Ermenilerin Temmuz 1993'de Dağlık Karabağ bölgesine silahlı saldırılarını anlatan bir yazı

"DAĞLIK KARABAĞ SAVAŞINDA AĞDAM'DAYDIM! (YAŞANMIŞ GERÇEK BİR HİKÂYE)" - TURKISH NEWS -24.02.2018

Blog No : 2018 / 14

KÜRŞAT ÇAVUŞOĞLU

26.02.2018

Paylaş :

PDF İndir :

---

Turkish News (24 Şubat 2018)

 

Dağlık Karabağ, hukuken Azerbaycan sınırları içinde bulunan, ancak fiilen Ermenistan tarafından işgal edilmiş olan bir bölge. Burada yaşayan Azerbaycanlıların tamamı ya öldürülerek, ya da göçe zorlanarak yok edilmiştir.

Karabağ, Azerbaycan’ın en güzel yerlerinden birisidir. Karabağ’ın, zengin doğal ve stratejik önemi vardır. Bugün Ermenistan işgali altında bulunan bölge tarih boyunca Türklerin yaşadığı bir mekân olarak temayüz etmiştir.Ermenilerin 1988’de Karabağ’ı Ermenistan’a bağlamak üzere başlayan müdahalesi 1992’de Ermenistan ve Azerbaycan arasında genel savaşa dönüşmüştür. Sürgünler ve savaş sürecinde hile, baskı ve Rus desteğinden yararlanarak Karabağ’da yaşayan Türk halkını soykırıma tabi tutan Ermeniler, planlarını gerçekleştirme, emellerine varma adına bölgede birçok katliam yapmıştır.

Savaşta Ermeniler tarafından bölgede işlenen en acımasız uluslararası suçlardan biri, 26 Şubat 1992 tarihinde Ermeniler, Rus askerleri tarafından silahsızlaştırılan Hocalı kentini abluka altına almışlar, her türlü tehcire maruz bırakmış ve kenti tamamıyla yok etmişlerdir. Hocalı’ya saldırarak kenti terk edememiş suçsuz ve silahsız masum insanları acımasız şekilde katletmiştir. Cesetlerinin birçoğunun yakıldığı, gözlerinin oyulduğu, kulaklarının, burunlarının ve kafaları ile vücutlarının çeşitli uzuvlarının kesildiği ve daha birçok akıl dışı işkencelere maruz kaldıkları görülmüştür. Ermenilerin silahsız sivil halka yönelik gerçekleştirdiği bu katliam, açıkça, bir etnik grubun yok edilmesi amacıyla gerçekleştirilmiştir.

Ermeniler Hocalı'da, 83 çocuk, 106 kadın ve 70'den fazla yaşlı dahil olmak üzere toplam 613 kişiyi katletti. Yaşanan sadece insanların katledilmesi değildi. Cesetler üzerinde yapılan incelemelerde bir çoğunun yakılmış olduğu, gözlerinin oyulduğu tespit edildi. Hamile kadınlar ve çocukların da bu vahşete maruz kaldığı belirlendi. Canlı şahitlerin ifadeleri ve basın organlarında yayımlanan film ve resimlerde görünen insanlık dışı cinayetler, Ermenilerin soykırım amacıyla bu operasyonu gerçekleştirdiğini göstermektedir.

1980’lerin sonlarından itibaren Kafkasya’yı yakından izleyen ve Hocalı faciası sırasında bölgede bulunan ABD’li gazeteci-yazar Thomas Goltz, olayın “Bölgede yaşayan Azerbaycan Türklerine karşı toptan imha amacı taşıdığını, o nedenle apaçık soykırım olduğunu” yazmıştı.

Karabağ’ı işgal eden Ermenilerin yüzünü Ağdam’a çevirmeleri an meselesiydi. Karabağ katliamlarından kaçarak Ağdam Rayonuna sığınan göçmenler henüz katliamların acısını atlatamamış, buraya da saldırırlar mı korkusuyla uykularından oluyorlardı. Nitekim Hocalı Soykırımında kan kaybeden Azerbaycan Ağdam’da tarihinin en kanlı savaşını yaşamaya hazırlanıyordu. Hocalı’da gerçekleşen kan donduran soykırım, Ağdam sokaklarını korkuyla titretiyor, insanlar çocuklarının gözlerinin içine bakmaktan çekiniyordu. Günler içinde Ağdam’da çetin bir savaş yaşanacak ve şehir yerle bir olacaktı.

 

Azerbaycan’ın İşgal Edilen Bölgeleri ve İşgal Tarihleri

1988 yılında silahlı çatışmaya dönen Azerbaycan-Ermenistan sorunu kısa bir sürede Azerbaycan ve Ermenistan’ın bir bölgesel savaşına dönüşmüş ve Ermenistan silahlı kuvvetleri bu çatışmalar neticesinde 1988 yılından ateşkesin yapıldığı 12 Mayıs 1994 tarihine kadar Dağlık Karabağ’ın tamamı da olmak üzere toplam 890 rayon, köy, kasaba ve yerleşim biriminden ibaret Azerbaycan topraklarının % 20’sini işgal etmiştir. Dağlık Karbağa’da Azerbaycanlılar 2 şehir, 1 kasaba ve 53 köyde meskunlaşmışlardı. Ermenistan silahlı kuvvetleri; 18 Şubat 1992’de Hocavend’i, 25 Şubat 1992’de Hocalı’yı, 26 Şubat 1992’de Şuşa’yı, 18 Mayıs 1992’de Laçin’i, 4 Nisan 1993’de Kelbecer’i, 23 Temmuz 1993’te Ağdam’ı, 24 Ağustos 1993’te Fuzuli, 27 Ekim 1993’te Zengilan’ı, 26 Ağustos 1993’te Cebrayil’i, 31 Ağustos 1993’te Kubatlı’yı işgal etmişlerdir.

Ermeniler, Azerbaycan köylerine otomatik silahlar, roketatar ve bombalarla saldırıyor. Sovyet Kızıl Ordu askerleri ise Ermeni ablukası ve olaylar karsısında aciz ve seyirci kalıyordu. Namluların çevrildiği Azerbaycan köylerine yardıma gitmeyen, kurdukları barikatlarda kımıldayamayan Kızıl Ordu birlikleri ve Sovyet tankları. Esirler, yaralılar, kaçırılıp rehin tutulan, öldürülen Azerbaycanlıları ve dünyanın duyamadığı imdat çığlıkları...

Dünyanın sağır olduğu çığlığı duymak istemiyordu, Ermenilerin terör havası estirdiği Azerbaycan şehir ve köyleri tam bir panik içindeydi. Evleri yakılan, kurşunlanan çaresiz insanlar, dünyaya seslerini duyuramamaktan yakınıyorlardı. Türk şehir ve köylerini basan ve yakıp yıkan Ermeniler, yaşlı çocuk bakmaksızın cinayetlerini sürdürüyorlardı.

 

Dağlık Karabağ'a Yolculuk

Azerbaycan ve Ermenistan Savaşı'nda, Ermeni diasporası, lobisi ve birçok ülke  Ermenistan'a para ve silah yardımı yapıyordu. Biz Irak Türkleri, kendimizi Azerbaycanlıların öz kardeşi, kara gün dostu olarak görüyoruz,onlarda bizi öyle görüyor. Azerbaycan'ın bu zor, sıkıntılı, çetin gününde, kardeşlerimiz için bir Irak Türkü ve bir hekim olarak ne yapabilirim diye düşündüm. Dost, arkadaş, çevre ve kuruluşlar ile ilişkiler kurarak Karabağ'a ilaç ve tıbbi malzeme toplamaya karar verdim. İlaç ve tıbbi malzeme yardımını Karabağ’a ulaştırmanın yollarını aramaya başladım. O tarihte İsveç'in eğitim, kültür, önemli tıp ve sanayi kenti olan Umeå'da yaşıyordum.  İlaç ve tıbbi yardım malzemeleriyle Azerbaycan'ın  Dağlık Karabağ’a doğru yola koyuldum. Umeå'dan gemi ile Finlandiya'nın Vasa şehrine  geçtim, oradan da tren ile  Finlandiya'nın Başkenti Helsinki'ye, oradan da Rusya'nın ikinci büyük şehri, kuzeyin Venedik'i ve aslında bir açık hava müzesi olarak bilinen St.Petersburg'a vardım.

Sovyetler Birliği yeni dağılmış ve ülkenin dağılması sırasında ortaya çıkan kargaşa ortamı sürüyordu. St.Petersburg'den Bakü'ye uçak bileti almak için çok çalıştım, 5 gün uğraştım ama başaramadım.St. Petersburg ile Bakü arası mesafe 3,023,5 km. Çaresizdim, ne yapacağımı bilemiyordum. Ve birden aklıma bir fikir geldi.  St. Petersburg'da Azerbaycanlıların yoğun yaşadığı bölgeye gittim. Vahid adında bir Azerbaycan Türkü ile tanıştım ve durumu kendisine anlattım. Daha sonra İlaç ve tıbbi yardım malzemeleriyle Vahid beni arabası ile St.Petersburg Pulkovo Havalimanı'na götürdü.  Havalimanında küçük bir ayakkabı tamiri dükkanına gittik, tanıdığı hemşehrisi Azerbaycan Türkü dükkan sahibine benim için Bakü'ye bir uçak bileti bulmasını istedi. Dükkan sahibi pasaportumu aldı, 15-20 dakika sonra elinde uçak bileti ile geri geldi. Bu bir şaka mı? O anda ne kadar sevindiğimi bilemezsiniz…

3 saat 40 dakika süren, berbat bir Rus yapımı Tupolev tipi uçak, uçuş emniyeti hak getire cinsinden maceralı bir uçak yolculuğundan sonra Azerbaycan Cumhuriyeti'nin başkenti Bakü'ye Bine Uluslararası Havalimanı'na (Yeni adı Haydar Aliyev Uluslararası Havalimanı) indik. Unutmadan Vahid, Bakü'de erkek kardeşinin yaşadığını, adının Vagif olduğunu belirterek, Kardeşinin adresini de bana vermişti. Kardeşinin de bana yardımcı olacağını söylemişti. Havaalanından taksiye bindim ve adresi taksi şoförüne verdim. Taksiden Vagif'in evinin önünde indim, kapıya vurdum. Kapıyı Vagif açtı, hemen aldı beni içeriye ve ailesi ile tanıştırdı. Kendisine ilaç ve tıbbi malzemenin evinde kalmasını ve beni de bir otele yerleştirmesini talep ettim, ısrarlarıma rağmen kabul etmedi.   

Azerbaycan halkının misafirperverliği kendi tarihi kadar eskidir. Azerbaycan halkı binyıllar boyunca, ülkesine gelen, toprağına ayak basan insanları, doğma yakınları gibi kabul edip, evindeki en leziz yemeği misafir önüne koyar.Halkı içten ve samimi ayrıca misafirperver bir kültüre sahiptir. 

Bakü'de bazı bakanlıklar, kuruluşlar ve şahsiyetler ile görüştüm. Bu görüşmenin sonucunda Vagif ile birlikte ilaç ve tıbbi malzemeyi de yanımıza alarak savaş hattı olan Azerbaycan'ın Karabağ bölgesindeki  Ağdam'a doğru yola koyulduk.

 

Azerbaycan'ın Gözbebeği Ağdam'a Bomba Yağıyor

Ermeniler 1991'de başlattıkları saldırılarla 18 Şubat 1992’de Hocavend’i, 25 Şubat 1992’de Hocalı’yı, 26 Şubat 1992’de Şuşa’yı, 18 Mayıs 1992’de Laçin’i işgal etti. Azerbaycan'daki siyasi istikrarsızlığın Karabağ'daki savaş üzerinde büyük zararı oldu.

Uluslararası tepkilere rağmen Ermeniler tek taraflı ateşkeslerini iptal edip, komuta kademesi neredeyse işlemez hale gelmiş Azerbaycan ordusuna karşı tekrar saldırıya geçtiler.  Ermenilerin yeni hedefi Karabağ'ın doğusunda yer alan ve civarıyla birlikte nüfusu yaklaşık 150 bin olan Ağdam şehriydi.

Toplam bin 154 kilometre kare büyüklüğünde olan Ağdam şehri, Bakü'den 365 km uzaktadır. Ağdam 18. yüzyılda kuruldu ve 1928'de şehir statüsü aldı. Ağdam bölgesi Azerbaycan'ın eski, büyüleyici doğanın toprağı olan Karabağ'ın merkezinde ve Karabağ dağ zincirinin kuzeydoğu eteklerinde bulunmakta.

1992 yılının Kasım ayıydı, Bakü'den Ağdam'a hareket eden bir otobüse bindik. Yaklaşık 7 saat süren yolculuktan sonra  Ağdam'ın yakınlarında bir yerde indik. O tarihte Ağdam şehri Ermeni kuşatması altındaydı. Bir taksiye bindik,Ağdam'a yaklaştığımızda akşam olmak üzereydi,  havan topu, tank ateşi ve füze ile Ağdam bombalanıyordu,şehirde bulunan halk da, can havliyle, panik içerisinde koşuşturduğunu, bombaların hedefi olmamak için, bulabildikleri her türlü vasıta ile şehri terk ediyordu. Ermeniler, halkın şehri terk etmesi için özellikle sivil yerleşim yerlerini acımasızca ağır bir şekilde bombalıyordu. Hayatımda ilk defa gerçek savaşı yaşıyordum! Bu görüntüyü hayatımın sonuna dek unutamam.

Evet… Gerçek bir savaşta, ölüm her yeri kapladığında ölmek değil yaşamaktır tesadüf. Cesaret tehlikeyi göze almaktır ve aklın emaresidir. Savaş bir tehlike alanıdır, onun için cesaret savaşçı erdemlerin başında gelir.  Cesaret, ister kişinin bünyesinden ve karakterinden, ister ölümden korkmamasından, ister alışkanlıktan ileri gelsin, tehlikeyi umursamazlık. Bu sürekli bir haldir. Cesur kişi felâket hallerinde çözüm üretir, şuurlu risk alır ve aklının gösterdiği hedefe giderken risklere katlanır. Korku diye bir kelime hayat sözcüğümde yoktur.  Ailem de beni böyle yetiştirdi.Öleceksen de şerefli, bir gaye, bir ideal uğruna öl, ki insanlar seni hatırlasın!

İran-Irak Savaşı'nda kardeşim Nazar Çavuşoğlu 7 Şubat 1988 yılında savaş alanında  ülkesini savunurken şehit düştü.  Kardeşim şehit düşeceğini biliyordu,  en ön cephede savaşıyordu, savaş sırasında birkaç defa yaralanmıştı.Askerden son izne geldiğinde arkadaşlarına “ En ön cephede savaşıyoruz. Muhtemelen bu son gidişim olur, şehit olup öyle dönerim” demişti. kardeşimin şehit olacağı içine doğmuştu. Aynı yılın Mart ayında, yani bir ay sonra ağabeğim Nebil Çavuşoğlu İranlılara esir düştü. 11 yıl İran'da esir kaldı. Cesaret, haklı olarak, erdemlerin en değerlisidir;
çünkü diğer tüm erdemler ona dayanır. Cesurlar bir kez ölür, korkaklar bin kere!

Ağdam cephe hattına ulaşmak için, şehrin diğer yakasına geçmemiz gerekiyordu. Şehir Ermeni kuşatması altındaydı, yani Ağdam'ın içinden geçmekten başka çaremiz yoktu, fakat şehir ağır bir şekilde bombalanıyordu ve kıyamet kopmuş gibiydi, Akşam oldu hava karardı, hava çok soğumuştu, şehre girmeye karar verdik.  Halk şehri terk ederken, bizde bir yolunu bulup şehre giriyoruz. Sağımıza solumuza bombalar düşüyordu, adeta bir mahşer günüydü.Ölüm kol geziyordu, geri dönebilirdik, fakat geri dönmeyi aklımızın ucundan bile geçirmedik. Çünkü İlaç ve tıbbi malzemeyi  canımız pahasına bir an önce yaralılara ve tıbbi yardıma ihtiyacı olanlara ulaştırmak istiyorduk.Sonunda bunu başardık!

 

Ermenilere Para ve Silah Yardımı

Batı ülkeleri, Ermeni diasporası ve lobisi Ermenistan’a büyük miktarda silah ve parasal yardımında bulundular. Ermeni diasporası, Azerbaycan ile olan Karabağ Savaşını, yüklü para bağışlarıyla desteklemiş ve silah alımını finanse etmiştir. Rusya, Ermenileri politik olarak destekleyip her türlü askeri yardımı da yapmıştır. Ermenilere başta Lübnan olmak üzere bütün dünyadaki Ermeni topluluklarından militan ve silah desteği gelmeye başlamış ve Azerbaycan yerleşim birimlerine yapılan saldırıları Rus askerleri de destek olmuştu.

İran bile, İran'daki Türk nüfusunun tepkisini çekmemek için, Ermenistan'a Azerbaycan karşısında güçsüz kalmaması için gizli silah yardımları yapmıştır. Kesin olan ise, ABD’de etkin olan diaspora Ermenilerinin Ermenistan’a büyük miktarda parasal yardım yaptığı, hatta Azerbaycan’ın Ermenistan’a uyguladığı ambargoyu gerekçe göstererek Amerikan Kongresinden “907 Sayılı Özgürlüğü Destekleme Yasası” adıyla Azerbaycan’a her türlü askeri yardımı engelleyen bir yasa çıkarmayı başardıklarıdır.

 

Hayalet Şehir Ağdam

Dağlık Karabağ savaşı sırasında en stratejik noktalarından biri olarak kabul edilen Ağdam, 1993’ün Mayıs’ında Ermeni güçlerin saldırısına maruz kaldı. Bakü’de meydana gelen iç karışıklıklar nedeniyle savunma gücü azalan Azerbaycan birlikleri, 42 gün boyunca şehri savunmaya çalıştı fakat başarılı olamadı. 23 Temmuz 1993'de Ermenistan Silahlı Kuvvetleri'nin desteğindeki Ermeni güçleri tarafından işgal edildi ve yerleşim merkezi tamamen harap edilerek şehir nüfusunun doğuya, Azerbaycan'ın içlerine göç etmesi sağlandı. Ağdam'ı, Fuzuli, Zengilan, Cebrayil ve Kubatlı illerinin işgali izledi.

Ermeni işgalinde, Ağdam’da 5 bin 897 Azerbaycanlı şehit oldu. Rusya'nın ve Batı ülkelerinin de açık silah desteği ile gerçekleşen işgal, Ermenilerin bölgenin %70'ine sahip olmasına yol açtı. Hala devam eden bu haksız işgale karşılık bölgede 122 yerleşim noktasından sadece 10’unda Azerbaycan yönetimi mevcut. Ermeni kuvvetleri işgal ettikleri bölgelerde 24,500 evi, 50 sanayi tesisini, 160 okulu, 374 kültürel merkezi, 2 müzeyi, mezarlıkları, hastaneleri, kütüphaneleri, okulları, ofisleri, spor tesisleri ve pek çok anıtı yok etti.

Bugün Ermeni ve Azerbaycan kuvvetleri arasındaki tampon bölgede yer alan Ağdam, tamamen hayalet bir şehir görünümündedir. Şehirde in cin top oynuyor. Ermeniler tarafından tarihi anıtlar, mezarlıklar, hastaneler, kütüphaneler, okullar, ofisler ve tesisler tahrip edilmiş. Vandalizm nedeniyle oldukça zarar gören ve terk edilen kentteki bina ve evler yıkılmış.

Savaşın hemen ardından, Ermeni kuvvetleri Ağdam’dan çok, Azerbaycan tarafından buranın tekrardan alınmasını önlemek için bu bölgeyi yıkıma uğratmaya karar vermişlerdir. Ermeniler bina, ev ve çevre yapıları yok etmiş, geri kalanları da savaş sonrası talanda oldukça zarar görmüştür. Şehir ıssız, boş, virane ve bir harabeye dönmüştür.

Artık Ağdam diye bir yer yok. Yerle bir oldu. Artık fiziksel olarak var olmayan bir şeyden bahsediyoruz, çünkü Ağdam'da yürüyorsunuz, yürüyorsunuz ve hiçbir şey yok. Elbette ki savaş yüzünden. Çünkü savaş bir toplum için hem maddi hem de manevi olarak öyle yıkımlar doğurur ki etkisi yüzyıllar geçse de bitmez. Ayrıca bu savaş beraberinde binlerce insanın acı çekmesine, ölmesine yol açmıştır. Bu kadar vahşeti, gaddarlığı, felaketi bir arada görmek, insanın içini acıtıyor.....

İngiliz gazeteci Tom de Waal'ın Kara Bahçe adlı kitabında 'Kafkasya Hiroşima'sı olarak nitelediği Ağdam, 1993 yılından beri Ermeni işgali altında ve bir kıyametin yaşandığı kent tam bir hayalet kent görünümünde.

Azerbaycan  Premier ve devler ligi olarak da tanımlanan dünyanın en prestijli uluslararası kulüp turnuvası olan Şampiyonlar Ligi'nde top koşturan Ağdam halkının gururu olan Karabağ Ağdam Futbol Kulübü şehrin güzel günlerinden geri kalanlardır.

 

Irak Türkleri Kan Kardeşlerinin Yanındadır

Azerbaycan topraklarının %20'si Ermenistan işgali altındadır. 10 milyon nüfuslu Azerbaycan'da 1 milyondan fazla göçmen yaşıyor. Yani ülkedeki her 10 kişiden 1'i mülteci konumunda. Biz Irak Türkleri olarak Azerbaycan topraklarının Ermenistan tarafından işgal edildiğini biliyoruz ve elbette her zaman kardeş Azerbaycan'ın yanındayız. Dağlık Karabağ da dahil olmak üzere Azerbaycan'ın işgal altındaki bütün toprakları kurtulana kadar Azerbaycanlarının yanında durmaya devam edeceğiz.

 

Kürşat Çavuşoğlu

Irak Türkmen Birliği ve Dayanışma Derneği Genel Başkanı

The Dismantling of the Middle East State System

February 22, 2018Shireen Hunter Leave a Comment

by Shireen Hunter
Following the end of World War II, Middle Eastern countries consolidated their state structures. By contrast, over the last two decades, those structures have largely been dismantled.
This process began in 2003 with the US-led invasion of Iraq. Since then, the Iraqi state as a viable institution has nearly disappeared. The country has been plunged into turmoil and civil war. Its Kurdish-inhabited areas nearly became independent, and various proposals have been aired about dividing the country into three different entities based on ethnic and sectarian criteria.
Next, the bombing of Libya by NATO forces in 2008 led to the country’s effective disintegration. Sudan divided into its southern and northern components, and South Sudan remains in the grip of conflict, its economic and humanitarian conditions worsening.
The Syrian crisis of 2011 soon degenerated into civil war. Now, after seven years of conflict and a huge humanitarian tragedy, it is increasingly clear that Syria cannot be put back together. What happens to the country inevitably will have an impact on Lebanon and perhaps even Jordan.
The same has been true of Yemen, the object of a brutal war by Saudi Arabia with the help of the United Arab Emirates. Even if the conflict were to come to an end, it is difficult to see how this country can be put back together in a reasonable time.
Of course, all these states were fragile. Some historians and analysts say that colonial powers created these artificial structures with an eye more to their own interests and rivalries among themselves than to any real concern for these states’ future viability. Political elites also seriously mismanaged the new states’ domestic politics and failed to forge national identities transcending ethnic and sectarian cleavages. The Cold War and waves of excessive nationalism and revolutionary movements further exacerbated these problems.
A hallmark of colonial state-building was the preservation of tensions among ethnic and sectarian minorities as a way of retaining the departing colonial power’s influence by enabling it to manipulate the ex-colonial states should the need arise. This strategy had been perfected outside the Middle East, when Lenin and Stalin incorporated most of the Czarist empire into the USSR. Indeed, many of today’s territorial conflicts in the post-Soviet space are the legacy of Stalin’s nationalities policy. In the Middle East, Britain and France built on this strategy through the art of divide and rule.
The latest episodes of outside manipulation of the Kurdish minority in both Iraq and Syria illustrate this age-old imperial practice. The problem, however, is that manipulation of such vulnerabilities does not always yield the desired results. For example, the US use of the Kurds against Syria’s Alawite minority and the government of Bashar al-Assad has only angered Turkey and created a crisis of confidence in Turkish-American relations. Masoud Barzani’s bid for Kurdish independence in Iraq only exacerbated the country’s existing problems.
Yet, as long as the cost of such strategies remains acceptable for the great powers, they will continue to use them to pursue short-term objectives even if they thereby cause long-term problems, including for themselves.
Similar ideas and strategies are now being advanced for dealing with Iran. The idea that Iran is too big for the comfort of the great powers has been around for a long time, even when it was supposedly a Western ally. One way of dealing with this issue in recent decades has been to circulate the notion that Iran is not a nation state but rather an empire made up of different ethnic groups. By this reasoning, there is nothing wrong in breaking Iran up into its various ethnic components or, as some commentators have put it, “reduced to its Persian core.” Usage of the name “Persia” as opposed to “Iran” is part of this strategy. A map showing Persia comprising only Iran’s Fars province visually conveys this idea.
Thus far, Western (primarily US) and other opponents of an integrated Iran have pursued this strategy through the indirect means of encouraging separatist movements. They have also continued to undermine Iran’s economy with sanctions and other pressures, even following the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that was supposed to end most sanctions. By increasing public dissatisfaction with the central government in Teheran, such pressures would in theory spur separatist movements.
Some of Iran’s regional rivals have been openly supporting such a policy. For example, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman said that his country will take the fight into Iran. Even those countries that supposedly have non-hostile relations with Iran, such as Turkey and Pakistan, have at various times supported separatist elements in Iran: Turkey in Azerbaijan and Pakistan in Baluchistan, despite its own Baluch problem.
Now, anti-Iran forces both inside the region and in some Western countries are openly talking of a war against Iran that, among other things, could dismember the country. Yet an obvious question is seldom asked: have all the other recent military ventures in the Middle East and North Africa increased either the security of regional states or safeguarded the interests of the great powers? Has Syria’s destruction made Israel more secure? Has Yemen’s war added to Saudi Arabia’s security? Has the Iraq war made Turkey more secure? Have Europe or America benefitted from these wars? Have human rights conditions improved and democracy flourished? After all, the ostensible goal of these adventures was to end dictatorship, spread democracy, and secure the rights of regional peoples.
In each case, the answer is an emphatic “no.” For example, the Syrian war has brought outside forces closer to Israeli borders. Although the Syrian government has not acted recklessly towards Israel for decades, there is no telling what some of the various militias there and elsewhere in the neighborhood would do. Already, Europe is struggling to deal with the flood of refugees, causing the emergence of disquieting political forces long believed to have disappeared and producing what is arguably the European Union’s worst crisis.
In view of the record of the past 15 years, let’s try a different tack: for outsiders to stop either promoting or helping to sustain regional wars and instead focus on building peace and putting back the shattered state structures of the Middle East. The rub is that every party wants peace on its own terms and is unwilling to compromise. Yet without compromise, peace will remain elusive and the prospect of even more devastating wars and destruction will continue to hang over the region. Without such peace, the dream of more democratic systems and respect for human rights will also die.
Photo: Refugees from Iraq and Syria (Wikimedia Commons).

 

• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Analysis, Iran Donald Trump, European Union, Iran, iraq, Libya, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Shireen Hunter, Yemen

Shireen Hunter

Shireen T. Hunter is a Research Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Her latest publication is God On Our Side: Religion, Foreign Policy and International Affairs (Rowman & Littlefield, December 2016).

More Posts

Iran Among the Ruins - Tehran's Advantage in a Turbulent Middle East

Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - 12:00am (Foreign Affairs)

Iran Among the Ruins

Tehran’s Advantage in a Turbulent Middle East

Vali Nasr

VALI NASR is Dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Over the last seven years, social upheavals and civil wars [1] have torn apart the political order that had defined the Middle East ever since World War I. Once solid autocracies have fallen by the wayside, their state institutions battered and broken, and their national borders compromised. Syria and Yemen have descended into bloody civil wars worsened by foreign military interventions. A terrorist group, the Islamic State [2] (also known as ISIS), seized vast areas of Iraq and Syria before being pushed back by an international coalition led by the United States.

In the eyes of the Trump administration, and those of a range of other observers and officials in Washington and the region, there is one overriding culprit behind the chaos: Iran. They point out that the country has funded terrorist groups, propped up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and aided the anti-Saudi Houthi rebels in Yemen. U.S. President Donald Trump has branded Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” with a “sinister vision of the future,” and dismissed the nuclear agreement reached by it, the United States, and five other world powers in 2015 as “the worst deal ever” (and refused to certify that Iran is complying with its terms). U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has described Iran as “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.” And Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has charged that “Iran is on a rampage.”

Washington seems to believe that rolling back Iranian influence would restore order to the Middle East. But that expectation rests on a faulty understanding of what caused it to break down in the first place. Iran did not cause the collapse, and containing Iran will not bring back stability. There is no question that many aspects of Iran’s behavior pose serious challenges to the United States. Nor is there any doubt that Iran has benefited from the collapse of the old order in the Arab world, which used to contain it. Yet its foreign policy is far more pragmatic than many in the West comprehend. As Iran’s willingness to engage with the United States over its nuclear program showed, it is driven by hardheaded calculations of national interest, not a desire to spread its Islamic Revolution abroad. The Middle East will regain stability only if the United States does more to manage conflict and restore balance there. That will require a nuanced approach, including working with Iran, not reflexively confronting it.

MORE NORMAL THAN YOU THINK

Too often, politicians and analysts in the West reduce Tehran’s interests and ambitions to revolutionary fervor. Iran, the charge goes, is more interested in being a cause than a country. In fact, although Tehran certainly has its dyed-in-the-wool hard-liners, it also has many pragmatic, even moderate, politicians who are keen to engage with the West. In domestic politics, the two camps are locked in a long-running tug of war. But when it comes to foreign policy, there is a growing consensus around the imperatives of nationalism and national security. It was this consensus that led Iran to sign and then implement the nuclear deal.

Some observers see Iran today, with its use of militias and insurgents abroad, as the United States saw the Soviet Union or China at the height of its revolutionary fervor—as a power intent on using asymmetric means to upset the existing order and sow chaos. Iran’s goal is to “expand its malign influence,” Mattis said at his confirmation hearing, “to remake the region in its image.” But Iran is closer to modern Russia and China than to their revolutionary predecessors. Like them, it is a revisionist power, not a revolutionary one. It opposes a regional order designed to exclude it. Iran’s methods often defy international norms, but the national interests they serve, even when at odds with those of the United States, are not uncommon. Iran’s view of the world is shaped less by the likes of Lenin and Mao than by those of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. And it is driven less by revolutionary zeal than by nationalism.

Iran's foreign policy is far more pragmatic than many in the West comprehend.

What characterizes Iran’s current outlook harks back not just to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 but also to the Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled the country for the five decades leading up to the revolution. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah, envisioned Iran dominating the Middle East, with the help of a nuclear capability, a superior military, and exclusive control over the Persian Gulf. For a time, the Islamic Republic eschewed such nationalism in favor of more ideologically driven aspirations. But nationalism has, over the last decade and a half, been on the rise. Today, Iran’s leaders interlace their expressions of fidelity to Islamic ideals with long-standing nationalist myths. Like Russia and China, Iran has vivid memories of its imperial past and the aspirations of great-power status that come with them. And like those two countries, Iran sees a U.S.-led regional order as a roadblock in the way of its ambitions. 

Such nationalist ambitions come alongside more acute national security concerns. The Israeli and U.S. militaries pose clear and present dangers to Iran. The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq put hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops on Iran’s borders and convinced Tehran that it would be foolish for it to think that Iranian forces could thwart the U.S. military on the battlefield. But the U.S. occupation of Iraq showed that, once the initial invasion was over, Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents would do just that, persuading the United States to withdraw. The use of those militants, who relied on training and weapons provided by Iran to kill and injure thousands of U.S. soldiers during the Iraq war, also helps explain the Trump administration’s antipathy toward Iran. 

Iran worries that it is outgunned by its traditional rivals.

Iran sees threats from the Arab world, as well. From 1958, when a revolution overthrew the Iraqi monarchy, to 2003, Iraq posed an ongoing threat to Iran. The memory of the eight-year Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s shapes Iran’s outlook on the Arab world. Many senior Iranian leaders are veterans of that war, during which Iraq annexed Iranian territory, used chemical weapons against Iranian troops, and terrorized Iranian cities with missile attacks. And since 2003, brewing Kurdish separatism in Iraq and Syria and growing Shiite-Sunni tensions across the region have reinforced the perception that the Arab world endangers Iran’s security.

Iran also worries that it is outgunned by its traditional rivals. In 2016, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Iran spent three percent of its GDP on its military, less than the proportions spent by Saudi Arabia (ten percent), Israel (six percent), Iraq (five percent), and Jordan (four percent), putting Iran in eighth place in the Middle East in terms of defense spending as a percentage of GDP. Iran’s spending lags in absolute terms, as well. In 2016, for example, Saudi Arabia spent $63.7 billion on defense, five times Iran’s $12.7 billion.

To compensate for this handicap, Iran has adopted a strategy of “forward defense.” This involves supporting friendly militias and insurgent groups across the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which threaten Israel’s borders. Iran’s most vaunted military unit is the Quds Force, the part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) charged with training and equipping such proxies. Hezbollah has proved a particularly effective ally, as it has achieved the only instances of Arab military success against Israel. In 2000, it forced Israeli troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon, and in 2006, it blunted Israel’s offensive there. 

A similar logic underlies Iran’s long-range missile program (and, before the 2015 agreement, its nuclear efforts). Tehran has intended for these programs to serve as a protective umbrella over its other forces, a strategy successfully employed by Pakistan against India. Iran has agreed to freeze its nuclear program; the idea now is that, with a fully developed missile program, even a significantly more powerful country could not attack Iran or its proxies without facing devastating retaliation. 

Khaled Abdullah / REUTERS

Houthi fighters in the dust in Sanaa, Yemen, January 2017

SURROUNDED BY CHAOS

If Iran’s behavior appears more threatening today than it once did, that is not because Iran is more intent on confronting its rivals and sowing disorder than before but because of the drastic changes the Middle East has experienced over the last decade and a half. Gone is the Arab order on which Washington relied for decades to manage regional affairs and limit Iran’s room for maneuver. A chain of events, starting with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, culminated in the implosion of the Arab world, as social unrest toppled rulers, broke down state institutions, and triggered ethnic and sectarian strife that in some cases escalated into full-fledged civil war.

In many ways, the instability has enhanced Iran’s relative power and influence throughout the region; with so many other power centers weakened, Tehran looms larger than before. In Iraq, working through an array of Kurdish and Shiite political forces, Iran shapes alliances, forges governments, settles disputes, and decides policies. As a result, Iraq is influenced more deeply by Iran than by any other country, including the United States. In Syria, Iran has combined Hezbollah fighters with Shiite volunteers from across the Middle East to make an effective military force, which it has used to wage war on the opposition. As Assad has gained the upper hand in the civil war, Iran’s influence in Damascus has surged. And in Yemen, with very little investment, Iran has managed to bog Saudi Arabia and its allies down in a costly war, diverting Saudi resources away from Iraq and Syria.

With so many other power centers weakened, Tehran looms larger than before.

But the instability has also produced new threats. Arab public opinion is highly critical of Iran’s support for the Assad regime in Syria. According to a Zogby poll published in 2012, soon after Iran entered the Syrian conflict, the country’s favorable rating in the Arab world plummeted to 25 percent, down from a high of 75 percent in 2006. And the meteoric rise of ISIS, which is virulently anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian, brought into sharp relief Sunni resistance to Iranian influence. Yet ISIS’ fate has also confirmed the effectiveness of forward defense in Tehran’s eyes. Without Iran’s military reach and the strength of its network of allies and clients in Iraq and Syria, ISIS would have quickly swept through Damascus, Baghdad, and Erbil (the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan), before reaching Iran’s own borders. Although Iran’s rivals see the strategy of supporting nonstate military groups as an effort to export the revolution, the calculation behind it is utterly conventional: the more menacing the Arab world looks, the more determined Iran is to stay involved there.

The new regional context has also heightened the risk of direct conflict between Iran and the United States or its Arab allies. But here, too, Iran’s leaders sense that they have the advantage. Iran has come out of the fight against ISIS stronger than before. The IRGC has trained and organized Iraqi Shiites who confronted ISIS in Iraq, Shiite volunteers who traveled from as far away as Afghanistan to fight in Syria, and Houthi forces battling the pro-Saudi government in Yemen. Together with Hezbollah, these Shiite groups form a force to be reckoned with. After the fighting ends, they will continue to shape their home countries as they enter local politics, entrenching Iran’s influence in the Arab world. As a result, Sunni Arab states will no longer be able to manage the region on their own.

Over the past year, escalating tensions with Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration’s saber rattling against Iran, and the administration’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, have touched off a nationalist reaction. The defiance toward the United States is matched by worry about the growing threat from the reinvigorated U.S.-Saudi relationship. Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been on the rise since the signing of the nuclear deal, but since the Trump administration took office, they have taken an ominous turn. In May 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s first deputy prime minister and minister of defense, warned that the battle for influence over the Middle East ought to take place “inside Iran.”

Iran is also no longer immune to the kinds of terrorist attacks that have hit Arab and Western capitals. Last June, ISIS gunmen and suicide bombers attacked the Iranian parliament building and the mausoleum of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, killing 18 people. The sense of danger from the threats swirling around the country has led many Iranians to accept the logic of forward defense. During the early years of the Syrian civil war, Iran’s rulers went to great lengths to downplay Iranian involvement and hid Iranian casualties. Now, they publicly celebrate them as martyrs.

During antigovernment protests in late December and early January, some marchers shouted slogans questioning Iran’s involvement in Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories. Forward defense, the demonstrators claimed, channeled scarce resources to distant conflicts, away from pressing needs at home. The protests suggested that nationalism is tempered by its economic cost. But despite the public criticism, Iran is not about to collapse under the pressure of imperial overreach. Iranians are skeptical of their government’s regional ambitions, but they do not doubt the imperative of defense. They worry about the threat posed by Sunni extremists to sacred Shiite cities in Iraq and Syria, and even more so to Iran itself. In any case, Iran’s rulers are not moved by the criticism. Many of them saw foreign hands behind the protests. They are convinced that rather than retreat, Iran must show strength by protecting its turf in the Middle East. 

Fars News Agency

Protests in Tehran, December 2017.

FROM NEGOTIATION TO CONFRONTATION

The Obama administration responded to the disintegrating order in the Middle East by distancing the United States from the region’s unending instability. In a clear break with past U.S. policy, it refused to intervene in Syria’s civil war and moved beyond the old strategy of containment to forge a nuclear deal with Iran. That deal angered the Arab world and aggravated regional tensions, but it also reduced the threat that would have continued to tether the United States to the Middle East just when it was trying to break free.

The success of the nuclear deal suggested that the United States might reimagine its relationship with Iran. Arab allies concluded that Washington would no longer be committed to containing the country and worried that it would turn away from them. Tehran agreed. With the Arab world in free fall, it reasoned, a containment strategy against Iran was unsustainable, and the nuclear deal would make it unnecessary.

But despite these expectations, the United States did not fundamentally change its approach to the region. The Obama administration sought to assuage Arab angst by signing large arms deals with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Those in Tehran who had supported the nuclear deal were disappointed: Iran had given up an important asset only to see the conventional military gap with its regional rivals widen. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its allies for the first time proved willing to use that military superiority, with devastating effect, in Yemen—a signal that was not lost on Iran. Tehran responded by doubling down on its missile program.

The Trump administration has reversed course on the nuclear deal and is pivoting back to the old U.S.-Arab alliance system, with Saudi Arabia as its anchor. The deal may limp along, but the opening that it presented Iran and the United States has closed. A return to containment will be difficult, however. Two important building blocks are missing: Iraq and Syria are weak and broken, unable to control their own territories and ruled by governments that are closer to Iran than to the United States’ Arab allies. The two countries cover most of the Levant and for several decades had imposed order on its competing sects, ethnicities, and tribes. Since World War I, along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, they had served as pillars of the Arab order. After 1958, Iraq, in particular, acted as both a shield against Iranian influence and a spear in Iran’s side. 

Ultimately, the United States’ position in the Middle East reflects its broader retreat from global leadership. The United States lacks the capacity to roll back Iranian gains and fill the vacuum that doing so would leave behind. The shortcomings of U.S. policy were on full display during last year’s referendum on independence held by Iraqi Kurdistan. Although Washington called on the Kurds not to hold the vote, it could not stop them, and after they voted for independence, it played little role in managing the ensuing crisis. Instead, Iran defused the standoff, which threatened to escalate into open conflict between Baghdad and Erbil. Tehran compelled Kurdish leaders to back away from independence, surrender control over the contested city of Kirkuk, and even submit to a change in leadership in the Kurdistan Regional Government. 

A consensus has emerged in Tehran around closer ties with Russia.

Nor can the United States’ principal Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, pick up the slack. It has successfully rallied Sunni Arab public opinion in opposition to Iran’s meddling in Syria and the rest of the Arab world. And between 2013 and 2016, it, along with Qatar and Turkey, put Iran and its clients on their heels in Syria by supporting various anti-Assad opposition groups. But then the Saudi effort fell short. Saudi Arabia quarreled with Qatar and Turkey, and the Assad regime survived the Sunni-led opposition. And in Yemen, the Houthis have stood their ground in the face of the vast military muscle of the Saudi-led coalition. 

Iran still worries about Saudi Arabia’s newfound assertiveness. Prince Mohammed is waging war in Yemen and isolating Qatar, and he even attempted to strong-arm Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, into resigning in November. Breaking with his predecessors, he has also shown a willingness to play a role in Iraq, where he is wooing Iraqi Shiite politicians, including the maverick militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Yet Saudi Arabia will have a hard time continuing this aggressive strategy. The crown prince has to manage a tricky succession from his father, King Salman, and pull off an ambitious program of social and economic reforms, all while confronting Iran.

Nor does Iran feel as isolated as Washington and its allies would like. Last June, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab states to impose a diplomatic and economic boycott on Qatar, punishing it for cozying up to Iran and for supporting terrorist groups and the Sunni Islamist organization the Muslim Brotherhood. But the effort to isolate Qatar has only pushed it closer to Iran, providing Tehran with a beachhead on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia’s move also damaged relations with Turkey. Ankara’s ruling Justice and Development Party has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the country has its own aspiration to lead the Sunni world. The U.S.-Saudi vision of regional order does not reflect Turkey’s interests and ambitions. All of this has accelerated Turkey’s pivot toward Iran and Russia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has found ways around his disagreements with Tehran and Moscow to forge a partnership with the two in order to shape events in Syria. This new axis was on full display last November, when Erdogan joined Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Sochi to decide Syria’s fate. The rise in tensions between Iran and the United States is happening in the context of Russia’s entry into the Middle East, which began in earnest in 2015, when Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war on behalf of the Assad regime. U.S. officials have steadfastly downplayed Moscow’s interest in Syria and dismissed the idea that Russia will gain influence by extending its reach into the region. But Russia has emerged as the main arbiter of Syria’s fate, and as its role has grown beyond Syria, it has become the only power broker in the Middle East that everyone talks to. 

Russia could not have made these gains without Iran. Iranian ground presence gave Russia its victory in Syria. And in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, Iran and Russia have worked together closely to counter U.S. influence. The two countries see themselves as great powers at odds with U.S. alliances built to contain them. Russia understands Iran’s value to its broader ambitions. Iran sits at an important geographic location and is an energy-rich country of 80 million people, with a network of allies and clients that spans the Middle East—all outside the United States’ sphere of influence. That makes Iran a prize for Putin, who is eager to push back against the United States wherever he can. 

By working together in the Syrian civil war, the Iranian and Russian militaries and intelligence communities have built deep ties with one another, which will help Iran withstand future U.S. coercion. Over the past year, as the United States has backed away from the nuclear deal and put increased pressure on Iran, a consensus has emerged in Tehran around closer ties with Russia. Iran is looking to increase trade with Russia and buy sophisticated weaponry from it to counter rising military spending within the Saudi-led bloc. It may even sign a defense pact with Russia, which would include close military and intelligence cooperation and Russian access to Iranian military bases, something Iran has resisted in the past. In the end, U.S. policy may end up empowering Russia without diminishing Iran’s influence.

TIME TO TALK

Based as it is on a warped understanding of the causes of the disorder in the Middle East, the Trump administration’s Iran policy is caught in a self-defeating spiral. The assumption that the United States and its Arab partners will be able to contain Iran quickly and painlessly, and that doing so will bring stability to the region, is dangerously wrong. Right now, the United States does not have enough troops in the Middle East to affect developments in Iraq or Syria, let alone suppress Iran. Committing the necessary military resources would force Trump to go back on his disavowal of costly military adventures. And those resources would have to come at the expense of other pressing issues, such as managing North Korea and deterring China and Russia. Nor should Washington put its hopes in its regional allies. They are not able to expel Iran from the Arab world, nor would they be able to replace its influence if they did. Any regional conflagration would inevitably compel the United States to intervene.

Even if the United States did muster the necessary resources to contain Iran, doing so would not bring stability. Iran is an indispensable component of any sustainable order in the Middle East. Military confrontation would only encourage Tehran to invest even more in forward defense, leading to more Iranian meddling and more instability. Stable states, such as Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, could stumble, and weak ones, such Iraq and Lebanon, could descend into the kind of lawlessness and violence that have characterized Libya and Yemen in recent years. On top of that, the United States would have to contend with humanitarian crises and terrorist groups that would pick up where ISIS left off. 

Rather than conceive of a regional order designed to contain Iran, the United States should promote a vision for the Middle East that includes Iran. It should convince Tehran that it would be better off working with Washington and its allies than investing its hopes in a Russian-backed regional order. 

To achieve that, the United States would have to rely more on diplomacy and less on force. Washington should find ways to reduce tensions by engaging Iran directly, picking up where the nuclear deal left off. It should also encourage Iran and Saudi Arabia to cooperate to resolve regional crises, starting with those in Syria and Yemen. 

Given the trust Saudi Arabia now places in the Trump administration, the United States should do what the Obama administration failed to: lead an international diplomatic effort to broker a regional deal that would end conflicts and create a framework for peace and stability. This task should not be left to Russia. Such an effort would be difficult, especially since Washington has thrown away any diplomatic capital generated by the nuclear deal. But the alternative—escalating confrontation—would only drive the Middle East deeper into disarray.

Myanmar, the Rohingya, R2P and civilian protection

The Rohingya, R2P, and Civilian Protection

February 20, 2018Guest 4 Comments

by Corrie Hulse
Imagine being forced to flee your home because the military is attacking and killing your neighbors, burning down your village, and raping and abducting your wife and children. You want to turn to your government for help, but it doesn’t even recognize you as a citizen. Your only options are to flee, or be killed. This is the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar.
There has been a great deal of denial out of Myanmar’s government about the violence inflicted on the Rohingya—who is responsible, who is being harmed—but the facts speak for themselves.
Between August 25 and September 24 of 2017 alone, approximately 6,700 civilians were killed in Rakhine State on Myanmar’s west coast. Human Rights Watch reports that 215 villages have been burned. Civilians have been fleeing for their safety, and now there are currently upwards of 870,000 Rohingya refugees in neighboring Bangladesh.
There is no denying what is happening to the Rohingya. For the first time in years, the UN Security Council is in agreement about the scope of the atrocities, and the secretary general is referring to the situation as “catastrophic.” According to a U.S. State Department official, “it is clear that the situation in northern Rakhine State constitutes ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya.” Officials have steered clear of using the term “genocide,” but seem to be in agreement that a targeted ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya is taking place.
Violence against the Rohingya population is not new. They have been continuously discriminated against, oppressed, and violently attacked over the past few decades. With no recourse, and with the violence often coming from the military itself, they are left with few options.
In a situation such as what’s unfolding in Myanmar, the international community must look to established mechanisms to respond. In the case of ethnic cleansing, and potential genocide, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) should guide that response. R2P offers three pillars—the responsibility to prevent, to respond, and to rebuild—as guidelines to addressing looming and already occurring atrocity crimes. With ethnic cleansing unfolding in Myanmar, a determined commitment to R2P could save the Rohingya’s lives.
How Has the U.S. Responded to the Crisis?
Having signed the 2005 World Outcome Document, which included text about the Responsibility to Protect, the U.S. has stated that it believes that each state has a responsibility to protect its citizens from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Further, if states are unable or unwilling to do so, the United States accepts that the international community has a responsibility to step in and protect those civilians.
In terms of the Rohingya crisis, according to a senior State Department official, “efforts by the United States on this crisis have focused first on ending the violence; second on ensuring a path for repatriation for those displaced; third, expanding access for humanitarian assistance and the media in Rakhine State; seeking accountability for reported atrocities; and supporting longer-term solutions for the root causes of tensions and conflict in Rakhine State.”
Although not specifically referencing R2P in statements and reports, the U.S. has implemented aspects of the doctrine as it responds to the crisis in Myanmar through talk, aid, and sanctions.
There has been a great deal of talk—as there always is—condemning actions, making expectations clear, expressing alarm, welcoming cooperation, and so on. One of the key strategies seems to be a focus on building strong communication with the fledgling democratic government in Myanmar. There has been an effort to sustain the young government, working with the new—though controversial—leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In his testimony to Congress, Patrick Murphy of the State Department noted, “It is in our interests, and those of the diverse populations of Burma, including the Rohingya, to see the new, elected government succeed.”
Additionally, the U.S. has been sending financial assistance to the region. During 2017, the U.S. government gave nearly $104 million in aid through the State Department and USAID to assist both internally displaced peoples and refugees—most of whom have ended up in Bangladesh. This is a good start, but will likely not be enough to sustain the hundreds of thousands of refugees. The flow of people continues, and the reality is that the Rohingya will not be able to safely return home in the near future. Thus, continued and substantial aid will be needed for years to come.
Lastly, the U.S. began implementing targeted sanctions. As a part of R2P’s efforts to stave off military intervention, targeted sanctions are among the strategies that can help minimize the movement and effectiveness of perpetrators. Thus far, the U.S. has implemented sanctions on Maung Maung Soe, former chief of the Burmese Army. Congress has asked for broader sanctions with the Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act (S. 2060), barring military assistance as well as some trade. To date, however, only the one military leader has been sanctioned.
In the statement from the State Department official, the U.S. government also expressed interest in facilitating the repatriation of the Rohingya. A deal to that effect was recently signed between the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar, but it’s too soon and too dangerous. When asked about it at a press briefing, Heather Nauert of the State Department responded, “I can’t imagine that anyone would feel safe at this point in returning to their homes.”
Where is the Bold Leadership on Atrocity Prevention?
On paper, the U.S. is committed to civilian protection in Myanmar. It is sending aid, it is working in coordination with the UN, and working with the government in Myanmar. But the U.S. is not boldly acting in the interest of the Rohingya. And it’s not earnestly committed to real atrocity prevention and civilian protection as a whole.
Why has the U.S. sanctioned only one member of the Myanmar military, someone moreover who is no longer in charge? Why is the U.S. not putting greater pressure on Aung San Suu Kyi, who refuses to protect, or for that matter even say the name of, the Rohingya? And where is the push for immediate protection of those Rohingya still living in Myanmar who have yet to flee?
Over the years, the U.S. government has tried to put into place atrocity-prevention mechanisms—most notably the Atrocity Prevention Board (APB). But where President Obama struggled to implement prevention strategies put forth by the APB, the current State Department has little interest in the body, preferring instead to consolidate and eliminate what it sees as excess, such as the Office of Global Criminal Justice.
Some in the U.S. government are committed to civilian protection. Representative James McGovern (D-MA) held what he hopes to be the first in a series of hearings on mass atrocity prevention on February 6, 2018. Experts such as Naomi Kikoler, deputy director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Charles Brown, the managing partner for Strategy for Humanity, spoke about ongoing mass atrocities and how the U.S. government can better respond to them.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) gave opening statements, but McGovern was the only member of Congress who sat and listened to the testimonies in their entirety. With the number of mass atrocity situations right now around the world—Syria, South Sudan, the Rohingya—this sort of hearing should be at the center of congressional attention. Instead, the room was full of congressional interns sent to take notes. Good on McGovern for holding these hearings, but he can’t do this alone.
The U.S. needs to start making atrocity prevention a priority—from Congress, to what’s left of the State Department, to the president.
Moving Forward
The failure of R2P is not in the doctrine, but in the states that are unwilling to live up to their commitment to civilian protection. It is in cries of “Never Again!” followed by inaction as people suffer in some far off land. If the United States wants to be a world leader, it ought to start by being a world leader on atrocity prevention. The knowledge and the resources are there: what’s required is courage.
A great deal of the discussion from McGovern’s hearing focused on the failure to prioritize prevention specifically. Most people outside inner government circles only hear of R2P in the context of military intervention, but its creators meant for it to be used as a tool in the prevention of these crimes. The violence against the Rohingya was not a surprise; it was unfortunately predictable. Reports from December 2016 detail the military burning villages and raping women, and civilian fleeing for their lives, after the current offensive began on October 9, 2016. With the available resources and technology, lack of early warning is rarely a problem. The problem arises in responding to that information. The R2P report itself states, “lack of early warning is an excuse rather than an explanation, and the problem is not lack of warning but of timely response.”
Moving forward, the U.S. ought to recommit to its goals of atrocity prevention, bringing the Atrocity Prevention Board back to the forefront and taking seriously the studies and legislation on atrocity prevention. When a hearing is held on atrocity prevention, it should be packed with members of Congress. This should be at the top of their agenda. Those in harm’s way don’t need a veneer of genocide prevention—they need actual genocide prevention.
Corrie Hulse is the managing editor of The Mantle and author of When We Let People Die: the Failure of the Responsibility to Protect. Photo: Displaced Rohingya mother (Wikimedia Commons).

Saudi Arabia and Iran rivalry in Azerbaijan

Saudi Arabia and Iran Battle It out in Azerbaijan

February 19, 2018Guest Leave a Comment

by James M. Dorsey

It’s the pot calling the kettle black. As Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of seeking to encircle it with its support for Houthi rebels in Yemen as well as Qatar, the kingdom and the Islamic republic are extending their bitter rivalry beyond the Middle East into the Caucasus.

The two countries’ latest battleground is oil-rich Azerbaijan, an authoritarian, majority Shia Muslim but secular former Soviet republic on Iran’s northern border with a substantial ethnic population in Iran itself. Recent Saudi overtures came amid reports that Azerbaijan’ s security services had warned the government about Iran’s growing influence in the country.

The report suggested that an informal lifting in 2013 of a ban on preaching by Islamic scholars linked to Iran that had been quietly imposed in a bid to stem the flow of Azerbaijani Sunni Muslims joining the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq had enabled the Islamic republic to make inroads.

“Iran’s religious activities have become particularly successful,” said Azerbaijani journalist Kenan Rovshanoglu in a study of religious freedom in the country.

Published by Turan, an independent news agency, the study noted that 22 of Azerbaijan’s 150 madrassas or religious seminaries were controlled by Iran.

Iran and Azerbaijan have long tiptoed around each other with both countries concerned that the other could use its religious and/or ethnic affinities to stir trouble. Azeri speakers account for at least a quarter of Iran’s population.

Azerbaijan is, for its part, worried about Iran’s close ties with Armenia. Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked into a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.

Iranian concerns about Azeri nationalism were fuelled when supporters of Tractor Sazi FC, a top club in Tabriz, the capital of the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan, that is a symbol of Iranian Azeri identity, chanted Azeri nationalist slogans three years ago during protests against the government’s environmental policy and alleged anti-Azeri corruption in soccer .

Araz News, leaked in 2015 a letter allegedly written by Brigadier-General Gholam-Asgar  Karimian, the club’s former chairman, detailing how Traktor Sazi could be used to unite Azeris against what the general termed “racist and separatist groups.”

Araz is operated by the National Resistance Organization of Azerbaijan (NROA), a coalition of opposition forces dominated by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a group that enjoys Saudi support but was tainted when it moved its operations in 1986 to Iraq at a time that Iraq was at war with Iran. A spokesman for NROA, Babek Chelebiyali, denied that his group had any association with the Mujahedeen and asserted that they were “opposite organizations.”

The letter said the groups were campaigning for a “study the mother tongue day.” It suggested that the mother tongue referred to was Talysh, a dying northwest Iranian language that is still spoken by at most a million people in the Iranian provinces of Gilan and Ardabil and southern Azerbaijan. The letter implied that the groups General Karimian was concerned included Azeri separatists.

The letter appeared to advocate measures to weaken the separatists by combatting widespread racist attitudes towards Azeris and improving services in East Azerbaijan. Racial attitudes towards Azeris is something Traktor Sazi knows a lot about.

“Wherever Tractor goes, fans of the opposing club chant insulting slogans. They imitate the sound of donkeys, because Azerbaijanis are historically derided as stupid and stubborn. I remember incidents going back to the time that I was a teenager,” said a long-standing observer of Iranian soccer.

Discussing Azerbaijani policy towards Iran, Elkhan Sahinoglu, head of the Center for Applied Politics at Baku’s Western Caspian University, noted that Azerbaijan had no intention of interfering in Iran’s domestic affairs, but could not “disregard the future of the Azeris who reside in Iran.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corp said in November that it had “dismantled a terrorist team” in East Azerbaijan that was “affiliated with global arrogance,” a reference to the United States, and its allies, including Saudi Arabia. The announcement came weeks after Iran said that it had eliminated an armed group in a frontier area of the province of West Azerbaijan that borders on Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkey and is home to Azeris as well as Kurds.

Columnist Huda al-Husseini highlighted Saudi interest in Azerbaijan in a recent column on Al Arabiya, the television network owned by Middle East Broadcasting (MBC) in which the government reportedly obtained a majority share as a result of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent asset and power purge packaged as a campaign against corruption.

In an article entitled ‘Will Iran turn Azerbaijan into another Iraq?’, Ms. Al-Husseini, quoting an anti-Iranian Iraqi author, Raghd Abdel Rida al-Jaberi, asserted that Azerbaijan feared that it would follow in the footsteps of Iraq where Iran allegedly had destroyed the Iraqi military and turned Iraqis into slaves who had been convinced “that washing and rubbing the feet of Iranians who are heading to visit (Imam) Hussain’s tomb brings them closer to heaven no matter what they do afterwards.”

In a media environment that appears to be pre-occupied with supporting the government’s often sectarian-tinted, anti-Iran policy rather than reporting facts, Ms. Al-Husseini suggested that Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s recent attendance of a cultural festival in the kingdom at King Salman’s invitation was part of an effort to resist Iranian encroachment.

Military delegations from the two countries earlier this month discussed closer military cooperation including holding joint military exercises “as well as a number of other issues of mutual interest,” according to Azerbaijani media.

Azerbaijan has also over the years built close military ties to Israel, which like Saudi Arabia, is staunchly opposed to Iran. Israel and Azerbaijan discussed, prior to the 2015 international agreement that curtailed Iran’s nuclear program, using Azerbaijani airbases had it opted for taking out the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities. The agreement put an end to talk about a military strike.

The bottom line is that if Iran is seeking to encircle Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia and Israel are trying to encircle Iran. The mirror image of Saudi Arabia’s belief that Iraq is Iran’s model for Azerbaijan is an Iranian suggestion that Lebanon is Israel’s model.

“Tel Aviv wants to Lebanonize (Azerbaijan) under a ‘new periphery doctrine.’ This means that Tel Aviv intends to create a new periphery region and encircle Iran through its presence in the (Iraqi) Kurdistan Region and Azerbaijan,” said Iranian analyst Salar Seifoddini. Seifoddini was referring to Israel’s policy of periphery that seeks to forge relations with those bordering on Israel’s enemies.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario,  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and the forthcoming China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom. Reprinted, with permission, from The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog. Photo: Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Joint Statement on Turkey-US Strategic Partnership

Press Releases: Joint Statement on Turkey-U.S. Strategic Partnership

02/16/2018 07:13 AM EST

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

February 16, 2018

---

The Republic of Turkey and the United States, as allies and strategic partners, reaffirm their mutual and unequivocal commitment to each other’s security and defense.
As Allies within NATO and strategic partners for over 65 years, both nations consider their relations as vital to furthering their shared goals and interests, as well as to the promotion of democracy, rule of law and individual freedoms throughout the world.
The United States condemns the heinous coup attempt that took place in Turkey on July 15, 2016 and stands in full solidarity with the democratically elected Government of Turkey and the Turkish people.
In the spirit of our longstanding alliance, we reaffirm our commitment to resolving outstanding issues in the bilateral relationship. The two sides agreed to establish a results-oriented mechanism for this purpose. This mechanism will be activated no later than mid-March.
We reaffirm that our common agenda is a global one, which includes many critical issues ranging from the fight against terrorism, countering proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, bringing lasting peace and stability to the Middle East including in Syria and Iraq, ensuring energy security and combatting radicalism, violent extremism and Islamophobia.
The Republic of Turkey and the United States, as longstanding Allies, reaffirm their determination to jointly combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Turkey and the United States reiterate their resolve to fight against DAESH, PKK, Al Qaeda, and all other terrorist organizations and their extensions. We recognize the right to self-defense of our countries against terrorist threats directly targeting our nations.
Turkey and the United States reaffirm their commitment to the preservation of the territorial integrity and national unity of Syria. To this end, we will decisively stand against all attempts to create faits accomplis and demographic changes within Syria, and are dedicated to coordination on transition and stabilization of Syria.
Recognizing the fact that there can only be a political solution to the Syrian crisis, and that it requires a viable political transition, Turkey and the United States agree to intensify their cooperation to bring about this result within the framework of established parameters, namely the UNSC Resolution 2254, and through the Geneva process.

The Iraq War: Fifteen Years Later

February 17, 2018Guest 1 Comment

 

by James J. Zogby /February 17, 2018

Over the next few weeks, I want to take a look back to February and March of 2003, to those fateful days leading up to the Bush administration’s disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. I remember all too well the lies that were told, the hysteria that was created, the bullying tactics that were used to silence debate, and the mass mobilization that was organized in opposition to the war.

In the end, then President George W. Bush ignored American public opinion and the sage advice of senior Republican statement like former Secretary of State James Baker and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and invaded Iraq leading to the most consequential disaster in recent US history.

The Iraq war has had a staggering impact that continues to grow over time. The magnitude of this disaster can be measured in lost lives, treasure, capacity, and prestige. 

From 2003 to the formal withdrawal of US fighting forces in 2011, the war took the lives of 4,500 Americans and well over 150,000 Iraqi civilians. And more than 600,000 US thousand veterans of these wars are now registered as disabled. To fully understand the war’s impact, however, we must also factor in the number of young men and women, who after multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan (400,000 served three or more tours of duty in these two wars) have returned home suffering from post-traumatic shock disorder (PTSD)—about 10% of veterans suffer from PTSD. A great number of them have tragically joined the ranks of the homeless or the addicted or they have committed suicide. Studies show that on an average night almost 40,000 veterans are homeless. And in recent years, the average number of suicides among this group of PTSD veterans is a staggering 22 per day—meaning that more young veterans of these two wars die each year at their own hands out of despair than died in battle in both wars combined.

The direct costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been estimated to be almost two trillion dollars, with trillions more needing to be factored in to cover the long-term health care and disability payments to the wars’ veterans.

The two long unwinnable wars resulted in grounding down and exhausting the US military. It also demonstrated their inability to decisively beat insurgencies and resistance movements. This proved demoralizing to US troops and also established the limits of the world’s most powerful and expensive military machine.

At the same time, the Bush administration’s reckless and arrogant unilateralism (“you’re either with us or against us”) caused friction with allies and contempt for public opinion world-wide. By the end of the Bush administration, US favorable ratings were at their lowest point, worldwide. US abhorrent behaviors exhibited during the war (Abu Ghraib, torture, Guantanamo, etc) also fueled extremist currents giving new life to al Qaeda which, though routed in Afghanistan, metastasized, spreading their anti-American hate across many continents. And the weakened and depleted US military spawned the unforeseen consequence of enabling the emergence of multiple and competing regional powers who were emboldened to expand their influence.

Of course, it wasn’t supposed to be that way. As envisioned by the wars’ main protagonists, the neoconservative “Project for a New American Century,” a decisive US victory in a war like the one they encouraged in Iraq was needed to secure American hegemony in the New World Order. They worried that at the end of the Cold War the US had to project decisive strength to dissuade any would-be competitors. After a display of overwhelming force, they were convinced that the danger of a multi-polar world could be averted and the 21st Century would be an American Century.

As they rushed to war, the Bush administration and its neoconservative acolytes engaged in a massive propaganda campaign of lies to win support for an invasion. When I say that they lied, I don’t mean their fabricated case about Saddam’s “nuclear program” or their false efforts to portray the Iraqi regime as the region’s principle sponsor of terror—this was the brief presented by then Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations in his failed effort to win international backing for the invasion. No, the more serious lies they told were done so in their effort to sell the war to the American as an easy, cheap, and lofty venture.

In congressional testimony and press briefings, high-ranking administration officials argued the war would only require between 60,000 to 90,000 troops (in fact, the administration fired the Pentagon general who at a congressional hearing had admitted that the invasion and occupation of the country, if they were to succeed, would require over 350,000 troops). The fighting, administration spokespeople said, would be over in a few weeks. US troops would be greeted as liberators. And the total cost to the US treasury would be between $1 to $2 billion before Iraqi oil production would kick in and cover the rest. If all this were not fanciful enough, the promoters of the war repeatedly told the American people that when the dust settled Iraq would become a “model democracy” that would serve as a “beacon for the New Middle East.”

In his speeches leading up to the invasion, Bush went further saying that the war “will free people” and that his motivation was to bring “God’s gift of freedom” to the Iraqi people. “We will go into Iraq…to make sure the hungry are fed, those who need health care will have health care, and those youngsters who need education will get education.”

In the end, Bush succeeded only in mobilizing his base of right-wing evangelicals and neoconservatives both of whom were sold on the infantile fantasy, they shared, that a decisive blow delivered by a superior moral force would vanquish evil and lead to a “new order.”

It did not. And 15 years later we and most especially the people of Iraq and the region are living with the consequences of the disaster they brought down on us all: a shattered Iraq, an emboldened Iran, a weaken, war weary, and wary America, and a Middle East in which multiple regional and international powers are engaged in a number of deadly conflicts.

 

James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.