But at least when it comes, you know, to the elite political level, we have not really seen that. And that is, again, you know, as I said, it goes back to the very way that, you know, these nation states in the region, no matter, you know, the change of government or the change of regimes, have by and large come to view Kurds at the threat to the survival of their own, you know, states or their own sort of, you know, national projects. And unfortunately, you know, this very hostile view toward the Kurds has been, you know, very sort of very much.

resisting, has been very resilient, and, you know, has sort of transcended these, you know, changes of, as I said, political regime or ideology, more or less. You have to, you know, to really sort of separate the state of Iraq from the other ones in this case, as at least, you know, in the last couple of decades or so, there has been sort of more flexibility from the Iraqi governments to a certain extent toward, you know, the Kurdish question within that country. And there has been, you know, sort of a better understanding. But generally speaking, broadly speaking, you know, the prominent role that the Kurds have played in defeating ISIS, which, as you said, you know, pose a very serious threat to the

very existence of these, you know, at least of the, you know, the political. system and the state in both Iraq and Syria, you know, the central governments have not been really willing to sort of use that to turn over a new page in their relations with the Kurds. And as I said, you know, as complicated at the Kurdish question is in the region and within the, you know, sort of boundaries of each one of these states, each of these states, it is not. not something that cannot be solved. It actually, you know, if there was some sort of flexibility, if there was some, you know, willingness to understand and to engage with the Kurds and grant them, you know, some form of genuine political and cultural autonomy within the borders of these

national states, you know, that would definitely, you know, play a very important. border role in terms of easing, you know, the regional tensions as far as, you know, the Kurds and the central governments in these states are concerned. But also it would really contribute greatly to improving the relations between, you know, each one of these states. So, you know, the interstate relations, because, you know, it has happened on multiple occasions that the Kurdish question has been also a cause of tension between, you know, the regional states. And so, you know, a genuine resolution of the Kurdish question in the region within, you know, each state would contribute a greatly to domestic stability within the borders of, you know, those states, but also contribute very

significantly to improving interstate relations and really, you know, sort of unleashing this potential that these states have in terms of, you know, development and progress and not using a lot of their resources to, you know, to suppress and oppress and ensure the subordination of the Kurds. There's been, we've talked to us, uh, some Syrians here. on this radio on on the podcast here and it's it's the Syrian conflict I'm going to say conflict is confusing to many people that are casually observing it initially you know this the Syrian the Syrian people that it started this thought it would be a revolution not unlike their own

Arab Spring that they saw in Egypt and in in the northern African countries and once like the larger groups of folks got it got together and got involved such as Russia Turkey United States and even, you know, Kurdish factions, it seems to have, most people can kind of, they hear the Syrian conflict and they immediately assume it's about ISIS. How do you see the Syrian folks that were there at the initial onset of the revolution that's kind of metastasized into a civil war and has now kind of lost its revolutionary kind of base? How do the, how do the Syrians that are anti-Assad see Kurdish, Kurdish fans? factions in the north and Afrin and elsewhere in Syria? How do they see them? Do they see them as them helping the revolution or are they just part of the problem? Well, I mean, you know, we have to make a number of distinctions here. First of all, as you said, you know, the water started in Syria in

2011 was a, you know, genuine popular uprising from a population who was largely, you know, fed up with a dictatorship running the country and, you know, robbing off, robbing them off of their potential and their resources, you know, for a better future and for a more human future. And, you know, at that stage, the protests were not only confined to places, you know, to sort of the larger cities like Damascus, Alipo, Holmes, or Hama. there were also quite, you know, substantial protests happening in the Kurdish parts of Syria. But unfortunately, you know, the way that, you know, that situation in Syria evolved, it gradually moved from a peaceful, you know, uprising by the Syrian people of all, you know,

different sort of ethnic or religious backgrounds. probably, you know, maybe to a lesser extent so in the Alari areas for whatever reason. You know, that sort of peaceful uprising really evolved into a, you know, conflict between the population and the Assad regime. And of course, you know, the culprit for this was really the Assad regime and, you know, their main backers who were, you know, who were the Iranian. regime at that point early on in the conflict. So they resorted to violently suppress the protest and gradually, you know, that sort of extensive and brutal use of violence, you know, led to, you know, to the creation of sort of an armed resistance or rebellion among, you know, the ranks of protesters.

And, you know, gradually, unfortunately, that, you know, that armed rebellion came to be taken over by, you know, sort of jihadi, Salafi groups of the type, you know, of Jabhatan Nusra, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda or, you know, later on ISIS. And so, you know, this situation in Syria has to be really seen in different, stages and each stage is really different, you know, from what came before or after. So, but, you know, unfortunately, right now, you know, at this point of time, what we have is that, you know, that sort of initial hope-inspiring, you know, sort of movement that we saw in Syria in 2011 and to some extent, you know, at the sort of beginning of 2012.

somehow that is gone. What we now have or what, you know, we, we sort of came to see later after, you know, that point with the takeover of the Syrian uprising by armed groups that came to be dominated gradually by, you know, Salafi jihadi groups that really, you know, espouse very strict and exclusionary visions as to the future of Syria. And, you know, the kind of sort of what has remained in terms of, you know, armed groups of the Syrian uprising, that most of these groups today viewed the Kurds very negatively for a number of reasons, A, because, you know, the Kurdish, or at least in the case of the Democratic Union Party or PYD, which is the dominant Kurdish party in Syria now, because the PYD,

did not really engage the Syrian regime militarily that much, you know, except like very short episodes of confrontation. These groups have come to, you know, view the Kurds pretty negatively. They see them as not having contributed, you know, as much as they would like to, you know, to the Syrian revolution, if you would like to call it that way. But also, you know, know, there has been a huge ideological gap with the, you know, Islamization, really, of the and given, you know, that the Kurdish political groups in Syria, whether it's PYD or the others, are really, you know, very strongly secular and articulate and espouse, you know, very, sort of a very secular vision for the future of the country. So, you know, the gap, you know, that has really

deepened and broadened the gap between the, you know, other factions of the, you know, Syrian sort of the armed factions of the Syrian revolution and the Kurds. So at this point of time, what you have is that, you know, a lot of these armed Sunni Arab groups in the country are allied with Turkey, which, of course, you know, poses an existence. essential threat to the survival and the future of the Kurdish political entity in Syria. But, you know, these groups have been really also not showing any attractive example in terms of, you know, local management and administration of the area that they have been controlling. And by that I mean, you know, the Syrian, Sunni Arab Islamist groups.

But contrary to that, what you have on the Kurdish side, basically in areas east of the Euphrates River, that you have a quiet, inclusive political entity with a, you know, markedly really secular character in the sense, you know, that unlike, for example, areas in Idler province that are, or in Afrin, which are controlled by these Islamist groups, you know, who are very serious,

about imposing the rule of Sharia. In the Kurdish held areas, you know, there is a very secular sort of arrangement on the ground where, you know, there isn't really any sort of Sharia being imposed on people. People are given the freedom in terms of, you know, exercising their religious beliefs. And also it has been a very inclusive entity

in terms of trying to absorb and accommodate the local non-Kurdish populations, you know, such at the Sunni Arab population, such at the Christian population or Turkmen population, or Yazidi population. So, you know, given that it has been operating, really, that it was a-born and sort of has been leaving under, you know, conditions of war, this political entity, you know, in northern or north-east and Syria that has been, established and led by the Kurds has done a really great job in terms of becoming a safe haven for all sorts of, you know, ethnic and religious groups in the country and a place where, you know, a lot of those individuals and people who have been, you know, escaping both the brutality of

the Assad regime, but also the brutality and the ideological strictness of the, you know, Islamist groups in the rest of Syria, the, you know, the Kurdish-led entity has been really sort of, you know, a haven, a home to all of, you know, these different types of people and groups. So at this point, you know, the way that it is to sort of put it very briefly, there seems to be a very major gap between the Islamist factions of the, you know, Syrian rebellion and. the Kurds. And, you know, there has been a broad international recognition of the good work, of the good job that the Kurds have done, you know, given their very limited resources and given the great, you know, strain and a stress of operating under war. But, you know, contrary to that, the world also has really come to recognize that a lot of these other Syrian, you know, factions and primarily the Islamist ones have really, you know, not being able to espouse anything,

any sort of vision that is attractive, A, you know, to their own populations, but also to the outside world. And quite to the contrary, some of them, such as, you know, Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIS, have become, you know, a global security threat and not only, you know, sort of confined within the borders of Syria or the region. So, you know, at this point, as I said, the way that things are, you know, the Kurds have come to sort of win a lot of support and recognition for the work they have done. And, you know, that has been really quite the opposite of what a lot of the armed Syrian, you know,

rebel factions have achieved. I think that may be one of the most thorough answers we've ever gotten to any question on this show. I know. I know. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. I got one final question. So I recently heard a Kurdish saying, or what I've been told is a Kurdish saying.

And I think that it kind of sums up a lot of this. And I wanted to just run it by you and get your thoughts. And if you can explain to the audience why it's important. The way I heard it told to me was that the Kurds have no friends but the mountains. Well, yes. So, you know, that's a quiet sort of famous, you know, Kurdish saying, at least to the Kurds themselves. So, and, you know, this is basically a saying that is born out of the very difficult conditions or circumstances of the Kurds, you know, whether it's over the past century or before. But especially over the past century, you know, where the. Kurds have been subjected to, as I said, you know, highly oppressive, highly brutal policies

from the central governments of the states that they were sort of forced to be part of. And, you know, there has been sort of this constant state of rebellion, whether political, but very often also armed rebellion by the Kurds toward the central governments and the states, you know, that they've sort of come to become part of. And so, you know, that saying basically sort of comes from that sort of background and history where the Kurds have taken refuge in the mountains and, you know, the vast majority of Kurdistan, the greater Kurdistan, whether in Iraq, in Syria, not Syria so much, in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran are, you know, very mountainous.

And so, you know, these mountains have been always a home for Kurdish, you know, revolutionaries and rebels. And so, you know, that saying basically comes from that bitter experience that, at times of hardship and difficulty, the mountains are your best friend, are your refuge. But also, you know, the other sort of bitter side of the story is that the Kurds have been. been really, you know, betrayed by both the international powers and also the regional powers. The regional powers. And, you know, I would, I usually like to refer to the, you know, situation or the circumstances of the Kurds as some sort of a double colonial, you know, bind that the Kurds are in a double colonial bind. And what I mean by that is that, You know, first of all, after the First World War, the, you know, the European Western colonial powers, Britain and France, they refused to, you know, to recognize and help Kurds achieve an independent state of their own.

And after, you know, that happened and the Kurds were forcibly made part of these other states with the blessing of the Western colonial powers, that really these, you know, these nation states that emerged in early 20th century, they have also objected the Kurds to a new colonial relationship whereby, you know, historically, they have been, you know, taking the resources of the Kurdish areas, you know, whether it's like oil and gas or other minerals and have been using these to really build or help build their, you know, war machinery, which they have also used, again, to suppress the Kurds and, you know, to force Kurds to stay part of their estates. So, you know, that condition of double colonial bind has been really going on, you know,

for a century ever since, you know, the fall of the, Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the modern nation-est states in the region. And that bitter historical experience has meant that, you know, generations of Kurds have been living in, you know, in a states of conflict and warfare vis-a-vis, you know, the central governments. And these central governments have done, you know, very often, you know, the best that they in terms of brutally suppressing any sort of Kurdish movement for, you know, for political and cultural recognition. And so, you know, to sort of put it in a nutshell, that thing is

really born out of a, you know, of that kind of history. Mohamed, thank you so much for coming on and telling us all about this. I appreciate that one. I hope it was good. That's all this week. listeners, thanks for tuning in. War College is me, Matthew Galt, Derek Gannon, and Kevin Nodell, who's created by me and Jason Fields, who's lost somewhere in space and time. If you like the show, please like and subscribe to us on iTunes, leave a review. It helps others find the show. You can follow us on Twitter at War underscore College or on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash war college podcast.

Next week, we've got a close look at how an Air Force base in the Hollywood Hills help shape America's perceptions of the Cold War. We'll see you then.