Quote:
Originally Posted by octothorp
Not exactly true in regards to the Arab kingdoms in the region. Jordan was a semi-autonomous hashemite kingdom under the Ottomans, and the Hashemites existed as a dynasty long before that. Iraq, too, was semi-autonomous under the Ottoman state. Certainly the Saudis have had political claim over at least part of the region that they occupy going back to the 1700s. Syria has an ancient history, but was completely subjective to Ottoman rule, so are on a similar level to the Kurds. You are right, however, that there is a large arbitrary element to the borders in the region, and the Kurds were amongst the groups campaigning for their own country in the post-ottoman divisions, but were largely ignored by the british and french. The Kurds have more of a legitimate claim than some groups, and less than others. I'm not against the formation of a kurdish state, I just think we need a better reason to risk further escalations of war and conflict in an already volatile region than 'all these people are of the same ethnic background and they want to have their own country.'
|
Well I disagree w/ you about the details of that. Especially the thing about the Hashemites. They were semi-autonomous, but not in control of anything outside Saudi Arabia. Basically to avoid a massive power struggle, they were arbitrarily given control of Jordan, Syria and Iraq despite the fact their lineage clearly came from Saudi Arabia and many of those areas were home to other ethnic groups besides sunni Arabs (hence the current trouble in Iraq).
Anyway, that's not really the point. Yeah I agree the lines for countries in the middle east were drawn very arbitrarily. I would, however, stress much more importance on the need for sovereignty. Especially for a group that has been through as much as the Kurds have in the last century or so. I do, however, think that if their is any intention to create a "Kurdistan" of some sort it needs to be done very cautiously. More specifically it needs to be done w/ the cooperation of Turkey and Iran.