An Australian perspective on the global war on terror and the impact on MulticulturalAustralian society and Kurdistan.

On out television screens, and through our social media, we see the carnage of a nation embroiledin a seemingly inexplicable complicated civil war. Australians had formally partook in the globalwar on terror by deploying Australian military personnel to assist in the global effort in dealingwith the Islamic Jihad problem.

What has been recognised is the after the draw down of the coalition war machine another warraged from the Arab Spring insurrections that had spread throughout the Middle East. The presentSyrian civil war was the product of this Arab Spring and the Islamic State had emerged as theChampion of the Saddam Hussein’s legacy of declaring a mother of all battle, a interpretiveallusion for a global Jihad,1 as promised in the first Persian Gulf War in in 1991, a one hundredday war which ended with a proper thrashing of a Sunni warlord. Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi,2 the selfdeclared Caliph of the Islamic State, had inherited the vision of his predecessor, Abu Musabal-Zarqawi,3 for such a Sunni Caliphate, however, it was in truth, Saddam Hussein’s vision asinitially proposed in 1991 which seemed to have come true today. However, such a vision mayindeed only be considered ephemeral but more significantly would act, instead, as a catalyst foryet another paradoxical outcome for the Sunni Muslims. Whilst the Islamic State would realiseSaddam Hussein’s “Mother of all battles” narrative, by coercively establishing a Sunni Caliphate,in truth, however, as the twist of political fate will have it, the Islamic State presence, would createa conducive environment for helping forge a hastened transition towards a new independentKurdish state.

Australian involvement in redrawing of the Middle East map.

In Australia, by the end of August, 2016, the forty fifth federal parliament, was officially openedby his Excellency, Lt. General Cosgrove, the incumbent Australian Governor General, in hisspeech he reaffirms the Australian commitment to reconciling a constitutional anomaly with theindigenous people of Australia by formerly announcing a proposed referenda to formerlyrecognise the indigenous people of Australia in the Australian constitution. In the same speech,multiculturalism and the indigenous issues regarding the delicate race relationships within amodern, vibrant, well informed, and a tolerant Australian society was challenged with the formalrecognition attempts of the Australian indigenous people within the Federal AustralianConstitution, on the one hand, and, a proposal to amend the Racial Discrimination Act, 1975,with the amendments proposed for 18c of the Act, which deals with the definition of raciallymotivated hate speech infringing upon individuals and institutional freedoms of speech withinformal public Australian functions and institutions.

Meanwhile, a progressive social dynamic of multicultural Australian society has beencounteracted by political and cultural skirmishes within far away and exotic places, like Syria,which has been brought home, at our doorsteps, as part of a universal global war on terror

1 Hale Alexandra, Mother of all battles, 2003, http://www.halexandria.org/dward256.htm2 Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_al-Baghdadi3 Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi

narrative. An Australian society, like in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, the threat level ofasymmetrical global warfare, has been brought home, with domestic acts of terror.

After September 11, 2001, the war on terror, was a noble casus belli for America and its allies tolaunch a seemingly justifiable war against the perpetrators of an unprovoked act of terror againstAmerica and an attack against the free world. Australia would enjoin in this war most willingly.Little did many Australians know that some decade or so later more non-Australian Defence ForceAustralian citizens would be included in the war casualty statistics not only in officialconventional combat zones within the Middle East, but, would be radicalised as domesticterrorists within Australia. A new challenge to Australian multicultural society had emerged afterSeptember 11, 2001. A political legacy that would reveal a global political shift from a centrist andliberal realpolitical world view, to veering more right wing, reactionary and xenophobic world. Anincreasingly insecure society which has been justified with a global war on terror morphed notonly becoming a strategic mission creep in another pocket region in the world but a war nowbeing fought right at our neighbourhoods.

Australians joining the war zones in the Middle East: The Islamic State the politicalstrategic picture.

In 2013, after the draw down of formal military proceedings from Afghanistan and Iraq byAustralia’s commitment to the global war on terror seemed to concluded Australia’s decade longcommitment to the global war on terror.

In Brisbane, Australia, in 2013, a 27 year old Australian man, Ahmed Succarieh, (RaymondSuccarieh), an ex-Runcorn State High School student, in Logan City, South of Brisbane, wouldbecome Australia’s first suicide bomber in the Syrian civil war. Ahmed Succarieh (aka Abu Asmaal-Australi)4 drove a truck, ladened with high explosives, into a Syrian Army checkpoint killingthirty five people.

Raymond Succarieh (aka Abu Asma al-Australi) (School photo, google)

A year later, in September, 2014, his older brother, Omar Succarieh5, a Logan City Islamicbookstore owner, during a nationwide Australian counter terrorism law enforcement sting,involving the Australian Intelligence Community, the Australian Federal Police and State Police

4 Sales, Leigh, ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3889609.htm5 McKenna, K, Courier Mail, 2014,http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/crime-and-justice/war-on-terror-brisbane-terror-accused-omar-succarieh-denied-bail/news-story/3eb6c0cdd5deea86966957325144760b

joint operation, was arrested and charged under counter terrorism laws, with providing financialaid to the Al Qaeda linked terrorist organisation, Jabhat Al Nusra ( now known as Jabhat Fatehal-Sham).

Other notable Brisbane based arrested terror suspects, included Ahmed Succarieh’s older brother,Omar Succarieh, (Al Qaeda linked Jabhat al Nusra financier), Agim Kruezi (Logan City residentrecruited into the Jabhat Al Nusra recruit), and, over one hundred known Brisbane and Logan Citybased Actuals and Suspects.

Presently, in August, 2016, Ahmed Succarieh’s older brother, Omar Succarieh, remains remandedin the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, in Wacol, Brisbane, still awaiting his trial for terrorismlaw offenses. The Succarieh siblings are amongst a growing number of radicalised Australians stillbeing lured into the conflicts in the Middle East and some even more frightening for the Australiancommunity, having failed in their ambition to enjoin in the Middle Eastern Conflict, would resortto homegrown acts of terror. The asymmetrical nature of the global war on terror has brought whatseems to be a conventional foreign war right into our neighbourhoods and to our doorsteps.

The global war on terror at our own doorstep.

At the grass roots level, the present global war on terror has inculcated an unprecedented culturalconditioning beyond the scope of immediate significant and peer persons radicalisation of localcitizenry. More pervasive is the fluidity of access to information through the digital age.Radicalisation for a potential Islamic Jihadist terrorist is no longer limited to social gatherings inphysical known places like Mosques, Islamic schools, or even Islamic bookstores, but, the internetis more pervasively accessible to individual and more particularly to potentially radicalisedindividuals and individual groups.

Young people from ethnically disadvantaged groups, particularly, from the Islamic culturalbackgrounds, have traditionally become culturally isolated within most Western societies andAustralia is no exception. Typically, minority groups, with their culturally unique traditions,whether they are from a middle class, or working class, socio-economic backgrounds, if culturallyestranged, isolated and disenfranchised, may be susceptible to the social dysfunctionalism andoften will become your regular angry juvenile delinquent. Some become unemployed anddisaffected and would remain your typical disillusioned unemployed job seeker, within a WestSydney suburb, or, in Logan City, in Queensland.

What is more complicated, however, is the overarching ideological narrative which would threatenthe very fabric of a harmoniously multicultural Australian society, which is the indelible threat to aseemingly harmonious multicultural Australian society brought about by a particular cultural andethnic group of individuals bringing with them their particular baggage which only serves only tomarginalise these individuals, their peers, and their kin, even further, within an Australianmulticultural society. The ascent of the xenophobic societal attitude has found their raison de’ trewith the inadvertent assistance of the domestic radicalised Islamic Jihadist.

However, as in the case of Ahmed Succarieh and other Islamic radicalised homegrown terroristelements, was easily groomed into Jihadist radicalisation by his peers, and social networks.Subsequently, he would willingly sign up to enjoin a deadly adventure, or a misadventure, as thecase may be. The scenario seems unsophisticatedly simple, in so far as, understanding how anangry young man or a religious zealot may become radicalised to the utmost extreme that theywould be more than willing to forfeit their own lives for a cause they consider more importantthan themselves. A person placed in such a conducive environment for radicalisation will begroomed to become the worse case scenario for any national security risk assessment.

With the seemingly futile attempt at curtailing the cornered cat against the wall cultural isolationfor many Islamic Australians, the never shall twain shall meet cultural estrangement has beenassuaged with citizenry responsibility and community goodwill. Unfortunately, in the vexatiouscomplicated world we live in sometimes as Gore Vidal book entitled “Perpetual war, for Perpetualpeace”,6 the global war on terror a conflict to quell the global spread of the Islamic Jihad sinceSeptember 11, 2001, had morphed into an inter-generational mission creep.

Social mass media and mainstream media flaming the Jihadist narrative.

People engage each other on their laptops, recruitment for lone wolves are in individuals homesthey are accessed by the advanced digital age. The digital age technology and, in particular, theaccessibility to the social media networks, has changed the dynamics of conventionalengagements and conflicts.

What seems disturbing to the uninitiated laity is the media information overload streamingpictures of war atrocities on our television screens, and viewing the child victims with bloodstreaked smears, disorientated and disheveled. The immediate response of the unaffected is howcan man possibly inflict such an atrociously violent act against a child? Then, as we pan furtherout from the fragile scene of an innocent victim of war, we view the war torn rubble and realisethe location of the recent barrel bombing and find out the city’s name, Aleppo, a major IslamicState stronghold within in a place called the Rojava region, in Northern Syria. Still, the unawareviewer at first glance will not be able to see the connection between the child who has obviouslybeen caught out in the cross fire of a complicated civil war. Whilst the child is being attended to ata medical emergency triage station, the viewer will side with the journalist’s assessment of thesituation and insodoing would form a negative opinion of the Syrian government’s rules ofengagement against their Sunni enemies. For the part of the Syrian government the Shia backedgovernment forces is undoubtedly supported by a religious narrative which would elevate theconflict to religious fervour. The justifications for conflict for many combatants is sourced at somemyopic religious rite of passage which is Islamic sectarianism at its most violent expression. TheAlawite Shia backed Assad regime, has found a common ally with the enemy of my enemy makesme your friend, alliances with Russia, augmenting a traditional Shia ally with the most powerfulShia Islamic nation Iran, would ensure that the Shia Muslim would consider the present global waron terror not as a conflict against religious infidels, but a conflict waged against another Muslim

6 Vidal, G, 2002, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How we got to be so hated,https://www.amazon.com/Perpetual-War-Peace-How-Hated/dp/156025405X

sect. The Shia whilst accruing only around 30 per cent of the world’s Islamic followers, have,indeed, become a potent tour de force and a religious sect wedge within the Sunni dominatedworld.

The Global War on Terror mission creep.

From a military and politically strategic standpoint, the endgame for the present global war onterror did not end when the United States President, George W Bush, landing an aircraft on boarda US Aircraft Carrier, and he would triumphantly declare “Mission Accomplished”,7 in May 2003.Nor when President Obama’s Operation Geronimo Seal Team Six culling of the world’s mostwanted terrorist and with the eventual draw down of American and Coalition of the willing forcesfrom official military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, a released former detaineewithin the Bucca Camp,8 in 2004, (US military prison in South of Iraq), whom would declarehimself the Caliph of the Islamic State Caliphate, cumulatively would reaffirm the mission creepstrategy in endeavouring to transform the Middle East region and to change the Sykes-Picotcontrived Middle Eastern map.

With it comes the notion that the perpetual war for perpetual peace will indeed further demonisethe prevailing hegemonic forces, led no doubt by Russia and the United States of America, havingthe vicarious responsibility for allowing the present global war to continue. It may be analyticallyaccurate to surmise that the strategic designs at ending the global war of terror has morphed into aGeo-spatial strategic military and political mission creep. The strategic mission creep in the waragainst terror has bestowed a can of worms inheritance to the present and future military andpolitical leaders in what seems to be conundrum endless rabbit hole.

Meanwhile, at the conventional war fronts within Syria and the Levant region, Shia Islamicmilitary forces, both from Iran and the Kurdish and Shia backed Iraqi government forces at themoment making sure that the perpetual war of attrition against an overwhelmingly omnipresentSunni Islamic Jihad which has been spearheaded by the Islamic State, and by the dissenting RebelSunni forces and particularly by the Al Qaeda backed local militias, including the aforementionedJabhat Fateh al-Sham,9 in which, some of our local Brisbane Australian Jihadists have willinglytraveled afar to join in the bloodletting, and, in doing so, stoking the flames for a perpetual globalIslamic Jihad which, at present, still continues unabated.

The Middle East theatre, a continuation of Western and Russian proxy engagements.

Meanwhile, the participation by Western and Russian military forces in the region, has not onlyfulfilled a retribution against Sunni terrorism, through years of conflict against Sunni Jihadistsfrom Chechnya, but, the unlikely alliance of Russia, and the Shia Islamic world, with the ShiaSyrian Government forces and the Iranian government forces, Russia is able to continue with their

7 CNN, May 2, 2003, http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/05/01/bush.transcript/8 Parks, B, news.com.au, May, 31, 2015,http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/how-a-us-prison-camp-helped-create-isis/news-story/00f2cef93d3b00dd05354d68f4ef2e2e9 BBC, August, 1, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36924000

traditional proxy theatre of war against Western backed Sunni forces which are presently engagingthe Shia Syrian government regime of President Assad. The Russians have inadvertentlysupported a Shia led military force which has fought a war on two fronts the IS forces and the AlQaeda network as the Sunni religious foe, and to a lesser extent, the forces of the Peshmerga, orthe Kurds, on the other.

Overall, what appears to be adjunct Arab spring Sunni instigated rebellion led by an artificiallycontrived Rogue Fedayeen mercenary Army flying under a Sunni Islamic State black flag, wouldbecome a catalyst in hastening the path to Kurdish statehood. On the face of it all, the participationby the Russians and other externalised military elements with their bombing sorties have beenwelcomed by the Syrian government. Meanwhile, putting the proxy war aside for the Russiansversus the NATO forces, the willingness of the local political and military establishment of theforeign stabilisation elements has augmented their dwindling resources to continue their resistancethe able to use their military weapons and ordinances to ‘fire for effect’, against their vowedreligious and ethnic enemies.until, eventually, Syria, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has sufficientlybeen reduced to failed state status.

Within the Levant region triangle of conflicting forces: The Kurds, the Sunni, and the Shia.

The Kurds are engaging their regional enemies: Sunni Armies from both the rebel forces, predominately led by the Al Qaeda network with

their subsidiary affiliates; The Islamic State, led by the self proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi., The Turkish armies converging from the Anatolia region to the north of the Rojava region. As well as, and to a much lesser extent for the moment, with having to engage the Assad Shia

regime from the South West Syria.

August-September, 2016: Tactical military operations in the Levant: Turkish invasion of theRojava region, and the Shia and Kurdish liberation of Mosul.

Tactical approaches to local skirmishes have centred upon the Kurdish Syrian area of NorthernSyria, known as the Rojava region. Paradoxically, within the Rojava region, which is traditionallya Kurdish region, has instead become the declared Islamic State Caliphate, with the cities ofAleppo and Raqqah, presently, considered as the capital of the Islamic Caliphate 10

2016 Syrian Civil war: The fragmentation of political, military control and command.

10 Syrian War, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war

(Syrian Civil War 2016, Wikipedia)

Turkish military incursion into Syria (August-September 2016)11

Meanwhile, adding further to the confusion is the conflict between the Turkish Sunni Armypresently converging from the Anatolia region, Turkey, making an incursion into the EasternRojava region.12 It seems as though the with the spate of recent terrorist attacks in Turkey, theTurkish military have considered the Kurds and the Islamic State responsible for the spate ofterrorist attacks within Turkey. The overall military strategic designs of the operation no doubt isto nullify the battle effectiveness of the Kurdish terrorist cells emanating from the Rojava region,and to eliminate the Islamic State menace, also suspected of procuring terrorist cell incursionswithin Turkey, as surely as militarily possible. This military operation engagement is presentlyunfolding in September, 2016.

Meanwhile, at the same time, to the East of the Rojava region, within Iraqi Kurdistan, the IslamicState forces, presently garrisoned in Mosul, are about to be overwhelmed by the Iraqi Army, thePeshmerga Kurdish forces, and the Popular Movement Front (PMF), made up predominately ofShia Muslims fighters, and Al-Malaki loyal Sunni tribes from nearby Baghdad. The resistance stillremains stoic.

11 Associated Press, Foxnews.com,http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/08/27/kurdish-led-syrian-forces-report-turkish-air-raids-on-bases.html12 Rojava conflict, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava_conflict

The Kurds reclamation of the Kurdish Syria, the Rojava Region, from the Sunni Islamic State, theSyrian Rebels, and the Syrian Government forces (Red dots within Rojava Region), led byKurdish military groups within the Peshmerga, YPG, and the PKK, with Aerial support frommainly the US Airforce.

(Rojava, Wikipedia)

The Independent nation State of Kurdistan: The Sykes-Picot Agreement: The endgame forThe Islamic State.13

Whilst the present skirmishes are presently unfolding within the Rojava region within KurdishSyria and within Iraqi Kurdistan, and in ineluctable wake of the demise of the Islamic State, theAssad regime will almost certainly be replaced. However, what seems to be the successfuloutcome to come out of the Islamic State’s paroxymic influence within the Levant, is not in thecreation of a Sunni Caliphate to replace the Sykes-Picot agreement from 1916-18, but, in thecreation of an official Kurdish Nation State presently within the Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan region.In many respects, this will proffer and strategically palatable resolution to the present crisis withinthe Middle East region. From the political and war torn chaos, what seems to be a most likelyoutcome from the seemingly delusional Islamic Caliphate would not be a return to the Sykes-PicotMiddle Eastern Map of the Levant region but a hastened transition for the creation of a new nationthat is will proffer a Geo-political and sectarian cosmopolitan independent nation state ofKurdistan. Paradoxically, Islamic Caliphate, which was initially envisioned by Abu Musab

13 History.com staff, 2009,http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/britain-and-france-conclude-sykes-picot-agreement

Al-Zarqawi, and, realised by the self declared Islamic State Caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi, wouldbequeathed instead not an Islamic State, for such an artificially contrived Sunni Islamic State cannot evolve in a vacuum, through a sudden coercive event such as the Sunni Islamic State beingcreated without the intrinsic cultural superstructures already entrenched within the local polity.Local political and cultural and tribal infrastructures, which is traditionally Kurdish and most arenot Sunni Islamic in origin, have to be culturally transmitted from one generation to the next, it isabsent in the present IS Caliphate. In the absence of such superstructural institutions and culturalelements the vision of a Sunni Caliphate within a Kurdish dominated region is simply delusional.

Instead, what has always been the regional and social-political cultural superstructure of the regionthat being the Kurdish people, and their culture, notwithstanding, their respective peculiar culturalpractices the coercive influence of Jihadist aggression, albeit, Shia, or Sunni, will eventuallydissipate as the prevailing cultural elements of the indigenous cultures with the overwhelmingsuperstructures embedded will prevail.

Perhaps, understandably so, then, the crux of the present crisis may be sourced at the post GreatWar Sykes-Picot agreement, then drafted, and ratified, by the victorious European Allied powers,carving up the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves.

What seems significantly noticeable from the carve up of the Ottoman Empire was the absence ofa Kurdish Sovereign State. Such a fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, since 1916, has sown theseeds of disenfranchisement for a very significantly unique ethnic culture of people.Understandably, then, with the unlikely outcome of the Islamic State artificially contrived regionalparoxysm, will eventually lead to the creation of an independent Nation State status for theKurdish people. A historical anomaly will be rectified with the formal recognised existence of aunique ethnic culture whose overall ethnic population of around thirty million which undoubtedlyrepresents a significant ethnic cultural representation within the Levant and Asia Minor region.

Sykes-Picot division of the Ottoman Empire within the Levant creating the modern day MiddleEastern nation states. (1916-19)

Illustratively, the Kurdish region whilst it had been absorbed within the Ottoman Empire wouldcontinue to be absorbed and partitioned into four Nations within Asia Minor. With an absence of aKurdish nation in the twentieth century seemed to have defied the cultural superstructural14 localknowledge of hundreds of generations of Kurdish cultural existence and a geographicalconnection and affinity within these particular part of the Asia Minor region. To visually realisethe Geo-spatial expanse of the Kurdish cultural superstructural sphere of influence would,therefore, reduce the present territorial map for four Middle Eastern and Asia Minor nations;Turkey, (the South East Anatolia region of Turkey); Syria, (Rojava region), as West of Kurdistan;Northern Iraq, as Southern Kurdistan; and, West Iran, ( Rojhilat, or within the Kermanshah region),as East Kurdistan.

(Google)

Ideally, a new Kurdish nation illustratively will encompass a significant geo-spatial and politicalarea of four Asia Minor nation states, effectively shrinking each of their geographical territorialboundaries quite significantly. Indeed, in terms of practical nation building considerations such anation will present a daunting international political overreach. For the present moment, in thewake of the Islamic State ephemeral presence, realistically, such an immediate Nation state forgedout of four separate geographical and Sovereign National Borders, would be considered as apolitical and logistical ambitious delusion, even for the most ardent megalomaniac Caliph toconceive in such a momentary notice.

Realistically, however, the present transitory government of the Iraqi Kurdish RegionalGovernment has in place the cultural superstructural, and infrastructural institutions, alreadyestablished that would make such an eventual transition politically manageable and smooth.Moreover, an eventual Independent sovereign nation status for the Kurdish people and theirpolitical representation under its own President. President Barzani being the current incumbentIraqi Kurdistan President may easily assume the mantle as a head of state.

Another considered question is the Iraqi Kurdistan eventually becoming an Independent nationperhaps as a lesson from the systemic failures from the Syrian regime in Raqqah and Aleppo, the

14 Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure

eventual inclusion of the Rojava region within a new Kurdistan State may curtail the seeminglyunstable Rojava region and the susceptibility to being overwhelmed so easily to prevailing foreignforces. With the inclusion of the Rojava region from Northern Syria into an Independent KurdishState, an international resolution for appeasing the regional unrest may finally be attained.

With a Kurdish Nation state a Geo-political and territorial Buffer State will provide a physical andreligious and political barrier that would help create a safety zone from conflicting sectarianconflicting factions within the affected region. In a practical sense such a buffer zone for allintents and purposes presents the most acceptable reconciliation for a region that has beenhistorically oppressed by the overwhelming forces of the Shia and Sunni sectarian, ethnic, andtribal oppression and conflicts.

Kurdish ethnic and religious minorities. The Yezidis from Sinjar.

At present, the world can not accept a Sunni theocratic Islamic State Caliphate regime maintainingits outrageous occupation of a region which has historically been considered as the purviewcultural influence of a disenfranchised ethnic population overlapping four nations. With thishistorical malaise a perpetual source of tension and instability has ensued in the last century sincethe demise of the Ottoman Empire within the region since the Sykes-Picot agreement. No doubt,this history of Kurdish oppression would predate the Sykes-Picot agreement for the oppressedKurds even during the reign of the Ottoman Sultanate rulers, the Kurds were oppressed. Needlessto say, the historical acts of ethnic oppression and even before the invention of the term in modernday coinage, ethnic cleansing committed against the religious minority like the Yezidis, by theregional Muslims, was well known and documented well before the Islamic State was everconceived.

The raditional Yezidi Kurdish region.

The most recent attempt to ethnically cleanse the Yezidis by the Muslims, and the usual suspectswere the Sunni and other occasions the Shia would enjoin in the attempting to cull the purportedDevil Worshipers. As part of the Yezidi syncretic religion, which seem to include pre-Islamicreligious rites and icons culminating with a worship of seven Angels in which one in particular,the Peacock Angel, Melek Taus, is considered by Islamics and Christians alike comparatively

similar to Lucifer, or Jin (Koran) as the fallen Angel. Melek Taus, is especially revered by theYezidi. Unfortunately for the Yezidi race their revered Peacock Angel would become perhaps thesingle source for their grief and persecution even to this day.

In the latest attempt to ethnically cleanse the Yezidis, was as recent as the August, 2014, Sinjarmassacre. On August 3rd, 2014 around five thousand Yezidi men were executed by the IslamicState. Their women and children along with the rest of the fifty thousand or so Yezidi who hadsurvived the culling fled to the mountains. The ISIS forces simply prevented the Yezidi fromreturning to their homes starving them in the process. Food drops from the US Airforce and byIraqi Army saved many from certain starvation.

Military Operation movements into Mosul September 2016. The path towards Erbil.

The inevitable demise of the Islamic State seems obvious. Mosul, will eventually, be liberated andin the eyes of many Kurds, the menacing scourge of the Sunni Salafist invaders will, eventually,retreat. Presently, the Kurds have found an ally in the Shia, if only, for all intents and purposes torid the enemy of my enemy makes me your friend, makes the Shia the perfect bedfellow for theKurds in this present crisis.

Meanwhile, at the head of this eventual liberation of the Iraqi Kurdish region is the Peshmergaforces, a military force made up almost entirely of local Iraqi Kurds. The Peshmerga, more thanany of the participant forces, the Popular Movement Front (PMF) included, would be very eagerto not only expel the Islamic State, but, insodoing, and, more importantly, in the wake of theexpulsion of the Islamic State, the Peshmerga, will turn their attention to the political ramificationsof their expected victory by consolidating their expectant gains by paving the obvious road map,not to Baghdad, but, to Erbil. As the Kurdish Regional Government capital, Erbil, will,undoubtedly, be the converging hub through which all Kurdish international diplomatic decisionmaking are to be made and not in Baghdad.

The greater Kurdish nation: Kurdish nationalism overreach.

By enumerating the proximate regional Kurds within the four Asia Minor nations of Turkey, Iran,Syria and Iraq, cumulatively speaking, the Kurdish population would aggregatively number wellabove twenty eight million Kurds. Certainly, collectively speaking, this Kurdish population wouldform a significantly powerful nation in their own right. However, in conceiving such an ambitiousvision of uniting the Greater Kurdish collective into forming a single union and a singlecentralised government with a federation system would nearly be impossible due to the history ofseparate development. Perhaps, a conceivable Confederation of Kurdish states could be apossibility in a distant future. For the moment, a Greater Kurdish United Nation of sorts would beconsidered as strategic nationalism overreach. Meanwhile, for the immediate future at least, theKurdish self determination impetus must be advanced from Erbil.

(Iraqi Kurdistan,google)

A catchcry emanating from Erbil for declaring Kurdish independent nationhood status

Whilst comparatively speaking as President Barzani from the Iraqi Kurdistan may accurately pointout that the estimated strength of the Islamic State fighters are close to two hundred thousandstrong, the Kurdish population of twenty eight million or so from the four nations would easilyoverwhelm any ephemeral presence of IS occupiers of Kurdish territory. The problem, then being,is uniting the seemingly disparate and self serving interests of the myriad of Kurdish tribal andgeographically unique areas of the greater Kurdish region.

(Syrian Kurdish region (in yellow), within the Rojava region)

A formal attempt at establishing a United Kurdish Nation from the four Kurdish regions within thefour separate nations, into a unitary Kurdish soveriegn state may be considered a politicalimpossibility, at least, for the immediate future post IS.

A more realistic Kurdish nation, may, instead, be forged between a confederated union betweeonthe Iraqi Kurdistan region, and the Syrian Kurdish region of Rojava, within Northern Syria, whichmay be considered less ludicrously impossible to envisage.

In conclusion

As the current Islamic Jihadist narrative continues to blur the secularist political resolution to thecurrent Middle Eastern malaise, and likened to most Levant political matters, there seems to be anabsence of a tangible, substantive political solutions to the current cultural impasse. The politicalimpasse is beyond restorative justice resolution and instead a revision of former political decisionsmade a century ago must be revisited and astute political minds, and dare I suggest it, a secularistsolution will proffer a more sound resolution to the Middle Eastern political malaise.

Tim Tufuga

1st September, 2016