Communicating Arts - Main Web Site- From Gaza, Hamas pesters Israel with rockets;
- in the West Bank, youthful Palestinians get their Irish up, so to speak, to rat-a-tat at Israeli Defense Forces troops--they suffer the consequences too;
- from Lebanon, Hezbollah plots its next round with the Jewish state, calling its defeat in last year's incursion a victory by virtue of having survived to fight another day;
- in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, the blasts of suicide bombers threaten to become as common as the sound of sirens in Queens if they are not so already while each of the states remain both consistent and persistent in their efforts to stop them;
- and from northern Iraq or Iraqi Kurdistan, finally, the once-socialist 1970's cabal that became the PKK continues to launch "actions" to draw attention to the cause of the Turkish Kurds, who are otherwise suffering deeply from the peace and prosperity that has crept into Iraqi Kurdistan and undermined regional desparation with commerce, jobs, and, at least in the Iraqi portion, education and health services.
While Iraqi and U.S. officials do a little (face-saving) dance around the meaning of a Turkish Army assault on the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan, recognized states, in general, have become more bold in their swipes at challengers.
Turkey's contemplation of an enlarged boots-on-the-ground battlespace in Iraqi Kurdistan fits and supports that concerted state of affairs in the now multinational war on terror, and it may be making the apprehension or destruction of listed PKK members, a force of about 3000, a certainty, which would be a second "total victory" against a revolutionary band within the year: I would call Lebanon's defeat of Fatah al-Islam at Nahr al-Bared a first.
In addition to the economic and political turnaround in Iraqi Kurdistan brought about through the U.S. invasion of Iraq, other characteristics of warfare against guerrilla organizations may have increased the difficulty of the PKK's position:
- air strikes against minimally observed sanctuary--e.g., as when a known fighter walks into a home that has not been observed or researched previously and makes that place a target--have made the social accommodation of militants more dangerous than ever and possibly discouraged social contact with them as well as sympathy for their cause;
- dramatic and disastrous consequences for local populations attending a losing cause as at Nahr al-Bared this past year may also affect the local embrace of what may once have been the popular freedom fighter, several hundred of which lost their lives in battle with Lebanese Defense Forces while some 31,000 Palestinians fled their homes and a large percentage of those lost them permanently.
- Indefinite qualities in rebel agendas as time, battle, and internal politics take their toll on leadership personnel and their specific guidance: this may be especially true of the PKK and its decades-long cultivation of an outlaw mistique whose romance has outlived various of its cultural, military, and political theses.
It is my understanding that in Iraqi Kurdistan, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has been called, "The Liberation," English has been made the state's second language, and except when some hot head from the south slips up the road with a bomb, the state has enjoyed respite from military operatons up to this latest debacle with Turkey.
For the Turks, of course, long the targets of PKK violence, the moment has become ripe for going after the guerrillas, who may be seen as having lost much of their former relevance along with popular sympathy.
For other guerrilla bands, there may be "signal" in the model provided by the defeat at Nahr al-Bared and developing now on the northern Iraq border: available spheres of influence may be reduced--adjust dreams and plans accordingly.
1. Popp, Maximillian. "'Allah Wants This War'". Spiegel Online International. October 23, 2007.
2. Ross-Thomas, Emma. "Turk helicopters pound Kurd rebels, PM determine." Reuters, October 29, 2007.
3. Gottschlich, Jurgen. "What Does the PKK Want?" Spiegel Online International, October 24, 2007.
Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim
Comments