Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Good Party, Uncertain Future: Meral Akşener's attempt to upend Turkish politics

On October 25, 2017, a new political party was formed in Turkey, taking the name İyi Parti (Good Party).

This new party was founded by Meral Akşener, a vocal Turkish politician and critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.



Akşener, who has been in politics since the mid-1990s, once belonged to the True Path Party, a secular conservative party. As the True Path Party faded into the background, she then joined the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a small but influential far-right nationalist party which, despite its more moderated image today, has a history of violence.

Last year, as the MHP cozied up to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), Akşener attempted to oust party leader Devlet Bahceli from his post. She was unsuccessful and forced out of the party.

During Turkey’s recent constitutional referendum, the MHP was split. While much of the high-level party officials were supportive of the proposed transition from parliamentary to presidential democracy, many of the party’s voters were not. Indeed, when Turks went to the polls, large amounts of voters in the MHP’s regional strongholds in the south of the country voted against the transition. Akşener was one of many voices to express her opposition to the referendum. 
Turkish general election 2015, provinces and districts.png

Maps detailing the results of the Turkish elections in June 2015 and the referendum results. Brown areas in the map on the left are areas won by MHP, many of which are red ("No" voting in the referendum). 


Turkish constitutional referendum 2017.png


Despite the split, the referendum still narrowly passed and Turkey is undergoing the transition from parliamentary to presidential which its critics dismiss as a power grab by President Erdoğan.

Akşener decided this autumn to start a new party, with one seemingly clear goal in mind: to run for president, unseat Erdoğan and pick up the damaged pieces of Turkey’s still-intact but fragile secular democracy in hopes of gluing them back together. The next Turkish General Election is in November 2019, giving Aksener two years to craft her party's platform, reach out to the Turkish people, and fight the AKP. 

From an ideological perspective, the İyi Party claims to be centrist, perhaps slightly leaning right in an attempt to woo wary AKP supporters. Like the CHP, it is nationalist, secular, and Kemalist, and it also has taken up a bit of populist anti-establishment sentiment as a response to what it perceives as the ineffectiveness and polarization brought on by the establishment Turkish political parties. It also seeks to reverse the transition from presidential to parliamentary democracy. 

A Gezici poll in mid-October had Erdoğan winning another term as president with 48% of the vote. Ms.Akşener sat 10 points behind him at 38%. In third place was Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the Kemalist center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) with 14% of the vote. In this scenario, Akşener and Erdoğan would go to a runoff election which she would have a good chance of winning considering most CHP voters' fierce opposition to the President. 




In Turkey’s last direct presidential election, the CHP and MHP rallied together behind Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, but he came in second with only 38% of the vote compared to Erdoğan’s 51%. Because Erdoğan won over 50% of the vote, no runoff election was necessary. Selahattin Demirtaş, a Kurdish politician from the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) came in a very distant third with 10% of the vote.

President Erdoğan has many critics in Turkey. However, his critics come from vastly different political angles and rarely do they agree on a consensus. The Republican People's Party, known by its Turkish initials CHP, the second largest party in Turkey, is a secular center-left party. While it enjoys large popularity on Turkey's western coast and in cities like Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, its support quickly dissolves once you delve further into the Turkish heartlands. The MHP, already in a state of crisis between the pro- and anti-Erdoğan factions, only tends to draw large support from a small region in Turkey's south. The Kurdish-interest HDP receives almost no support outside the southeast of the country. MHP and HDP refuse to speak to each other and CHP seems stagnant in terms of how much support they can amass. None of these parties seem to be able to cut substantially into Erdoğan's base of support, which even in its low point in the June 2015 elections managed 40% of the vote, still 15% higher than that of the second-place CHP. 

The new presidential system Turkey is moving towards may work in the Good Party's favor, but a few things will need to happen for them to actually unseat Erodgan and the AKP.

In order for Akşener to win, she's going to need to master a big-tent appeal. First, she must be able to convince the CHP and MHP to rally behind her as one as they did behind İhsanoğlu in 2014. It seems unlikely that the second largest party in Turkey will not nominate their own candidate for this position, but Akşener could broaden her appeal and call for her Good Party and the CHP to join forces. If the CHP is dead-set on running their own candidate against her such as Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, it will only split the anti-Erdoğan voting bloc into smaller pieces. Kılıçdaroğlu, the current leader of the CHP, has said he is not interested in running for President in 2019, but that does not necessarily mean the party will not field a candidate. 


Calling MHP to her cause may be even more difficult as she is an ex-member of the party. The pro-Erdoğan faction of the MHP may try to scuttle her plans to win the presidency by running a token candidate who is only lukewarmly opposed to Erdoğan. While Akşener looks like she is already drawing MHP voters to the İyi Party, uniting the party to the point that MHP does not run their own candidate will be difficult. 

A Sonar poll conducted between November 1 and 6 has MHP's support dwindling down to 7.8% while the İyi Party is on track to gain 21% of the vote for the Parliamentary election. In Turkey, a political party must gain at least 10% of the vote to gain parliamentary representation. If this poll is accurate, MHP would lose all its representation at the national level. 

Akşener’s ability to appeal to HDP and AKP voters may be most difficult of all. As a former member of the far-right nationalist MHP, Akşener once carried a banner that Kurds living in Turkey have severe reservations about. Considering both co-leaders of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ are under arrest, neither of them may run in the presidential election and it is unclear whether HDP will even be allowed to contest any part of the 2019 elections. It is unlikely the Kurds will remain politically silent in 2019, and the June 2015 elections showed they can be a considerable force in Turkish elections when they won 13% of the vote. Considering MHP and HDP have barely been on speaking terms while in Parliament together, voters who flip from HDP to the İyi Party will likely represent a very small minority. 

The other goal in Akşener's quest to oust Erdoğan from power is to cut into the base that Erdoğan has relied on 15 years. Erdoğan first swept to power in 2002, and has won elections consistently since then in 2007, 2011, twice in 2015, and then 2017's referendum.

As stated before, even in the June 2015 election when AKP slumped to its worst result since its founding in 2001, it still managed to capture just over 40% of the vote. If Akşener can't cut into this base without significant support from other anti-Erdoğan factions, it will be difficult for her to accomplish her speculated goal of unseating the President. 

Most of the support for Akşener seems to be coming from disaffected MHP voters, as some polls have the MHP falling from its last performance of 11.9% down to around 3-5%, which would effectively end its time in the Grand National Assembly as parties need at least 10% of the vote to get represented. In polls where the İyi Party gets over 10% of the vote, AKP slumps to around 38-40%, while CHP and HDP's percentages stay mostly the same.

Take a Sonar poll conducted from November 1-6. Its results (AKP 38.5%, CHP 23.5%, MHP 7.8%, HDP 10.3%, İyi 16.1%)  indicate that CHP and İyi would have a slight advantage in voting percentage (39.6% to 38.5) to scrape out a tiny majority over the AKP's plurality. If they focus on anti-Erdoğan sentiment, these two parties could likely stall much of Erdoğan's agenda even if he still won the Presidency. The direct presidential poll conducted by Gezici in mid-October suggested that Akşener may be popular enough to, at the very least, force Erdoğan into a runoff election for the Turkish Presidency, which she would make extremely competitive if the CHP voters rally behind her.

Of course, all of this is speculation. Polling is far from an exact science, and the İyi Party is still in its infancy. How much appeal it truly has or can muster when it's time for Turks to go to the polls in 2019 is still uncertain. Their daring attempt to unseat President Erdoğan has a path to victory, but it's a long road ahead. 


Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Sickles, Hammers, Stars and Bars

Recently, the United States was shaken to its core by a large white nationalist/supremacist and Neo-Nazi rally in the sleepy little college town of Charlottesville, Virginia. Violence broke out at the rally and a young woman named Heather Heyer lost her life in the subsequent car attack.

This "Unite the Right" Rally, was organized as a protest against the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Many protestors carried the infamous battle flag of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, often referred to as the Stars and Bars. 

In recent years, the United States has wrestled with the question of when, if ever, the display of this flag is appropriate. Some argue it is a vital piece of Southern pride and heritage, a symbol of the resolve of the people. Others decry it as an inherently white supremacist flag, citing its use by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, that flag is often compared to the red, white and black swastika flag once used by Nazi Germany. 

Personal display of the Stars and Bars is not illegal, and strong arguments exist that even with the extremely negative connotations of the Stars and Bars, it should remain available to use on a personal basis. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have defended the rights of white nationalists and Neo-Nazis to march with that flag as hate speech is still considered constitutionally protected free speech and assembly. 

The flag is still flown at many Confederate memorials, and this has also been a point of controversy. The memorials are considered inherently traitorous as the Confederacy did try to break away from the United States, as well as an enabling symbol of the racism which has tarnished much of American history. 

Some do not want these memorials gone as they fear it will make the history behind them fade away. Some believe these memorials should be razed entirely because of their white supremacist connotations. Indeed, many of the monuments were erected during the Civil Rights Movement and dedicated by the Ku Klux Klan, an unmistakable symbol of white supremacists.

Others believe the memorials can exist, but should only appear in museums and at the Civil War battlefields where they became stained with blood.

Even then, there exist gray areas. On Georges Island in Boston Harbor, deep into what was once Union territory, there exists a large headstone which memorializes thirteen Confederate soldiers who died as prisoners of war on the island. The headstone was put there by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1963, as both the Civil Rights Movement and Civil War centennial were in progress. The memorial is currently boarded up and some are calling for its removal, but it does not really glorify the Confederate cause in the same way a triumphant statue of General Lee or Jackson may. It is little more than a headstone not unlike what you'd see in a civilian cemetery. 

Symbolism is powerful, and the Stars and Bars has counterparts in other parts of the world. For centuries the swastika was a symbol of luck and good fortune in parts of Asia, but it is synonymous with one of the purest forms of evil in Europe and the Americas. Japan’s Rising Sun flag is still considered a patriotic symbol in Japan. It is still officially used by the Japanese Navy and its symbolism appears in Japanese day-to-day life on Asahi Gold beer cans and the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun (“The Morning Sun”), despite the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan in China, South Korea, and the United States.

And then there’s the famous, universally recognized symbol of communism, the interlocking Hammer and Sickle. Mention Russia and despite it being over 25 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, don’t be surprised when that symbol is mentioned a few minutes later. It’s near unavoidable, for better or for worse.

For seventy years, that unmistakable crimson banner was the symbol of my country of origin. Had I been born less than two years earlier, I would have been born in the USSR, not Russia. Indeed, my original passport does not say Russian Federation.

It says Союз Советских Социалистических Республик. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Stars and Bars has been convincingly argued to be a symbol of racism and white supremacy, whether intended or not. Obviously not everyone who flies that flag is a racist, but many, many racists fly that flag. It was clearly displayed by many during the infamous tiki torch march in Charlottesville. It is the same with the old orange-white-blue South African flag and the green and white flag of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

The Sickle and Hammer is a symbol of communism. Communism is not an inherently prejudiced ideology, but under its red banner, over 100 million people in China, the Soviet Union, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe were unjustly imprisoned, sentenced to cruel and unusual punishment, outright executed, or even victim to genocide in Cambodia and Ukraine.

The dynamic is a bit different than that of the Stars and Bars. The Confederacy attempted to break free of the United States. It failed. The Reds, however, succeeded in overthrowing the provisional government of Aleksandr Kerensky and won the Russian Civil War and with it control over all of what was the Soviet Union. When they won, the sickle and hammer flag ceased to be simply a symbol of a political ideology, but a country.

That symbol went on to be included in snapshots of great historical achievement. When Nazi Germany was defeated, Red Army soldiers flew the Sickle and Hammer over Berlin. Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, the first man and woman to break free of Earth and visit the cosmos did so with "CCCP" proudly displayed on their helmets.

Therefore, it could be argued that there exists a limited space in which one could celebrate achievements of the Soviet peoples with that flag and symbol displayed.

It also comes down to timing. A Russian or a person with Russian heritage with pride in the achievements of his or her people may choose to display with restraint such symbolism on certain holidays such as on Victory Day or Cosmonauts’ Day, but in all other cases opt to display the white-blue-red flag used today.

It would also, without a doubt, be considered especially inappropriate in the presence of certain people and groups. Just as displaying the Stars and Bars to a black person or the Nazi swastika to a Jewish person would be unthinkably disrespectful, displaying the Soviet banner would be gravely disrespectful to display in the presence of citizens of the countries that were once unwilling satellites of the USSR. In the United States, many have responded to the display of the Stars and Bars with the slogan, “Stop pretending your racism is patriotism”. That slogan could be altered in the case of the Soviet banner as well, although perhaps not in a direct condemnation of racism. While communism was oftentimes mixed with ethnic and racial prejudices, the ideology, at least on paper, portrays itself as a force against such prejudice.


In Russia, most of the statues and symbols of communism were not destroyed. Some still stand in their original places, but many have been moved to museums to offer historical context and a space for debate. It is possible that a similar approach to Confederate symbols may be required. To erect a statue of a Confederate soldier in heroic likeness in a city square will almost certainly be considered inappropriate. To erect a statue of a Confederate General from the vantage point where he directed his troops on a Civil War battlefield or at a museum near that battlefield, while not completely without controversy, could be used in a more historical and informative perspective. Even Robert E. Lee, the most famous of Confederate generals, believed statues of his or his brothers in arms’ likenesses would keep old wounds open.  

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Playing with Fire: The Iraqi Kurdish Independence Referendum and its Consequences

On September 25th, 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan set in motion a regional referendum to decide on whether the region should secede from Iraq and become an independent state. 
The referendum was opposed by nearly every country in the Middle East, the lone exception being Israel. Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran were all especially vocal in their opposition, as each country has a large population of ethnic Kurds, all of which have flirted with the allure of establishing an independent and greater Kurdistan. 
Nevertheless, the Kurds went to the polls, and when the dust had cleared, a result overwhelmingly in favor of independence emerged. The turnout was claimed to be high at 72%, which translates to over three million voters. Of those, 92.7% voted for an independent Republic of Kurdistan. Kurds in all four countries erupted in celebration at the news. 
Before the ink on the official results could dry, however, tensions rose. Borders closed, ultimatums were given, joint military drills were held. Two days ago, the Iraqi Army marched northeast from their positions near the mostly Arab city of Hawija to the city of Kirkuk and captured the city as well as the airport and the air base near it. While there was some sporadic fighting, the city fell quickly and mostly peacefully. 
As the Iraqi Army rolled into the streets of Kirkuk, the Arab and Shia Turkmen populations rejoiced while the Kurds fell into dismay. Kirkuk is a multiethnic city, with large populations of all three ethnicities, and it is considered a cultural capital for Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen alike. While not originally part of the established Kurdish Regional Government, Kirkuk City and large parts of Kirkuk Province were taken over by Kurdish Peshmerga troops as the predominantly Arab Iraqi Army retreated from an Islamic State offensive in 2014. This was a considerable point of pride for Kurds in Iraq, many of whom believe Kirkuk is a Kurdish city and should have been part of Kurdish-controlled territory since the regional authority was established after the American invasion.
Islamic State has endured a slow but sure decline since its original breakneck expansion and no longer controls territory where the border between Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan lies. Its territorial control in Iraq is today restricted to a few small cities in Western Iraq’s Anbar province and some open desert, and there is a considerable possibility the Iraqi Army will be launching an offensive to secure the border in full before the end of the year. 
As well as defeating ISIS for good, the Iraqi Army seems determined to march farther north into Kurdish-controlled territory and move towards the original borders of the Kurdish Region to the dismay of many Kurds living in those areas. There is considerable fear that this will lead Iraq into another civil war, only a few years after sectarian fighting allowed Islamic State to reach all the way to Baghdad’s suburbs. 
On October 17th, unconfirmed reports claimed that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga would withdraw to the original borders of the three provinces set out for Iraqi Kurdistan in 2003. If this holds, the Kurdistan Regional Government will shrink considerably back to its original size. Evidence suggests that this agreement is being implemented. 

The possibility of independence, which was always going to be a difficult prospect even on the best day, seems to be fading. If the Peshmerga abides by their possible agreement to move back peacefully and Kurdish regions stay with Iraq, there could be major consequences for leaders in both Baghdad and Erbil. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi will likely see his popularity, already considerable, move even higher. The defeat of ISIS as a state and the mostly peaceful preservation of Iraq’s northern borders would cement him as a pivotal and effective leader. Whether he can translate that momentum into strengthening Iraq’s economy, battling corruption, keeping sectarian tensions low and rebuilding after the war against ISIS is yet to be seen, but it’s pretty likely that unless tensions bubble up again that Al-Abadi will at least be given a second chance when and if he runs for re-election. 

KRG President Masoud Barzani could possibly face considerable consequences in the opposite direction. If the Kurdish region does not go independent, Kurds will likely blame his government for not following through. 

Iraqi Kurdistan, doted on by many media outlets in the west because it is largely peaceful, free from sectarian violence, and generally more secular than the rest of Iraq, is still saturated with its own problems. The Peshmerga forces in charge of its defense often fight for one of the major political parties rather than the region at large, highlighting the region’s serious political polarization. Masoud Barzani, president since 2005, hasn’t faced re-election since 2009, and the region hasn’t gone to the polls to elect a new Parliament since 2011. Barzani has long been accused of being dictatorial and authoritarian in his rule, and those claims are not without merit.  The two major parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, the right-wing Kurdistan Democratic Party and the left-wing Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, fought a civil war between 1994 and 1997, less than 10 years after the Genocide of Al-Anfal, and their animosity remains present. 

Like any other people, the Kurds of Iraq deserve the right to decide their own fate, and even with the ethnic tensions in areas like Kirkuk, most Kurds in Iraq do seem to want independence. Kurds cheered the end of Saddam Hussein’s reign when the US invaded and remain quite pro-American in many cases. Kurds in both Syria and Iraq have been vital forces for good against the Islamic State-in fact, this article happened to be published on the day predominantly Kurdish forces defeated Islamic State in their de facto capital of Raqqa. A secular, democratic and independent Kurdistan could be a force for good in the Middle East if it was able to tactfully work out its relationship with Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, and the possibility of a relationship between an independent Kurdish state with Israel could have been reason for hope. 

The Kurds’ desire for independence is not the problem, but the way the referendum came about left a lot to be desired. While there is an argument to be made that there’s never a really optimum time for a region to declare independence from a state which has ruled over them for a long period of time, Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum happened at poorly decided time. It’s understandable that many Kurds were of the opinion “If not now, when?”, but there were serious regional issues. President Barzani seemed to use the independence referendum as a distraction above anything else. It allowed him to divert attention from the lack of free elections for nearly 6 years both for the executive and legislative branches of the government. It allowed a distraction from the region’s endemic corruption and inability to pay many workers. Even if Iraqi Kurdistan did go independent peacefully, the chances of it resolving its own internal problems as well as negotiating separation from Iraq would have been difficult even for an accountable democratic government. 

In the end, the Kurds in Iraq don’t look like they’ll be ruling over their own independent state in the immediate future. Independence was never going to be an easy struggle for this long-oppressed people, but a serious reshuffling of priorities before going ahead with the referendum may have made it a bit more feasible. It’s true that being surrounded by hostile neighbors backed up by international alliances didn’t help much (only Israel, a country widely mistrusted across the Middle East, was willing to go out on a limb and explicitly support the region’s desire for independence), but the rollout of this attempt was clumsy, ill-times, and collapsed quickly when pressure was applied. 

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Hassan Rouhani-Iran's Ayatollah Gorbachov, Take 2

Iranians re-elected President Hassan Rouhani this past month in a landslide, as he defeated his nearest challenger, hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, by nearly 19 percentage points. (57.1% to 38.3%)



Many expected a closer election than in 2013, where Rouhani won with 50.71% of the vote against a bitterly divided handful of hardliner candidates, because of the unified hardline coalition behind Raisi. However, Iran’s cities, especially the sprawling behemoth of Tehran turned out in massive numbers for Rouhani, and even hardliner strongholds like Raszavi Khorasan Province only narrowly tilted in favor of Raisi. 
Reform-minded Iranians poured into streets across the country to celebrate. Just as his campaign slogan said, Rouhani would return to work, Again For Iran, until 2021. 
Landslide victories for moderate or reformist candidates in modern Iran are not unheard of. Mohammad Khatami, a politician not unlike Rouhani, won even larger victories in the 1997 and 2001 Presidential elections (69% and 77% respectively), but struggled to gain real traction in pursuing similar goals to Rouhani. While he was followed by Holocaust denying hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, however, won his victories through a runoff in 2005 against a demoralized and divided moderate/reformist camp and a lukewarm candidate in Akbar Rasfanjani, and his re-election in 2009 led to massive protests across the country amid a strong suspicion the election was rigged in his favor.
Iran is run by an odd hybrid government where, as strange as it may sound, both authoritarianism and democracy play a part. Iranians vote in local, parliamentary, and presidential elections as well as elections to the Assembly of Experts, which chooses the Supreme Leader. How much these votes count, however, depends largely on the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei is coming up on his 28th year in the office, and his relation to the government often determines how much elected officials can pursue their policy goals. Candidates are also strictly vetted by the Guardian Council, which has a habit of disqualifying many reformists.

Khamenei is a hardliner, but he has allowed President Rouhani space to carry out his policy platform to some success. He is coming up on his 78th birthday and rumors claim he may have prostate cancer, though this is not known for sure. While the Iranian government has kept most speculation about his replacement quiet, Raisi was considered a candidate as was Akbar Rafsanjani. However, Raisi was routed by Rouhani in the presidential election last month, and Rafsanjani died earlier this year. 

There is a possibility Khamenei will die during Rouhani’s second term, ushering in a new era for Iran’s Islamic Republic. The Assembly of Experts, which will elect his successor, has a considerable chunk of reformist representatives, including President Rouhani. 

Iran is unlikely to move away from the Islamic Republic system entirely under Rouhani, but if a new Supreme Leader is chosen, the country may be set on a new path. 

When Mohammad Khatami was elected in a landslide in 1997, some western media sources dubbed him Ayatollah Gorbachov, a nod to the Soviet reformer who eventually became the last leader of the communist empire. Gorbachov was a communist, but he realized things had to change to get the USSR moving again from its stalled and bloated situation in the early to mid-1980s. His reforms, while met with praise, spun out of control and eventually led to the end of the Soviet Union. Khatami made some reforms while President of Iran, but unlike Gorbachov, his reforms did not bring about the demise of the Islamic Republic. In fact, Khatami was relatively ineffective and the political climate when he left office swept a particularly abrasive hardliner to the presidency in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

While technically not in a reformist political party, President Rouhani has slowly but surely become bolder in his criticism regarding government institutions such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Guardian Council. He has slowly but surely worked to re-integrate Iran from its status as a pariah under Ahmadinejad. The economy is growing. Inflation has grinded to a near halt, and the rial, while still not worth much, has at least stopped hurtling towards total worthlessness. 

Rouhani continues a trend of Iranian presidents in the Islamic Republic always winning re-election. Every single elected president in Iran since 1979 has managed to win a second term. 

Iranians are worried about the bellicose rhetoric coming from their old foe the United States, particularly from President Trump, who has dismissed the nuclear deal as “the worst deal ever”. Despite this, Trump has not delved into detail about why the deal is so bad, nor has Washington taken any concrete steps to dismantle it. 

Rouhani, unlike Gorbachov, was able to at the very least stabilize the Iranian economy and put it on a positive path, and the country seems to be very slowly moving away from its most draconian authoritarianism. Rouhani, like Gorbachov, does not seek to destroy the institution he works in (Iran’s Islamic Republic), but he seems to realize the importance of and need for reform in his country. 

Another reformer one could compare Rouhani to is South African President F.W. De Klerk, who set his country on the path towards multiracial democracy after nearly 50 years of apartheid, a venomous and oppressive system of segregation where the overwhelming majority of black South Africans were shunted away from the prosperity enjoyed by the white minority. 

De Klerk only served one term as President, from 1989 to 1994, as his National Party was overwhelmingly defeated in the 1994 elections by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. His legacy of overseeing a peaceful transition away from apartheid tarnished somewhat since 1994 when he went before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and seemed to deny some of the atrocities committed under the segregationist government, but there is no denying he played an important role in shaping South Africa into the country it is today. 

Because De Klerk oversaw a massive transformation which both came as a surprise and completely changed South Africa in a mere five years and then was voted out of power, perhaps he’s not the best politician to compare to Hassan Rouhani, who has tinkered here and there but largely worked within the boundaries. 

Deng Xiaoping is another leader one could compare Iran’s President to. Deng, after emerging as China’s Paramount Leader in 1978, managed to bring the country towards a limited market economy and greatly increased the Chinese economy’s abilities, paving the way for the powerhouse we know today. Under Deng, Mao Zedong was also demoted from the glorious Chairman to “Seven parts good, three parts bad”, as the staggering hardship endured by the Chinese people during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were acknowledged to some extent. Yet Deng was still the one to give the order to the People’s Liberation Army to clear Tiananmen Square by force on June 4th, 1989. Today, China, while still claiming to follow communism, is more authoritarian socialist or an authoritarian mixed economy.  Likewise, just as Deng ordered his troops to clear pro-democracy protestors, executions in Iran under President Rouhani have risen considerably. 


Rouhani has another four years in office, and assuming the Iranian economy continues to reap the benefits of sanctions relief and diplomatic inroads continue, the country may continue down his path. Democratic institutions have the possibility of strengthening, the theocratic elements of the country may move farther back. Make no mistake, Hassan Rouhani has the chance to be a pivotal leader for his country. 

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

If Turkey Says No

In less than a month, citizens of the Republic of Turkey will head to the polls to decide on a referendum to fundamentally alter their structure of government.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called a referendum, asking the Turkish people to vote on whether their democracy, which is set up in a parliamentary structure, to change to a presidential system.

A parliamentary system very closely merges the executive and legislative branches of government in the position of Prime Minister, while they are much more separate in a presidential system.
Erdogan, as President, in theory, does not wield a lot of power. Most of the power, again, in theory, is concentrated in the Prime Minister, Binali YıldırımYıldırım, however, is a relatively new prime minister. The previous Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, was dismissed by President Erdoğan, and many speculate that the reason for his removal from office was due to his opposition to the referendum.

Turkey’s current political climate means that this referendum has been full of very passionate campaigning and massive emotion. 

The ruling Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, is the architect of this referendum. A mildly Islamist, right-wing party, it enjoys strong support throughout the Turkish heartlands, which despite Turkey’s official status of secular democracy, are mostly populated by conservative Muslim Turks.

These heartlands, however, are not as heavily populated as other areas of Turkey. The western coastline, where cities like Istanbul and Izmir sit, are strongholds for the Republican People’s Party, which is known by its Turkish initials CHP. A left-wing, Kemalist, nationalist party, the CHP is the strongest party supporting a “No” vote. It gained about 25% of the vote in the last general election, whereas AKP gained 49.5%. Despite its left-wing roots, the CHP has mostly campaigned in recent years on its secularist and nationalist sentiments and strengthening democracy rather than its economic viewpoints in contrast to the AKP’s invoking of Islam.

The pivotal party, however, is neither of these. It’s the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP. The leader of this party, a man named Devlet Bahceli, is campaigning for a Yes vote, but he leads a bitterly divided party. While Bahceli has put his chips in with Erdogan and the AKP and supports a "Yes" vote, many MHP voters are vocally opposed to that decision. The MHP, even though it is quite a bit smaller than both the AKP and CHP, is big enough that it could be the deciding factor in this referendum. If the party’s voting base rejects Bahceli’s decision en masse, the referendum could fail.

In the June and November 2015 Turkish elections, the ruling AKP managed to secure more than 40% of the vote. The CHP pulled in around 25% both times, and the Kurdish interest People's Democratic Party (HDP) and MHP tallied in the low-to-mid teens. 

Polling currently indicates that the referendum could go down to the wire. At the moment, "No" seems to have the lead, but the lead is narrow and there remain a sizable contingent of undecided voters. 

Critics of the referendum have insinuated that this is merely a power-grab by the ruling party. Indeed, Erdoğan would gain a large amount of formally enumerated power if "Yes" wins. 

If Turkey says no, however, it will only be the first act of a major pivot. While not quite on the level of Brexit, the decision to stay with the parliamentary system will shake Turkey’s political climate to its core.

Devlet Bahceli will likely be one of the first to fall. If he supports “Yes”, but most of the MHP voting base checks the “No” box on election day and the referendum fails, he will likely be removed from his post or resign in disgrace. It is estimated that around 50-80% of MHP voters are leaning towards voting no, and only around 20-25% are likely to vote "Yes". Bahceli is even on record as being against the political referendum in the past. If he doesn't get removed, the MHP risks an even bigger loss of popularity. 

President Erdoğan will be thoroughly embarrassed. His supporters will have come off a massive loss, and those who oppose his policies will have put a large roadblock in his way. His resignation is far less likely, though.


The MHP will have a decision to make. Its  recent cooperative role with the AKP is similar to that of a smaller party in a coalition government, and these parties typically do not gain much sympathy with voters. If the referendum fails, the MHP may have to undergo a massive transformation and rebranding after its ignominious partnership with the AKP, which is very well may be forced to abandon. 


That would represent a massive opportunity for the similarly nationalist CHP. While the MHP and CHP differ on many issues, they are both still nationalist. Indeed, the MHP was born from disillusioned CHP party members.

If the MHP falls into disarray, the CHP has an opportunity to reach out to the party’s voters and grow its size, something it seems to be struggling with in previous elections. If CHP and a rebranded MHP partner against the AKP, they could represent a real challenge to the Islamist party in the next election, as their combined vote total was slightly larger than that of the AKP in the June 2015 elections.


The Kurdish Question would still present a daunting challenge to a possible nationalist government. While AKP is not particularly loved or trusted among the Turkish Kurd population in the southeast, they are even more wary of the CHP and certainly the MHP because of the two parties’ nationalist principles. Furthermore, it’s not really clear which party would hold more clout. CHP is bigger, but it would have to compromise with the MHP so as to not lose favor with a possible coalition. The MHP is completely and unequivocally opposed to dialogue with the Kurdish HDP, the CHP is not. Indeed, when the CHP floated the idea of a possible CHP-MHP-HDP government with Bahceli as Prime Minister, Bahceli vehemently refused.

A potential coalition could, however, work to strengthen the democratic institutions within the country by pushing through reforms that would benefit both the Turkish and Kurdish populations, but not brand these reforms as concessions to the PKK terrorist group. One such reform that could work for both would be a lowering of the electoral threshold.

Turkey has dozens of political parties but due to the 10% threshold needed to gain seats in parliament, only four are represented in the Grand National Assembly in Ankara. This makes it difficult for any Kurdish-interest party to get into Parliament because Kurds are a minority everywhere except the southeast of the country. If the threshold could be lowered to say, 5%, greater representation for parties of all types could be had. 

This is, obviously, only one possible reform. But if Turkey says no this coming month, it's in for a serious pivot, and anything could happen. 


Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Cheese, Wine and Nationalism: What the Dutch General Election can tell us about France's upcoming Presidential tilt

The cheeseheads (sorry, Wisconsin) have spoken.

Citizens of the Kingdom of the Netherlands went to the polls on March 15, 2017, to elect all 150 members of their House of Representatives, and by extension, a Prime Minister.

With 75% of the votes tallied, the center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, known by its Dutch initials VVD, has come in first, with around 21% of the vote.

Mark Rutte, the current Prime Minister, will remain Prime Minister.

Behind the VVD, the right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV) is in a distant second, with the Christian Democratic Appeal party, slightly more centrist than VVD, is in third, with the socially progressive, economic centrist Democrats 66 in a very close fourth. The Labour Party, once the main left-wing party, slumped badly into seventh, a serious drop from their second-place finish in 2012.

Prime Minister Rutte addressed his cheering supporters upon victory, claiming that “Our message to the Netherlands – that we will hold our course, and keep this country safe, stable and prosperous, got through...this was an evening when after Brexit and Trump, the Netherlands said ‘Stop’ to the wrong sort of populism.”

Many media outlets and polls suggested that the nationalist PVV had a real chance of taking first place in this election because of the refugee crisis and other problems. However, the VVD seemed to gain in the polls at the last minute due to their handling of the recent diplomatic row with Turkey and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Because of the abundance of parties in the Netherlands (eleven different parties won seats in the 2012 election), however, even if the PVV and their controversial leader Geert Wilders  managed to capture the most seats, they would have had massive trouble in forming a government. As it stands now, the VVD, even with their convincing win, will probably have to partner with at least two, perhaps even three or four other parties to form a governing coalition. Both the VVD and CDA claimed they would not govern in coalition with the PVV if they won, which would have made coalition negotiations nearly impossible. 

As it stands, the PVV is in second and while they have improved on their total from 2012, they have not matched their total from 2010. 

Prime Minister Rutte may be exaggerating a bit when he says that the Netherlands has rejected populism. But this election does buck the trend of Brexit and Trump, and so we can draw some interesting conclusions from the results. 

First, anti-establishment fervor like was visible in the United States may not be as powerful when there is such an abundance of parties. As previously mentioned, even if the Party for Freedom had won the most votes, their ability to form a government would have been severely hampered by other parties' unwillingness to govern with them. 

Second, anti-EU sentiment in continental Europe just isn't as strong as it is in countries like the UK. Geert Wilders campaigned partially on the idea of "Nexit", the Netherlands leaving the European Union, and his French counterpart Marine Le Pen has toyed with a similar idea in France. 

This was never likely. Brexit was a monumental leap into uncharted territory for the United Kingdom, and it did not win by that large of a margin-51.9% to 48.1%. If the Netherlands or France did the same it would do serious, perhaps even mortal, damage to the EU. But the Dutch people at large do not want to leave the political union, and the prominent reluctance to take part in the union that Britain was famous for does not exist in the Netherlands. 

This election also shows an important difference between the nationalist right in the US and in Europe. Ethnic nationalism as a political tool, while certainly not unheard of in the US, has not been utilized in the same way in the United States that it has in Europe, since the United States is generally multicultural and has been for almost its entire history. 

Donald Trump's brash rhetoric and appeals to nationalism worked for the Republican Party in 2016, but these sorts of sentiments were on the fringe (though rising) in 2012 under Mitt Romney. Trump, however, managed to channel this anger and discontent in a way previously unseen because of his perception as an outsider who would "drain the swamp". 

These types of political movements are not new in Europe. Geert Wilders has been in the Dutch House of Representatives since 1998. Likewise, Wilders' French counterpart, Marine Le Pen, joined the National Front in 1986. Wilders and Le Pen are not political outsiders like Trump was, and therefore they may have not be able to play to quite the same sentiments as Trump could. 

And in France? France is going to the polls in April and again in May to elect a new president. The major candidates are Marine Le Pen of the right-wing nationalist National Front, Francois Fillon from Les Republicains, Benoit Hamon of the Socialist Party, Emmanuel Macron of a new center-left party called "En Marche!", and far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is running under the banner of a party called Unsubmissive France. 

There is a real chance that Le Pen will win the first round of the presidential election. Because of France's diverse political theatre, however, there will be a runoff in May between the two top candidates. 

The runoff will likely be between Le Pen, Fillon, or Macron. Polls indicate that both Fillon and Macron would beat Le Pen in a hypothetical matchup, but that doesn't quite tell the whole story. Fillon has been mired in scandal since he won his party's primary and has slumped to third in the polls. Unlike in the Netherlands where the mainstream right-wing VVD is fairly popular, Les Republicains are struggling to address the scandals of their presidential candidate. While Emmanuel Macron is snapping at Le Pen's heels in recent polls, his ability to gain the support of the French left may be up for debate, as he leans farther towards the center than both Hamon and Melenchon. 

If Fillon faces Le Pen in the second round, the polls may end up tight. It's true that in 2002, French left-wing parties rallied behind the center-right Jacques Chirac in order to defeat Jean-Marie Le Pen soundly in the runoff that year, but the FN has managed to appeal to a wider base since 2002. 

Macron does very well in a hypothetical head-to-head against Le Pen, but whether he can inspire the same sort of rally against her is yet to be seen. The National Front may try to paint Macron, a former investment banker, as a corporate fat cat in an attempt to win parts of the French left over, as the nationalist right does tend to lean left on economic issues. 

In the Netherlands, an abundance of political parties has stalled Geert Wilders and his agenda. Can France's safey valve, the presidential runoff do the same against Marine Le Pen? It just might be able to. 




Saturday, January 21, 2017

Can Syria save Deir-Ez-Zor?

Far out into Syria's rural east lies a small city on the Euphrates River called Deir-Ez-Zor.

According to the 2004 census, about 210,000 people called this city home.

Today, like much of Syria, it is engulfed in a vicious and bloody Civil War. On all sides, Islamic State militants surround this ancient city. ISIS controls some portions of the city. In other areas, Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers of the Republican Guard, an elite division loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad and commanded by Major General Issam Zahreddine.

Islamic State militants have tried time and again for the last two years to engulf the city under their shroud, and while there have been advances, Syrian forces have clung to their strongholds and prevented a complete takeover.

A victory in Deir-ez-Zor would present a small but important turning of the tide for Islamic State in Syria.

Soldiers fighting under the banner of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are currently advancing slowly but surely towards the de facto capital of Islamic State, Ar-Raqqa. If Raqqa falls but Islamic State manages to capture Deir-ez-Zor, the group will have a city to fall back to, especially with the Iraqi city of Mosul under siege and essentially half-liberated. With victory on the horizon in Iraq, ISIS may decide to retreat into Syria to put up heavier resistance there.

ISIS is in retreat on many different fronts, so a victory in Deir-ez-Zor would likely work to increase morale and enable the group to continue fighting for quite some time. Every advance to capture the city, however, has resulted in massive casualties and the Syrian soldiers have been nothing short of heroic.

Time, however, is not on the Syrian Arab Army's side. Despite this heroic resistance, it is not certain whether the city will or even can hold out long enough to be relieved by a friendlier force.

There are two different forces that may try to relieve this ancient city from Islamic State.

If the Syrian Arab Army manages to reach the city in time, it will represent a massive victory against the militants and greatly reduce the territory in the country controlled by ISIS.

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely for the time being that the SAA would come marching through. Forces loyal to Assad are exhausted from fighting for almost six years. Logistically, it would be extremely difficult to march all the way to the city because Deir-ez-Zor is far into the desert, isolated from the urban centres of the western parts of the country.

In addition, Syria's army recently suffered a considerable setback when militants recaptured the city of Palmyra. The road to Deir-ez-Zor runs through Palmyra, and the loss of the famous ancient city will make an offensive effort more costly and difficult, as well as more vulnerable from ISIS attacks in the open desert. The Syrian Arab Army is concentrated in the urban centres of the west-whether the exhausted fighting force can march all the way east is yet to be seen.

That leaves another opportunity open, however. Could the Syrian Democratic Forces march on the city and relieve the soldiers?

The Syrian Democratic Forces are closer to Deir-ez-Zor than the Syrian Arab Army, and are gaining recruits daily in the more rural parts of the country. But an operation to liberate Deir-ez-Zor would be a difficult undertaking all the same.

While the SDF has largely managed to hold on to their territory after launching offensives, Deir-ez-Zor is larger than any city they have taken before, not to mention the considerable presence of ISIS militants in the oil fields to the southeast of the city itself.

There's also the question of manpower-the SDF, since it is a young fighting force, is not as large as the SAA and would require a much proportionally larger mobilization of troops to fight in Deir-ez-Zor.

Despite the difficulties, the reward for the SDF if they were to successfully capture the city would be immense. If they liberate the city, the SAA soldiers who have been resisting for years finally get relief from fighting. The SAA and SDF, while not formal allies, are on cordial enough terms that they likely would be welcomed into the city. The victory would be the SDF's biggest and would boost already high morale among civilians in SDF controlled areas. The political aim of a federal, decentralized Syria with new rights for the Kurds would look within reach, and the SDF would also be within striking distance of both the oil fields (another source of income) and the Iraqi border, which will likely be secured within the next few months as the ISF moves farther west into Anbar province.

Perhaps most importantly though is the strategic importance of the city. A liberated Deir-ez-Zor would mean more control over the Euphrates for the SDF and another angle for their planned march on Islamic State's capital of Raqqa. The SDF already has the capability to march on Raqqa from the north and the west, taking Deir-ez-Zor would enable them to march up the Euphrates from the southeast as well.








Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Syria and Iraq: A Comprehensive Review, and a look towards the future

For the last five (going on six) years, Syria has been in the news, as forces loyal to Bashar Al-Assad fight to keep control of their country from various other entities in a grueling Civil War. 

This war, unlike the conflict in Iraq, has grown into a complex multi-front proxy war. In Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga forces hold the line on their considerably expanded border as the Iraqi Security Forces, along with Shia militias financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, fight to evict the Islamic State terrorists from their country. 

In Iraq, the conflict is relatively straightforward. 





The Iraqi Security Forces, or ISF, are the main defense force for Iraq. They are represented by the areas in maroon. Once ridiculed for their fleeing considerably smaller Islamic State battalions, the ISF has found its footing and turned the tide decisively. 

Fighting with them are the Kurdish Peshmerga (in dark gold), a regional defense force which is tasked with the defense of Iraqi Kurdistan’s three provinces. Peshmerga ("Those who confront Death" in Kurdish) forces along with some minor allies such as Yazidi militias in the far northwest of the country, have not only held the line and kept Islamic State from taking their lands, but advanced and taken more villages in northern Iraq, including the city of Kirkuk. 




Also featured are the aforementioned Shia militias that are funded mainly by Iran. These groups are known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Units, or PMU. While effective in central Iraq, the PMU has been notably asked to refrain from reinforcing the siege of Mosul so as to avoid sectarian tensions in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim city. 

The main ongoing battle today is for the Iraqi city of Mosul. Mosul is one of the largest cities in Iraq; only Baghdad and Basra are larger. Once the Islamic State’s main stronghold in Iraq, Mosul is currently under siege by ISF forces from the east. 


Apologies for the map not being in English, this is the best one I could find (and I can't read Arabic either). Green areas have been captured by Iraqi forces, red areas are where there is fighting, and white represents areas where ISIS controls

The military campaign started late last year. Despite some early hiccups in execution, Iraqi troops looks to be progressing steadily. Islamic State forces have lost nearly a third of the city to the ISF, particularly the Golden Division, a special forces unit trained by the United States in previous years. 

A victory in Mosul is not guaranteed for Iraqi forces, but momentum is on their side. It is possible the entire eastern section of the city (Mosul is split into eastern and western sections by the Tigris River) could be liberated by the ISF by the middle of February,. Assuming the momentum holds, the smaller western section could be liberated sometime in April or May. 

Victory in Mosul would represent an enormously decisive turn of the tide for Iraqi forces. Islamic State militants once advanced as far as the outskirts of Iraq’s sprawling capital of Baghdad. If they lose Mosul, their control of the country will be reduced to a few considerably smaller cities near Mosul, the sprawling but sparsely populated Nineveh plains, a shrinking portion of predominantly rural Anbar province, and the area around the city of Hawija, which was surrounded by both the ISF and Kurdish forces months ago. 




There is a distinct possibility the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria could become merely the Islamic State of Syria by the summer of 2017. 

In Syria, things remain complicated. 







The above map of Syria shows the current state of affairs in the Civil War. 

Red represents the Syrian Arab Army, forces loyal to Bashar Al-Assad. The Syrian Arab Army, or SAA, has been through nearly six years of siege from other entities, but they still manage to hold control of the vast majority of Syria’s urban west. While they and their allies in the Kremlin suffered an embarrassing defeat when ISIS militants stormed and recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra, it is extremely difficult to imagine the SAA surrendering control of the urban centres in Syria, especially Syria’s largest city and recently recaptured hub of Aleppo. 

Assad’s forces, however, are exhausted, and the chance of them ruling over the entirety of Syria’s borders again look uncertain. 

In the northwest, represented by green and white, the Free Syrian Army and its Islamist allies Ahrar Al-Sham and Jabhat Al-Nusra (recently renamed “Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham” ) hunker down around the city of Idlib. This pocket of rebel Islamists seems to be the next priority of President Assad’s, but it will be a fierce, long and bloody fight to capture the area in its entirety, and the objective may not be done until late into 2017. 




Two other entities are vying for control and influence in the northwest. The green area between the two gold areas is another branch of the Free Syrian Army, but it is heavily supervised by thousands of members of the Turkish Armed Forces. Turkey invaded Syria months ago to prevent the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from connecting into one continuous entity, and they seem to achieved that goal for now, but Operation Euphrates Shield, as it is called, has been mostly ineffective. Many of the Arab fighters in this area were poorly trained and lacked the motivation to fight that the SAA and SDF seem to possess in greater numbers. The Turkish Armed Forces, while well trained and well-equipped, have not made much movement towards the stated objective of the ISIS controlled city of Al-Bab, even being repelled a few times. A full assault on the city, moreover, could result in heavy casualties for the Turkish forces as well as the Arab forces they are allied with. Turkey has the strength to capture the city, but when that will happen is not certain, and even less certain is the stated objective of President Erdogan’s to then capture the city of Manbij, which is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. 




Now to the last major entity in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. They are represented by the color gold in the map, and they are advancing towards the city of Ar-Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in a multi-stage operation entitled Wrath of the Euphrates. 

The Syrian Democratic Forces are a multiethnic coalition of Kurds, Arabs, and other smaller groups such as Armenians and Syriac Christians. Once a mainly Kurdish entity called the People’s Protection Units (or by the Kurdish initials of YPG), military success along the border with Turkey encouraged the group to expand and welcome Arabs and other ethnic groups into its rank and file. While the YPG (and its all-female counterpart the YPJ, or Women’s Protection Units) remains a distinct entity, the group is now more well-known by its more inclusive name. 

The result has been effective. Once surrounded by ISIS in the ravaged city of Kobane, the SDF coalition has carved out control of most of Syria’s northern border, extending deep into the south of Hasakah province. It has evicted ISIS from much of Syria’s rural north and east, and it is still advancing. The group hopes to surround and eventually capture the city of Ar-Raqqa, and then advance further south to the besieged SAA town of Deir-Ez-Zor, where a small but tenacious group of Republican Guard soldiers (a special forces unit, one of Syria’s most effective) loyal to Assad have put up heroic resistance against onsalught upon onslaught from Islamic State. While the SDF and SAA have distinctly conflicting goals for the future of Syria, and though they have come to blows a couple times, ceasefires have been effective and the groups have been able to coexist for the time being. If the SDF manages to free Deir-Ez-Zor from its siege, it will gain a large amount of goodwill with the SAA and will also be within striking distance of the oil fields to the east, where much of ISIS’s money is made. A march to the Iraqi border, while foreboding, would be possible as well, and would give the SDF control over most of the Euphrates River. 



Unfortunately, while it is often doted upon in the western media because of its stated aims for a democratic, federal Syria, and its use of feminism as a cornerstone of the group’s ideology, the SDF is not without its faults. 


A member of the Kurdish YPJ (Women's Protection Units) embraces a woman after assisting in the liberation of Manbij in northwestern Syria. 
Photo credit to the BBC. 


The YPG, its founding entity, still holds ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a left-wing militant terrorist group which has been a nasty thorn in the side of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast since the late 1970s. While the group is secular (and therefore does not inspire the same fear as a group like ISIS or Al-Qaeda) and not uniformly considered a terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK has employed ambushes on Turkish soldiers, suicide bombings, and feeds off public discontent and poverty much like Hamas does in Palestine. A strong SDF is cause for worry in Ankara, and not without good reason. 


Islamic State will be defeated, one way or another. But what happens next is also cause for fear. 

It’s been said many times before, but you can’t kill an ideology. Islamic State will die, but Islamism and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism will not die with it. Whether Syria can keep a lid on this poisonous ideology even after triumphing over ISIS is in serious doubt. The country has been through hell and will take generations to rebuild. Assad is still a bloodthirsty dictator who committed grave sins against his own people. 

While actual fisticuffs between the SAA and SDF have been thankfully rare so far, tensions between them very well could come to the forefront once ISIS is defeated. The SDF’s inclusion of Arabs into its ranks cuts into Assad’s influence, and the more land they capture from ISIS, the less the SAA will control at the end of the war. Whether war will break out between the two groups is uncertain, and there is an argument to be made that the SAA may not wish to fight a group which has included Arabs and helped defeated a common enemy (or may simply just be exhausted), the cruelty of the Assad government is not a fairy tale. 

What happens to Assad is even less certain. He likely will not be put in front of the International Criminal Court despite his transgressions because of support from Russia and Iran (and possibly even the United States, depending on President Trump) but he may be ordered to step aside after a few years and the country has stabilized. He may have no choice but to give the SDF-controlled areas some degree of autonomy as they continue to advance into more areas of Syria. 

And in Iraq, trouble may continue. Sectarian division may bubble up again after the war is won, and the Kurdish regions are still itching for independence. 


The road ahead is difficult and foggy for Syria and for Iraq. But with a lot of luck and shrewd negotiation, it may end up more peaceful and democratic than before. 


Many thanks to Wikipedia and Nineveh Media Centre for the maps, and to Reddit.com/r/SyrianCivilWar for their tireless work in documenting this conflict in painstaking detail.