More chickens have come home to roost.
In a previous essay, I stated that the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which ended World War I, had unintentional consequences and that those consequences were the massive conflicts currently embroiling all of Southwest Asia. Among other things, the Treaty called for the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and for the creation of independent nation-states. The victors of the war took it upon themselves to draw up the borders of these new states without bothering to consult with the indigenous populations. The new borders crossed ethnic and religious lines and resulted in festering sores throughout the region.
One of these sores was the disappearance of the Kingdom of Kurdistan from the new map of Southwest Asia. The Kurds found themselves divided into four parts: Southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northeastern Iraq, and northwestern Iran, without having had any say in the matter. In all four parts, they became an ethnic minority and thus persecuted by the several central governments.
Fast forward to the present day:
Chaos redux.
• Afghanistan. America’s longest war, it was once ruled by the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group. It was displaced by the U.S. following its reluctance to hand over Osama bin Laden and replaced by a majority Shi’ite government. Since then, the Taliban has precipitated a civil war.
• Iran. The United States’ chief grudge, it was once ruled by Shah Pahlavi (a Sunni) with U.S. backing. The Shah was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini’s “Islamic Revolution” in 1979 and since has become a Shi’ite powerhouse. America has sniped at it in every turn.
• Iraq. Saddam Hussein (a Sunni) used to be “our guy” because he warred with Iran over oil but fell out of favor after he invaded Kuwait. He was eventually ousted and replaced by a majority Shi’ite government. The Sunni minority rebelled and was aided, first by al-Qaeda, later by ISIS. American involvement resulted in our second-longest war.
• Syria. Syria’s civil war started out as a peaceful demonstration over government policies. Bashar al-Assad (an Alawite, a Shi’ite sub-sect) chose not to negotiate, but to send out his military and secret police to show the demonstrators (mostly Sunni) who was the boss. The U.S. provided the rebels with logistical support and one pathetic air strike against an alleged chemical factory. America’s chief concern was to enlist Kurdish assistance against ISIS’s so-called “caliphate” in northeastern Syria.
• Yemen. A Sunni was elected president with help from Saudi Arabia. The Shi’ite Houthis forced him into exile and installed a more palatable president. With the connivance of the U.S. and the Saudis, that person was forced into exile and replaced by the former president. The Houthis fought back. With logistical support by the U.S., The Saudis have conducted an indiscriminate bombing campaign and have denied entrance to the country to charitable organizations with food and medical supplies.
Are you keeping a scorecard, dear reader? Do you know who’s fighting whom, and why?
Now, a new player has entered the game: Turkey. But religion has nothing to do with it; the Turks have used the turmoil in the region to attack the Kurds in Syria because they look upon the latter as terrorists who support Turkish Kurds, who want a bit of autonomy, and, eventually, an independent Kurdistan.
Curiously, the current U.S. administration wants no part of this war, even though the U.S. has been the precipitating factor in Southwest Asia for the past 20 years. Perhaps the stakes are too high for our accidental president. Yet. Five successive administrations, three Republican, two Democratic, have believed that, because the U.S. is a “superpower,” they are authorized to be the police of the world. They have taken sides in one civil conflict after another in order to force a peace on contestants who do not want peace, but rather victory. Consequently, no one has gotten either peace or victory. The fighting has continued, and the U.S. has not seen a light at the end of this wholly-sectarian tunnel.
Will the U.S. finally learn a lesson that history clearly teaches? One wonders.
Just a thought.