Transcript 0:00 [intro music] Welcome to Trendlines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. My name is Peter Durrie. 0:13 Denise Natalie of the National Defense University joins me later to discuss the politics of the Kurdish minority in Syria's civil war. 0:21 But first, I'm joined as always by Judah Grunstein of World Politics Review for this week's briefing on world affairs. So Judah, what was going on this week? 0:31 One of the things that we covered w- was Argentina, uh, in a country report by Mark Rogers, 0:38 and if you'll recall, in Argentina, Mauricio Macri took office in December after a surprise victory over the six, the heir apparent to previous President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. 0:56 And it was not only a surprise victory, but in, since his election and since taking office, Macri has generated a lot of enthusiasm, particularly among foreign observers. 1:08 Uh, he's a, he's a center-right, market-friendly, very wealthy businessman turned politician in a country prone to state management and intervention in the economy, and a previous government that had been aligned with the South American left, uh, in particular Hugo Chávez. 1:28 And, and Macri campaigned and took office promising to bring Argentina in from the cold, particularly with regard to resolving the last vestiges of the, uh, the 2001, 2002 monetary and debt crisis in terms of, uh, holdover, uh, holdover creditors from defaulted sovereign debt. 1:50 A- and the, the, the idea was to do this in order to attract foreign investment to Argentina. Uh, he also wanted to address, uh, several pr- very prickly foreign policy positions of the previous government. 2:05 Uh, in particular, he has downplayed the Falkland Islands dispute with Great Britain and has upgraded ties with the US, and that culminated with the visit by President Barack Obama in March. 2:19 Now, i- in the report, Mark looks, Mark looks at some of the factors that led to Macri's surprise victory in the presidential election, but also at the significant challenges that he faces in terms of implementing his, his more prag- pragmatic vision, particularly in, in terms of righting the economy. 2:37 Um, and, and, and this in a country that, as Mark underlines, remains very divided, uh, and, and the problem is that many of the reforms that Macri is implementing involve significant short-term pain in the fur- in the form of job losses and price increases as state intervention and subsidies are, are rolled back and, and market forces begin to operate. 3:01 So a- as Mark explains, the real question is whether the changes that Macri is implementing will bring the positive results that are intended fast enough to avoid, to avoid the potential for social strife and discontent, which is already beginning to manifest in, in, in the form of protests and strikes. 3:20 Yeah, so this Argentina story is really interesting because there is actually, uh, another article on World Politics Review, uh, that covered also an issue with sovereign debt, uh, but over in Mozambique. 3:31 Yes, a global insider interview on a, a recently discovered hidden debt that's, uh, proving very problematic, uh, for the government there. Yeah. 3:42 It, it's a very good interview with Fernanda Massarongo Chivulele, and, uh, she looks at this recent scandal in which, uh, the Wall Street Journal revealed in April that Mozambique had about 1.4 billion US dollars in undisclosed loans, um, bringing its, uh, real debt burden to 76% of GDP, which is massive, which is, uh, even beyond the debt burden, um, that Mozambique had when it took part in, uh, the, uh, debt forgiveness, debt forgiveness program of the IMF in the mid-2000s. 4:17 And this is in addition to other loans which were above board, which were official, um, but, uh, which have been de- diverted to military spending inste- in- instead of, uh, in- instead of spending on economic reform and economic development. 4:33 And now the, the debt repayment, uh, obligations fa- face a huge shortfall because, uh, Mozambique was borrowing this money, uh, with a, with an eye on, uh, uh, natural gas windfalls. 4:45 Uh, there have been huge discoveries in, in the 2000s, uh, of, uh, natural gas, gas offshore of Mozambique, but the, um, economy super cycle and the downturn and the low natural gas prices have really, uh, shaken up this, uh, this plan of the government to take on a lot of, a lot of debt and to repay it, uh, uh, now with, uh, with the, uh, natural gas rents. 5:09 So, um, they are already looking at austerity measures, and of course, for a country like Mozambique, which is already one of the poorest, um, government spending is, is a really important factor in the, uh, national economy, so this, this doesn't bode well for, uh, Mozambique businesses. 5:26 And, uh, just to make one, one last point here, I think Fernanda, uh, makes some really good points about the likely long-term economic fallout, but I, I think the most interesting part of the interview for me was her description how the government reacted to the revelations. 5:41 In- instead of exploring how this could have happened and who was responsible, um, the, uh, government, uh, the ruling party voted down a proposal to investigate the scandal in parliament, and instead of explaining, um, what has happened to, uh, the Mozambican public, uh, the prime minister and finance minister first thing traveled to Washington to thor-- sort out things with the IMF. 6:04 Yes, a- another story, uh, combining these two threads of the collapse in commodities prices and corruption, and, uh, in a country that continues, uh, even many years after the end of its civil war to have a very fragile status quo between the FRELIMO ruling party and the opposition RENAMO, which in the, in the past few years has Uh, uh, threatened to take up arms, and there have been skirmishes and, and, and deaths, uh, political violence, uh, between the two sides. 6:41 So, uh, again, a, a country where this kind of instability is, is... can be very volatile and dangerous. 6:49 As you pointed out, this, the, this story on WPR was in the form of an interview, and that's, uh, one of the formats that we run. 6:58 It's called Global Insider, and we generally pick stories that are important but that are a little quiet or off the radar or are taking place in countries, uh, that are not necessarily in the center of attention for, uh, for the media, and so they often don't get the attention they deserve. 7:18 And, and this format of, of the basically a short, three-question interview with an expert on the topic is a great way to get some information, dense insights on those stories and developments. 7:31 And this week, we, we actually ran two others, one on a, a $1.6 billion defense deal between Singapore and Australia, and another on a $7 billion investment package that Japan unveiled for the Southeast Asian countries of the lower Mekong River region. 7:49 So again, stories that actually have quite a bit of significance locally and regionally, but that just for whatever reason don't get a lot of, uh, media attention, and, and we like to cover them just to make sure that we're rounding out our coverage and offering readers, uh, some insights into things that they wouldn't necessarily find elsewhere. 8:08 Yes, a, a very interesting series. 8:09 And another story you had which takes a look at a more, uh, at, at an issue that hasn't received broad coverage in, in the mainstream media, uh, you had a very interesting article about Kazakhstan. 8:21 Yes, a, a briefing by Casey Michel, uh, on protests over a proposed land reform in Kazakhstan. The protests are 8:31 really pretty unprecedented in a country that's known for its authoritarian rule and a cult of personality surrounding President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is the only president the country has had since its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 8:47 And although the reforms focused on land leasing regulations and extended the, the timeframe, the allowable timeframe from 10 years to 25 years, the reforms raised popular fears of foreign land ownership, in other words, land sales, and particularly, uh, sales to Chinese investors who have been historically viewed with distrust in Kazakhstan, uh, in, in part for land grabs and land purchases, uh, in, in the region over the course of the last 15 years. 9:18 Uh, now, uh, uh, uh, the, the government initially responded to the protests with, with a crackdown, uh, and then in, in another unprecedented move, actually put the reform on hold, so responded to the protests. 9:31 Now, now as p- as Casey points out, although the protests focused on the land reform, the underlying grievances that are driving popular discontent have to do with the effects, once again, of the collapse of global commodities prices, which have hit Kazakhstan very hard, uh, as a commodities-based economy, with the currency having lost value, inflation rising, and the country facing the potential for a recession for the first time since 1998. 10:01 So the protests represent, in some ways, the tip of the iceberg in terms of popular, uh, popular grievances and, and growing discontent. 10:10 And as we know and as we've talked about, uh, previously on the podcast, in this kind of authoritarian society, that can have very volatile consequences. Yeah, very interesting stuff again this week. 10:21 Uh, thank you very much, Judah. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. [Instrumental music] Kurdish autonomy and self-determination is a longstanding issue not only in Syria but also in neighboring Turkey and Iraq. 10:35 The Syrian civil war has introduced a new dynamic into the politics of the Kurdish question. Joining us now is Denise Natali of the N- National Defense University to take a closer look at the situation of Syria's Kurds. 10:52 I'm Denise Natali. 10:53 I'm a distinguished research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, and I focus on the Middle East and the transborder Kurdish issue and regional energy politics. 11:05 The Kurds constitute about 30 million people, uh, across four geographically contiguous states of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, smaller parts in the former Soviet Union. 11:20 Uh, these four different groups, since the state formation period in the 1920s, have had different struggles 11:28 for different forms of autonomy from their central governments, uh, some asking for independence, some asking for lesser autonomy, over the last 90 years or so. 11:41 What you're seeing now, particularly since the Syrian civil war, the overthrow of Saddam in Iraq, and two failed states, is that Kurdish groups are taking advantage and opportunity of weak central governments, ungoverned spaces, democratization movements across the world to ask for, seek greater autonomy and rights. 12:06 You'll see it in Turkey, Iraq, and again now in Syria. 12:09 [Instrumental music] Kurdish political leaders here in Turkish Nusaybin say that most Kurds around here want the same thing, a federal Syria with a space for Kurds like Northern Iraq. 12:23 What they don't say is how deeply divided Kurds, Turkish, and Syrian have become about how to get there. 12:34 Um, since the state formation period, again, this is the 1920s, you know, the, the image is that, uh, Kurds have been fighting against central governments for the last 90 to 100 years, and this is not necessarily the case. 12:49 Syria's particularly interesting because the Kurds in Syria, they, they constitute only eight to 10% of the population, and some can say between one and two million people. 12:59 But they actually have had a large influence of trans-border, uh, Kurdish elites from Turkey particularly, and the Kurds in Iraq as well, so that when you started with these first Kurdish nationalist movements in the 1920s, they were actually led by the Kurdish intellectual nationalist elite from Istanbul and from Turkey that were expelled, that were reacting to some of the, uh, anti-Kemalist movements at that time, and they started and created these Kurdish nationalist movements. 13:32 Uh, you'll see that pattern has gone on for the last several decades in Syria, where Iraqi Kurds who had their own nationalist parties and struggles since the 1940s also influencing Syrian Kurdish groups. 13:51 That cross-border battle, I should say, or influence continues to this day. So when you look at the Syrian Kurdish demands for autonomy, it's not just Syrian Kurds in there. 14:03 There are Iraqi Kurdish parties in there, there are Kurds from Turkey in there, mixed in with Syrian Kurdish nationalist demands. 14:11 And I'm not going to, uh, uh, lessen the importance of how the Kurds were marginalized in, in all of these states, Syria included, 14:19 that because the nature of the Syrian state eventually evolved into a Ba'athist state that emphasized Arab identity, that came after the '60s, after Ba'athism, the Kurds were marginalized as an ethnic group, okay? 14:34 And so you know that the Kurds have lost their, um, uh, uh, citizenship, uh, territories were Arabized. Uh, there was a whole host of issues where Kurds could not form parties and use their language. 14:46 So there's the part of alienation, but what's less understood is that there were many Kurds who integrated into the state. There were many Kurds that were part of the urban elite in Damascus. 14:57 There were many Kurds in some of these areas, um, that were part of the Sunni Muslim community. 15:05 There were Kurds who were landowners and who benefited from some of the large cotton areas in, in, in one of the provinces in Hasakah. That's one part of it. So Kurds integrated as well as were alienated. Secondly, 15:21 w-when, when people use the word Syrian Kurdistan now, they, they look at it as one large unified entity. 15:28 Since, again, back to the French Mandate period, the l- leaders in Syria, including the French and then later Arab leaders, Syrian Arab leaders, they treated the Kurdish areas distinctly differently. 15:40 So there's three, as you would use the word cantons now in the Kurdish regions. Uh, one is Afrin, one is, uh, Hasakah. The- they are- they were treated differently. Hasakah was far more Arabized. 15:52 There were far more PKK influences in one area than another. Um, the idea of autonomy was used in one area but not another. There were different demographics. 16:03 So to look at the Kurdish regions as well, you'd ask how were each of these distinctly different regions, provinces if you will, had a relationship with the Syrian, uh, state? 16:15 And, and that is a different dynamic than one large Kurdish group being treated the same way, and you see that playing out today. 16:23 That's why when people talk about a federal solution for Syrian Kurds, I don't necessarily agree. You would look at it as how do these distinct entities interact with the Syrian, uh, government? 16:35 Now obviously today there is much opposition to the Syrian government. Th- that's agreed. 16:40 But there's a, uh, there's a lot of nuance within these areas, and I think it's important to look at how differently these different Kurdish communities interact, uh, with other Syrians and with the Syrian government. 16:53 So the Syrian civil war most immediately 16:59 disintegrated the state, weakened the central government, created ungoverned spaces, um, and broke down some of these traditional relationships at local levels that existed. 17:11 This was a boon politically for the Kurds in the sense that it enabled them to fill some of these political and security vacuums with their own forces, and, and by that I mean many of the affiliated PKK forces 17:30 that were in the Qandil Mountains that came and assisted their sister organization, which is the PYD. 17:38 Um, and so from a political security perspective, the Kurds were able to be on the ground and assert control of some of these territories that the Assad regime withdrew from in 2012. 17:51 And remember, there was, you know, this tacit agreement, if you will, that when the Assad regime left, the Kurds were taking over de facto some of these territories to control and some of these oil installations in 18:04 northeast Syria. 18:07 The second part of it, and importantly, is the fact that these groups were also given semi-recognition and inadvertently semi-legitimacy by the international support they were now receiving as part of the countering ISIS, countering Daesh campaign. 18:23 So there were two parts. One, they physically got to take control of some of these areas and self-administer and create these cantons 'cause there was nobody there to do it. 18:30 Secondly, they got international support to give them the recognition to propel- These ideas of self-administration. So there were two parts. 18:41 But how they lost in some of the areas, too, in my, in my view is by gaining, you know, they were able to take some of these territories as part of the anti-Daesh campaign, but there's now a, a greater fragility between Kurds and some of these Arab communities because there were pacts between them. 18:59 They still are in some ways, but there is now a deepening resentment against the Kurds in some areas for taking some of these territories that many Arab communities and Turkman communities regard as their own. 19:13 That's one part of it. And the other part of it is still, still we shouldn't forget that the Kurds are still extremely dependent. 19:20 There's been a lot of brouhaha about an autonomous Kurdish region and potential independence, and, and this is just very unlikely, in my view, without the Kurds understanding, and I think many do, that they must have positive working relationships with Arab communities, with Turkey, with the government in Damascus or else this landlocked, small territorial area will be suffocated. 19:48 So again, there's been some gains, but I wouldn't over-determine the gains in the long term because of the very nature of this Kurdish entity inside Syria. 19:59 [Instrumental music] The Kurds of Syria have been frustrated as their victories on the battlefield have not been translated into political gains. 20:09 Shut out of UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva, they've now chosen to go it alone, declaring their intention to establish a federal Kurdish region in Northern Syria. 20:20 The Kurds say they're not pushing for independence, rather for a decentralized federal model to be applied throughout Syria. 20:27 But their plan is running into major resistance, not just from Turkey, which has threatened to go to war if necessary to block the creation of any autonomous Kurdish region in Syria, but also from the bulk of the Syrian opposition and the governments in Damascus. 20:42 [Instrumental music] Um, a- as I indicated, it, the, the, the Kurdish movement in Syria... And, and it is authentic. 20:50 It ha- has evolved in, in reaction to some of the ethnicized and exclusionary political space inside Syria. 20:57 However, it is, uh, largely in or a- also determined or shaped by some of these trans-border Kurdish movements, competing Kurdish movements in Iraq by the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties, uh, Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, that group, and then the PKK-influenced Kurds from Turkey. 21:20 And these two main, these are the two main Kurdish nationalist movements or, or trends within competing for leadership and authority in how to shape the Kurdish nationalist movement. A- as these two groups, uh, 21:37 they're not in outright conflict, but as they compete for power, they're now competing and using Syria as a playing field to do so. The Iraqi Kurds have had the largest political space to do so, particularly since 2003. 21:53 You can actually go back to 1992 after the creation of this no-fly zone and international support for Iraqi Kurds. 22:03 They began, and their nationalist movement or their autonomy movement really took f- force, um, with this no-fly zone. 22:12 And then eventually after 2003, you have now a legitimate, uh, Kurdistan regional government recognized in a constitution of Iraq as part of a federal Iraqi state. 22:23 This area became a magnet for so many trans-border Kurds to then launch their own nationalist movement. Um, and then you had, in Syria, those PKK-influenced Kurds that had... That go l- way back, by the way. 22:39 This was not just the PKK had influence in Syria since the Syrian Civil War. 22:44 This goes back decades when different, uh, Syrian governments appeased PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, allowed the PKK to stay, and political roots took, took hold. 22:56 So again, you had Iraqi Kurdish parties with their representations in Syria, with their relationships with the Assad governments, and the PKK with their relationships with Assad governments also trying to establish their own political autonomy inside their own states. 23:15 So there's a lo- Again, porous borders allow this to happen. Relationships allow this to happen. What is happening now as Iraqi Kurds, 23:24 and particularly the Massoud Barzani faction, consolidate power, try to gain greater influence, they're having their own internal, uh, power struggles, and those internal power struggles are also playing out in Syria. 23:39 What you see is a main Syrian Kurdish group, the PYD, closely tied to the PKK, and again, competing for power and influence against Massoud Barzani's, uh, group. 23:55 Inside Syria and with the anti-Daesh campaign and the porous borders that have evolved now also carrying itself inside the Kurdistan region of Iraq. So you have these groups are fluid. The borders are fluid. 24:11 There are PKK, PYD that want to go inside some of the border areas of Iraq, vice versa. Massoud Barzani's group is establishing Peshmerga for Syria, and each one is now checking each other, uh, across these borders. 24:27 Ironically, as folks talk about the, uh, the borders that were created 100 years ago in Sykes-Picot, although Sykes-Picot didn't create these borders but- Uh, and they always talked about how the Kurds should have access to Syria and they'd have a larger Kurdistan. 24:43 It's actually these two groups that are blocking these borders and affirming that the borders remain in place because of these, uh, deep competitions playing out between the two main Kurdish groupings. 24:56 I, I don't think, quite frankly, that, uh, most of these folks have, uh, you know, a, a one-year plan. They're acting strate- They're, they're trying to be strategic. 25:05 They're first and foremost taking advantage of the opportunities created for them. 25:10 This, this is probably, in fact, um, if they wouldn't do it, you'd be surprised, which is as long as they're getting external support, as long as there's a weak central government, as long as the region is fragmented and other opposition groups are fragmented, the Kurds will continue to benefit. 25:27 You saw the same patterns in Iraq. That is to say, these types of sub-state actors, you can call them quasi-states or sub-state actors, they survive based on 25:39 weak central governments, strong nationalist sentiment, external support, and patronage. Without any of those four together, you're going to see a weakening of their, of their, uh, survivability, if you will. 25:53 So for the short term, the Kurds will continue to bank on and thrive on all of these elements. 25:59 Uh, the most important is this external support, whether that be from tacit support from the Assad government, whether that be from Russia, whether that be from coalition supporters, partners on the ground. 26:12 This is enabling this group to, to survive. 26:16 Now, uh, what's their lo- And again, to consolidate their gains by trying to institutionalize these cantons and trying to gain the type of, uh, you know, a territorial reach that they can. 26:29 The problem is this, um, they, they should be careful about territorial overreach because their entity is so dependent, not autonomous, so dependent on so many of these very important variables. 26:43 Any particular shift, that is to say, withdrawal of Russian aid, withdrawal of coalition support, uh, withdrawal of Assad regime support, uh, you, you begin to wonder what's the survivability of this entity? 26:56 Secondly, uh, I ask this question, they've extended their reach territorially, but can they hold these territories over the long run? 27:04 Again, they only represent 8 to 10% of Syrian population with significant, um, Syrian Arab groups surrounding them, and of course, a, a very long border with Turkey. So what's their end state? 27:20 Many have said to me they know they must have an agreement with Turkey. 27:24 I don't see how this can survive economically without an agreement with Turkey, and politically also without an agreement with Sunni Arab communities. That would be a long-term, um, uh, you know, 27:37 aim, or they sh- at least those who are thinking clearly, um, and strategically. Secondly though, um, they would again have to ask, ask themselves as well, some of these territories 27:51 that they've taken have now can become disputed territories, and that is actually a sensitive issue. 27:57 Um, how are they going to renegotiate the pacts with Arab communities that were so essential to relative stability that have broken down in some areas? 28:08 So, um, uh, a- and I'd like to also say that it's, we should be careful about clumping all of the Syrian Kurds as one, um, monolithic group. 28:18 Yes, the PYD clearly has control and large control, but there are many Kurds who don't support or agree with the PKK. They're independent groups. 28:29 Um, there are, there's a lesser group that supports the Iraqi Kurdish groups. 28:33 Um, but nonetheless, there is some sense of not necessarily wanting to be under the, the PKK's, um, ideological and political dictum, if you will. So, um, and, and those groups m- 28:49 may or, or, or seek some kind of opening, whether that be toward Turkey or whether that, that be toward Iraqi Kurds. So, um, some of the end states, again, are to ensure a minimum of autonomy. 29:02 Uh, some Kurds use the word federalism. I don't, I don't know if they really fully understand what that entails. And there are some who say decentralized administration. 29:12 I think there's a lot of words being used, but they do look at what their brethren have across the border, and that's Iraqi Kurds. 29:20 And it's going to be increasingly difficult to tell them, "Well, you can have a little bit less than what the Iraqi Kurds have." 29:28 But it's really important as you start getting into these very complex, uh, Kurdish communities across all these borders that, um, that local politics matters, that 80-plus years of living in Syria has shaped the identity and the manifestation of Kurdish nationalism so that it won't look necessarily like it does in Iraq, and we shouldn't expect it to. 29:53 That to use the word federalism in Syria is not necessarily, um, adequate for the way that the Syrian hyper-fragmented, localized 30:04 communities are in Syria, and, and that differs fundamentally from what happened in Iraq, where there was a recognized autonomous Kurdish region by the Iraqi government since the late '60s or early s- 1970, I should say, uh, formally. 30:19 So, um, you'll, you'll see no one, you know, the Syrian Kurds are mobilizing, but there is a deep connection between what's happening in Turkey to who, who is controlling what's happening in Syria. 30:34 And it's, it's a, it's a, again, you can't just say, "Well, Turkey had a relationship with Iraqi Kurds, so they can do the same thing in Syria." 30:41 This is deeply influenced by some of the PKK Kurds and some of the Kurdish movements in Turkey. And, and, and the, the bigger challenge in Syria, which differs from the other Kurdish regions, is how do you disconnect? 30:54 Can you disconnect the Kurdish problem in Turkey, the PKK issue, from the Syrian Kurdish issue? My thanks to Denise for sharing these insights. 31:06 Make sure to check out her in-depth feature on S- Syria's Kurds on worldpoliticsreview.com, Can Syria's Kurds Leverage War Gains into Political Autonomy? 31:17 If you haven't done so already, you can subscribe to the World Politics Review newsletter on worldpoliticsreview.com and to this podcast on iTunes or a podcast app of your choice. 31:29 Trendlines is produced and edited by me, Peter Durie. 31:31 You can follow me and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to pieces covering the issues we talked about in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 31:41 Have a fantastic weekend, and see you next week for a new episode of Trendlines. 31:45 [outro music]
