Turkey's Policies Toward Kurdistan-Iraq and Iraq: Nationalism, Capitalism, and State Formation

In this essay I analyze Turkey's policies toward the development of nationalism, capitalism, and state formation in Kurdistan-Iraq and Iraq from the 30 January 2005 national assembly elections in Iraq to Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan's meeting with President George W. Bush on 8 June 2005. I also note the 30 January elections in the eighteen provinces (muhafaza) of Iraq and for the Kurdish parliament in the three provinces under the control of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) as well as a referendum among the Kurds in the Kurdish-controlled region on whether the Kurds should have an independent state or not.

In a recently published study, I analyzed the policies of Turkey toward the development of nationalism, capitalism and state formation in Kurdistan-Iraq from the date of the US invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003 to the 30 January elections.¹ This essay is a follow-up to the conclusions of that study, written to examine whether or not my conclusions still have validity. In the study, I concluded that Turkey's military and political influence and its geopolitical posture were increasingly diminished throughout the two years covered. From the Turkish parliament's rejection of the 1 March resolution (tezkeresi) to the 30 January national assembly elections, the loss of Turkish influence was accompanied by the souring of relations between Ankara and Washington. The principal reason for the cooling of relations was Turkey's apprehension that the US dilemma in Iraq—especially after the beginning of strong resistance to the US occupation in late 2003, which became stronger throughout 2004 and 2005—and the policies that it adopted would lead to stronger Kurdish nationalism, both in Iraq and in Turkey, and greater demands by Kurds in Iraq for increased autonomy and even independence. For its part, the United States grew increasingly unhappy with Ankara's unwillingness to adopt restrictive or even hostile relations with Syria and Iran—two countries that the United States thought were abetting the resistance in Iraq. As a result of having its military projection and political influence reduced in Iraq, Turkey was confined to the position of being a junior partner in the US Wider Middle East Initiative (WMEI), which espoused bringing democracy to the Arab countries of the Middle East and Iran by bringing to power pro-American, pro-Israel, pro–free market capitalist governments. It was understood that such governments would not publicly be pro-Israel but would be tolerant of Israel and support its being a funnel for both governmental and private international development and economic funds directed toward the Middle East Arab countries and Iran, the latter after the demise of the Islamic Republic. In other words, these governments would allow and, indeed, encourage Israel's investment in their economies, much like Turkey had done in the past decade.

One of the reasons that the United States wanted Turkey's participation in the rebuilding and economic development of Iraq was that the Kurdish leadership of the KDP and PUK also wanted Turkey's economic participation in Kurdistan-Iraq in order to assuage Turkey's disgruntlement with its reduced military options in Kurdish-Iraq and the lessening of its political influence, even with the Turkoman community of Iraq, as demonstrated by the 30 January elections in which elements of the Turkoman community did not favor pro-Turkey positions. In this essay I review the reasons for Turkey's acquiescence to US policies in Iraq and its subordination to a reduced economic role within the US WMEI strategy.

Since there are many books appearing on Iraq and the Kurds of Iraq, it is important to define what I mean by the term Kurdistan-Iraq. My definition differs, for instance, from that of Brendan O'Leary and his co-authors in The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq, in that this title implies that the...