Opinion Sur
From a historical point of view, the conflagration of Middle East (Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iran, among other participants) does not offer an analogy with other periods and it is not a paragon. It is something worse. Categorically, I would say it is a continuation.
It is the summer of 1943, in southern Italy. “E la Guerra, ¿continua? (And the War, does it continue?)” An oddly dressed-up sailor asks a peasant on the shores of Sicily. He was up on the conning tower of an old submarine that had emerged from the depth of the Messina Straits. The peasant looks at him in astonishment and replies: “Si, la Guerra continua (Yes, the War continues).” – “Ah, maledetto Káiser! (Oh, goddam Kaiser!)” The commander shouts in frustration and the vessel re-submerge again.
This is one of many jokes that circulate about the Italian Navy. Here the funniness lies in the confusion between the First and Second World Wars. The submarine emerges in the middle of the Second War but belongs to the First one. She has been hiding since 1918.
When I review the current situation of the Middle East the joke is not funny anymore. In these days a baroque coalition orchestrated by the United States has besieged the city of Mosul, in Iraq, which has been under the dominance of the so-called Daesh “caliphate” (Islamic State) [1]. The siege will be long, the fight ferocious. The Iraqi army, helped by special US forces in their rearguard, aims at displacing the Islamic activists and eventually occupying the city. The siege coalition is formed by Kurd shock troops and Shiite militias trained by Iran. As Mosul population is mainly Sunni, there is a well-founded fear of possible retaliations and revenge by Shiite militias. In this intermingling of crossed interests and occasional alliances, the US places itself once more in a strategic impasse, which has been the constant of its intervention in the Middle East. On the one hand, they coordinate the attack and, on the other, they try to mediate among the components of its own coalition. In reference to the classic war legends, Mosul siege evokes the siege of Troy narrated by Homer, where the Greek coalition is permanently threatened by internal disputes. In the case of Mosul, other references are worth citing. Daesh warriors not only offer a fierce resistance, but also employ the tactic of “scorched-earth” to deny the future conquerors the fruits of their victory. Here we are reminded of the Russian strategy against Napoleon’s invasion [2]. Meanwhile, the civil population that has suffered the harsh Islamic imposition of the caliphate, is now been used as human shield and is trapped in a cross fire. As in Aleppo, also in Mosul, the civil population is literally cannon fodder.
On top of that, Turkey has decided to intervene in the conflict, though no one requested its intervention. Turkey has two main objectives: one is to hold back the initiative of Kurdish soldiers, as the Kurdistan nation wants to install its own state in an area occupied today by Iraq, Iran, and Turkey [3]. Under the pretext of attacking the caliphate, Turks want to attack Kurds. The second Turkish objective is to limit the growing regional influence of Iran and its influence in Baghdad.
What is most striking is the justification offered by the Turkish president (who does not deny his aspirations of being a new sultan). Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already settled Turkish troops at Bashiqa base in northern Iraq, and now insists on participating in Mosul battle. Thus, Turkey intends to turn into the defender of Turkemos and the Sunnite Arabs that live in and around Mosul. Let us remember here that Turkey is still a full NATO member, which complicates even more the geopolitical chess board. The Turkish president is flirting with Russia and China—something weird for a NATO member—and, in this way, he helps to internationalize the situation even more.
In his rise to personal dictatorship, president Erdogan invokes the “historical injustice” of the First World War, when triumphant allies divided the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and artificially created the presently troubled countries of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. The memory of the Great War is very vivid in these countries because WWI reconfigured the Middle Eastern map with the remains of the Ottoman Empire, once an ally of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, whom Great Britain and France had defeated. These powers signed controversial agreements upon which new independent states were founded. The project of a great, united Arab state, governed by Faisal, son of La Mecca’s Sheriff, promptly cracked under the schemes of London and Paris governments. The Sykes-Picot agreements of 1916 were very controversial, as the colonial ambitions of France and the UK frequently clashed. Mark Sykes proposed splitting the territory between Great Britain and France with a line in the sand that ran from the Mediterranean city of Saint John of Acre up to Kirkuk in Mesopotamia. In the international Versailles conference of 1919 and then the Geneva one, the English mandate received backing regarding what now is Iraq and Jordan and the French mandate received support about Syria and Lebanon. Georges Picot decoupled Lebanon’s territory from Syria, to which Palestine was united in the beginning.
Aleppo and Mosul share the same history and culture. Mostly Sunnite, both cities were part of the Zngid state in the XII century [4]. They split after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, when Western powers divided the spoils of the First World War. The French wanted Mosul to be part of Syria but the English objected and Mosul ended up as part of Iraq. Over time, both cities turned rebellious, in one case against the fierce dictatorship of the Alawite minority in Syria and in the other case more recently against the Shiite oppression entrenched in Bagdad.
I quote Erdogan: “We have never voluntarily accepted the frontiers that were imposed on our country.” Nothing would please him more than being able to redraw those frontiers.
In this way and once again the US try to build a compromise between warring factions of their own coalition: Turks, Kurds, Sunnites, Shiites, Iraqis and Iranians. But they are in a tight corner, or as the Argentine country saying states: they are as confused as “a dog caught in a game of bocce [5].”
Let us now think of the Middle East as today’s equivalent of the Balkan states in 1914 (countries which Churchill said that they “produce more history than they can consume”) and of the frontiers established by the Western powers in 1918 as contested once again. The conclusion is obvious: in this region the First World War has not ended. After a long strategic sabbatical, it is exploding again today, though with different nuances, accents, and actors. If Sarajevo was the spark that ignited such conflagration, today a whole region of the planet= sparks and burns—as in those days, with huge and unsuspected possible consequences. We could go further: First, Second, and Third: wouldn’t they be just a long, bloody single war?
In the meantime, in this war that is spreading out like wildfire many children are dying: In Aleppo, in Mosul, or drowned at sea. In Aleppo, Russians and Alawites bomb schools. In Mosul, kids are trapped in a cross-fire between the savagery of Daesh and the guns of the great army that surrounds the city. If and when they “liberate” it, they will start fighting each other. But a wounded or dead child in Aleppo is equal to another killed or wounded child in Mosul, or another one drown at sea. Today, an entire childhood lives in terror. Their small wrecked bodies weigh tons in the conscience of the world. It is not a time to remain silent. Mercedes Sosa knew it when she wrote the song Los niños de nuestro olvido (The children of our oblivion):
“Si las flores del futuro If the flowers in the future
Crecen con tanto dolor, Grow with so much pain,
Seguramente mañana Certainly tomorrow
Será un mañana sin sol.” Will be a tomorrow without sun.
[1]. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known in some occasions as the Islamic State or as Daesh, is an insurgent terrorist group of wahhabi jihadist character formed by loyal militants of Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi who in June 2014 auto-proclaimed the caliphate from the Iraqi city of Mosul demanding loyalty from every Muslim in the world.
[2] . Without going into further detail, remember General Manuel Belgrano’s tactics in the Argentine war of independence, with the strategic retreat called Jujeño exodus, where the population of Jujuy and Salta provinces was forced to withdraw to Tucuman, sweeping away everything that could serve the Spanish Realist Army to continue on its path.
[3] . “About 6 million Kurds, a distinctive ethnic group with its own language and culture, different from Arab, Persian, and Turkish populations that prevail in that zone, inhabit an autonomous area of 40,000 square kilometers in the northern part of the country. They represent 15% of the Iraqi population and most of them are Sunnite Muslims, but they tend to adopt a less conservative interpretation in terms of preserving faith, which brought upon them the rejection of extremist Muslim groups.” Encyclopedia’s reference.
[4] . To read an expert opinion on this subject please see: http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/erases-border-hizbullah.html
[5] . T. N.: Literally it means “Like a dog in a bocce court,” meaning confused, lost.
