Will the US sell out the Kurds too?

Yusuf Karatas

The Erdogan government and its spokespersons in the media are trying to turn every development in the region into a new basis for attacking the Kurds. After the US imperialism withdrew from Afghanistan and left the country to the Taliban, they’re now waving their fingers to the Kurds, "The USA will sell you too, then we will settle accounts!".

The article by Nedim Şener, who joined the caravan of supporters after he was arrested and released from Ergenekon, realizing the miracles of the Erdoğan government(!), published in his column in Hürriyet the previous day, based on the reactionary-chauvinist approaches that explain all kinds of national-democratic rights and struggles of the Kurds with the "trickster of imperialism".

Şener, in his article titled "We will see the days when America uses and discards the KCK/PKK/YPG", regarding the withdrawal of the USA from Afghanistan, "This attitude of America should be a lesson to the organizations that subcontract it, to everyone. Especially to the terrorist organization KCK/PKK/YPG, which is trying to survive in Syria with the support of the United States, and its political partners and collaborators in Turkey.” This article says, “This is America; He makes up his mind, and when he's done, he leaves, and the traitors pay the price of their betrayals," he concludes by waving his finger at the Kurds.

Of course; When the government, whose spokesman Nedim Şener, plays the "regional subcontracting role" of US imperialism and sets fire to neighboring countries with jihadist gangs, it is not called "treason", but when the Kurds try to defend their own living space in the middle of this fire, it is called "treason"!

Who betrayed who and how? Before moving on to what those who defend the interests of the so-called Turkish people, such as Şener, it is necessary to make a few short reminders.

Şener also knows very well that the AKP was established and supported 20 years ago when US imperialism brought up the strategy of designing the Middle East through "moderate Islam" (Islamist forces compatible with the imperialist-capitalist system). However, the relations of the ruling classes with the US imperialism in Turkey go back much further. Marshall aid (1948) started the process of making Turkey economically and militarily dependent on US imperialism, and Turkey's entry into NATO in 1952 was a turning point in terms of dependency relations that have lasted until today.

Is it anti-imperialism, or is it anti-Kurdish hostility disguised under anti-US sentiment, while the ruling classes and their governments in their own country have been failing in their service to the USA and western imperialists for 70 years, and trying to teach the Kurds a lesson through cooperation with the USA?

Of course, much can be said about the dilemmas created by the cooperation with the USA in Syria for the Kurds and the threats it creates for the peoples of the region. However, if the reasons creating this situation are not determined correctly, there can be no real struggle to change this situation (end of imperialist interventions).

The AKP-Erdogan government, after hosting the central command of NATO's intervention in Libya (Izmir), also took the lead in the intervention in Syria. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria meant for the US imperialism to isolate the Lebanese Hezbollah, which was seen as a threat to Israel's security, and, more importantly, to besiege Iran and prevent rival imperialists (Russia and China) from entering the region. The Erdogan government was pursuing expansionist ambitions and dreaming of neo-Ottomanist dreams, accompanied by the discourse of performing Friday prayers at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, with this intervention, which was unleashed with the support and encouragement of US imperialism.

However, this intervention had unintended consequences. As the Assad administration could not be overthrown, ISIS came to the fore, threatening the interests of US imperialism in the region (especially Iraq) (energy resources and transit routes). On the other hand, the fact that the Kurds seized power in northern Syria (Rojava) and formed an autonomous administration spoiled the plans of the Erdogan government, which did not hesitate to apply all kinds of pressure policies to condemn the Kurds to lack of status within the country. The Erdogan government's continued cooperation with the jihadist gangs against the Assad administration and the Kurds paved the way for it to increasingly confront the United States and for Russia to step in and use these contradictions.

The next is known. In order to maintain its position in the region, the United States has implemented a policy called the 'anti-ISIS strategy'. On the basis of this policy, he turned to a policy of cooperation with the Kurds, which he had not dealt with and invited to any international meeting on Syria.

On the other hand, as people like Şener claim, neither the USA nor the Kurds have a goal of establishing a "Kurdish state" in northern Syria. The Kurds are no stranger to the US 'selling' them either. On the one hand, the United States was at the forefront of the forces opposing the "independence referendum" organized by the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government in September 2017, with which it has much older relations than with the Syrian Kurds. Again in October 2019, it was the same USA that withdrew its military forces from the border and gave way to the Erdoğan government's operation against Rojava. Because, as Şener said in his article, referring to the US politician Kissinger, “America has no permanent friends or enemies; they only have interests.”

It should be recalled that Öcalan, who was under severe isolation conditions, also called on the Syrian Kurds to defend a solution within Syria's territorial integrity in the last meetings held with him, and on this basis, the Syrian Kurds are conducting negotiations with the Syrian administration, although they are interrupted from time to time.

So, why is US imperialism collaborating with the Kurds?

Of course, in order to prevent or at least delay a solution desired by Russia, which enabled the Assad administration to regain control of the Assad administration in Syria. In other words, it is using its cooperation with the Kurds to deepen the instability in Syria and to protect its own regional interests against rival imperialists.

Doesn't this situation lead to stalemates in terms of Kurds being a part of a democratic solution in Syria and living in peace with their regional rights?

It definitely opens.

But in this case, what should the powers that say they oppose US imperialism's destabilization of the region should do?

Is it to attack all kinds of demands for democratic rights and status that drag the Kurds further into this deadlock, or to take steps towards a common struggle by advocating policies that will enable the peoples to build a democratic and peaceful future together against imperialism and regional reaction?

Şener talks about accusing the Syrian Kurds of "treason" and making them pay the price.

Who and how did the Syrian Kurds betray today?

Did they betray because they were fighting against ISIS barbarism, the Syrian counterpart of the Taliban in their own lands?

Did they betray because they refused to subcontract the Erdogan government's policy of overthrowing the Syrian government together with the jihadist gangs?

Did they betray because they defended the common life of different nationalities and beliefs on a democratic-secular basis in the lands held by the autonomous administration?

Did they betray because they said, "We are not a threat to Turkey, we are open to any talks on border security"?

Yes, there is a betrayal, and that is nothing but the collaborative ruling classes, which Şener pretends to be a spokesperson, turning peoples into enemies in order to get a share of imperialist exploitation and plunder.

Because today, if the imperialists can use the contradictions in the region for their own interests; If it can use the expectations of the peoples for its own reactionary purposes when appropriate and 'sell' them when appropriate, this is the most important reason for this policy.

Therefore, the issue is not the betrayal or threatening of the Syrian Kurds. On the contrary, it is the fear of the ruling classes of Turkey, whom Şener has acted as spokesperson, that a democratic status to be achieved there will lead the Kurds in the country to become equal citizens and have a say in the administration of the lands they live in!

This policy has nothing to gain for the Turkish people. On the contrary, this policy is turned into the basis of putting into practice policies of repression against all kinds of democratic rights and actions, and of the collaborative ruling classes, through nationalist-chauvinistic provocations, by presenting their own interests as the interests of the Turkish people and ensuring the continuation of this order of oppression and exploitation. For this reason, they do not hesitate to resort to provocations to turn the Turkish and Kurdish peoples into enemies at every opportunity.

The essence of the word is this: Şener and his likes, who try to teach the Kurds that "the USA will sell them", are hostile to the Kurds under the name of "anti-imperialism" and "patriotism"; It serves the continuation of this order of exploitation and plunder by imperialists and collaborative bourgeois reaction.

Today, real patriotism and anti-imperialism is going through the “struggle for independence of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples” against the imperialists and local collaborators, as Deniz Gezmiş shouted from the gallows. This is the way for the peoples of Turkey to establish a democratic future and live in peace with the peoples of the region!