April 29, 2006: Kurdistan and the prime directive
Ted, Wayne and I here at TT have all tried to stress that to be democratic, a people's liberation from tyranny must be "from below", meaning, undertaken by the oppressed people themselves. Wayne calls this "the prime directive": that the exploited and oppressed have to liberate themselves.
This is our principled criticism of the way in which the Hussein government was toppled in Iraq. Not that toppling it was a bad thing, rather that it was toppled by an external power which inevitably attempted to impose its own political order. The traditional term for this being "imperialism".
We're not arguing that no assistance should be provided. To the contrary, I'd suggest that any government which was truly interested in supporting democracy around the world would make it a point of principle to offer political, diplomatic, material, and even military support to democratic movements of self-liberation in countries with tyrannical governments. There are two criteria to stress. First, that assistance should only be offered when asked for. Second, that it has to remain external.
What does that mean?
Well, that it has to be offered with no political strings attached. "Here's your help, tell us where you want it." And, "It's free: no charge."
By these criteria, the first Bush started off right when in 1991 he called on the people of Iraq to revolt. That would have been the right way for Iraq to have been liberated. But, he betrayed the people when they responded to his call. He should have supported them with air cover, arms, ammunition, food, medical supplies. No troops, no occupation. Instead he watched them die, because that was exactly what he was unwilling to do: allow them to liberate themselves.
What about the Kurdish "no fly zone" in northern Iraq?
I'm not sure I know enough about it to answer the question. In limited ways it seems to match some of the criteria we propose. Iraqi Kurds have fought for decades under popular leadership of their own choosing. The no-fly zone was a type of external military intervention which protected their movement from massacre by a repressive state with superior arms. There seem to be two faults with this experience, first that the Kurds were not allowed to win, second, that there seem to have been political concessions attached to the aid, in particular, that the Kurdish movement would restrain itself in Turkey.
Suppose these two conditions had been removed? A thought experiment. The U.S. and other countries provide air cover which prevents Ba'ath Iraq from destroying the Kurdish people's struggle. The Kurds are allowed to fight where, when and how they like. If they want a separate country, fine. Including the Kurdish areas of what is now Turkey. Would it be reasonable for "socialists", "progressives" or other pro-democracy types to support that intervention? Is this what we would do if we were in power?
