Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Befhevoka
Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
Iraq Invasion Poses KurdishDiiemma
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TIME Azadeh Moaveni takes the temperatureofrraq's long=Suffermg Kurds-Oct. 04~2002
Bush administration officials have said that if disarming Iraq requires a war, its happiest consequence would be the liberation
of the Iraqi people from Saddam's tyranny. But millions of Iraqis have already been liberated from Saddam - the
Kurds of northern Iraq who achieved a de facto autonomy from Baghdad after the Gulf War in 1991, and proceeded to build
a thriving modern Kurdish society that makes them the envy of their put-upon Kurdish cousins in Turkey, Syria and Iran.
But a new U.S.-Iraq showdown threatens to end that sunny interlude: The irony of the Iraqi Kurdish condition is that as
long as Saddam ~mains in power in Baghdad, the Kurds have international backing to live in as a de facto state of their
own. But once he's gone, the U.S. and its allies insist that the Kurdish enclave rejoin a post-Saddam Iraq. None of the neighboring
allies on whose support Washington depends for Saddam's ouster is willing to see Iraq dismembered, with resistance
strongest from those states with their own restive Kurdish minorities - Iran, Syria and, most importantly, Turkey.
There mayalso be some Kurdish skepticism of a new war because of the bitter memories of 1991, when the first Bush administration
urged Kurds to rise in rebellion, and then allowed them to be slaughtered by Saddam's armies. But staying out
of the war is not an option for the Kurds, whose best hopes of protecting their autonomy in a post-Saddam regime may lie
in taking an active role in his ouster. So, the onset of war brings Iraq's Kurds to an historic crossroads, and that has fostered
an unusual unity of purpose among rival political factions whose differences have long been exploited by Saddam
Hussein.
TIME's Azadeh Moaveni was in the Iraqi Kurd capital of Erbil for a session of parliament last week, and discussed the experience
with TIME.com ..
TIME.com: How's the atmosphere in Erbil as Kurds contemplate the showdown between Washington and Baghdad?
Azadeh Moaveni:1 find it baffling. People obviously express concern over the possibility that they may soon find themselves
in the middle of a war, but they're resigned to it. There's no frenetic anxiety, and nobody's behaving in ways you
might expect from the residents of a city five miles from Iraq's frontline, which could easily come under attack by Saddam.
They're going about their business as usual, and nobody appears to be hoarding food and medicine. Erbil, a stronghold of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Masoud Barzani, is a relatively conservative city when compared with the more vibrant
Sulaimaniya, stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Jalal Talabani, which is full of new busineseses and restaurants
and internet cafes. (The Barzani and Talabani factions have previously fought bloody turf battles, although these
days they work together in the region's parliament.)
TIME.com: Barzani has been less enthusiastic than his rival over U.S. plans to topple Saddam ...
AM: Publicly, he's being more cautious, more diplomatic than Talabani, who has pledged wholehearted support. Barzani
is playing a more calculating game, because he wants definite assurances from the U.S. that his people will be defended
before jumps on the bandwagon. But if there's an invasion, he's definitely willing to cooperate. Also, the two finally seem
to be serjous about putting aside their differences for the greater interests of Iraqi Kurds. They've traditionally always gone
through phases of fighting and then making up, therè's a real belief here now that they're serious about working together,
because the stakes are so much higher than ever. They're dead certain that there's going to be a war, and they believe the
only way to get theborders and the federal rights they wantis to speak with a single voice. Also, Barzani said today that
the U.S. has vowed to protect Kurds if Iraqi forces attack up in the north. .
TIME.co~: So life has been good for ~raqi Kurds since 1991?
AM: Reiatively speaking. They've enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy from Baghdad, and there's a large UN humanitarian
infrastructure that has very effectively administered money from the oil-far-food program to fund development. So there's
a lot of construction and new business activity - you can see that more clearly in Sulaimaniya, which is livelier than Erbil.
There's also a lot more Kurdish-language media now, and Kurds are allowed to study in their own language rather than
being forced to speak Arabic, as they were under Saddam. Over the decade you've seen the emergence of a new generation
of Kurds in Iraq that I)as no memory of what it was like to live under Saddam's control.
TIME.com: How does that spectacle of Kurdish autonomy and cultural assertiveness play in Turkey?
AM: The Turks don't believe the Iraqi Kurds' insistence that they don't want a state, only autonomy and cultural rights in
a federal Iraq. Turkey fears that those demands are a prelude to a push for full independence. Obviously, even if that's
something they'd ultimately prefer, it's not something the Kurds can actually say, because they need U.S. support. And the
U.S. won't get the crucial support of Turkey if the outcome of a war would be Kurdish independence in Iraq. So even when
asked privately about independence, Kurdish leaders will simply say "It's not in our interests to even talk about that right
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