realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo
When the Islamic State group pushed into northern Iraq in the early summer of 2014, it swept up in its path many of the religious and ethnic minority communities that have for centuries called that region home. The Nineveh Plains -- a region home to Turkmen, Shabaks, Yazidis, and Iraq's ancient Assyrian Christian community -- has been the target of not only military occupation, but also complete cultural and historical annihilation. And while many of these minorities have opted to flee, there are those who are staying behind to make a stand. The Christian Science Monitor's Kristen Chick reports from Baqufa:
"Christians have taken up arms because they want to protect their own land, and many no longer trust the Kurds to do it for them. Even as thousands of Christians are fleeing Iraq, convinced they can no longer find safety, or a future, in their homeland, these men are hoping to preserve a future for them, even if they're not sure they'll succeed.
"‘After 15 years, you'll come back here and you won't find any Christians,' says Marcus, a young Dwekh Nawsha fighter who gave only his first name.
[...]
"Assyrian Christians have formed at least four armed groups to fight IS, with three operating in this area north of Mosul. Dwekh Nawsha is the smallest. ... They protect the village of Baqufa, which was retaken from IS last year, but their fighters also join [Kurdish] peshmerga at the front line, a little more than half a mile away."
Iraq's minority Christians existed in a kind of grey area long before ISIS began seizing their cities and villages. And if the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis can all slice off their own sliver of Mesopotamia, why then, ask Assyrians near and far, can't Christians?
"This is it. They either re-establish themselves in [their] own villages, or get blown around the globe and horse-traded," said Jeff Gardner, spokesperson for Restore Nineveh Now (RNN), an organization founded by Assyrian Christians in the United States.
Christian militias have been sprouting up across Syria and Iraq for more than a year now, and many of them, much like RNN's Nineveh Plain Protection Units -- who have refused to fight under peshmerga command, and have thus been forbidden by the Kurdish military force from joining combat -- are supported and financed by members of the Assyrian diaspora.
Although these militias are made up primarily of native Syrians and Iraqis, foreign volunteers -- including several American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have also signed up to join the fight. And while their experience and expertise has been embraced by commanders on the ground, some view these irregulars as a potential liability in a war that already has a very sectarian makeup.
The relationship between these Christian militias and Kurdish peshmerga forces is another sticking point. Some work with and even fight alongside the Kurds, while others do not. Assyrian diaspora groups have accused the Kurdistan Regional Government of running an apartheid-like system in Christian communities, and blame the peshmerga for the fall of Qaraqosh, a once-vibrant Christian city now under ISIS's control.
"Christian villages were inhabited by peshmerga, [and] inhabitants were told to hand in their guns," claims Gardner, whose Restore Nineveh Now foundation advocates for a protected, semi-autonomous territory in northwestern Iraq for the region's religious and ethnic minorities.
An Iraq comprised of sectarian outposts and enclaves poses its own bevy of challenges, however, and some have called such suggestions unfeasible and divisive.
"What happened was that some European and American parties -- as part of their strategies to defend Iraqi Christians -- demanded, through statements or press releases, that Iraqi Christians be given an autonomous region," said Iraqi parliamentarian, and Assyrian Christian, Yonadam Kanna in a recent interview with Al-Monitor. "In other words, those who made such demands are people outside of Iraq, while we -- who work hard in parliament -- espouse the principles prescribed in Iraq's constitution and proclaim the importance of living as part of a single homeland that unites Iraqis of all ilk."
However, if nature abhors a vacuum, it likewise offers little advice on how to properly fill it. As swaths of Iraq and Syria continue to unravel, people there will continue to revert to lines drawn long before the French, British, and Americans ever set foot in the region. The transition will be one full of uncertainty, and very likely violent.
Is Congress Paving the Way for a Christian Safe Zone in Iraq? -- Al-Monitor
Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East? -- The New York Times Magazine
This Guy from Baltimore Is Raising a Christian Army to Fight ISIS ... What Could Go Wrong?
Around the Region
Syrians are giving up, moving on. The upheaval and violence in Syria and Iraq has forced many to flee their ancestral homelands for refugee camps both in and outside of the Middle East. Nowhere has the pressure of this crisis been greater felt than in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, where millions of Syrians have sought refuge from the ongoing civil war in their homeland -- many still holding out hope that they will one day be able to return to Syria.
Some, however, are giving up on such a prospect, and they are beginning to look elsewhere. John Reed of the Financial Times has the story:
"Aid officials and refugees themselves say that Syrians are leaving Jordan -- one of the main frontline countries hosting them -- in growing numbers. They are being beckoned to Europe by friends and relatives who are already there, and pushed out by cuts in UN food aid and expectations that the war in their homeland will not end in the near future.
"‘Since September, with the Russians engaged in Syria and increased destruction on the ground, we see more people viewing Europe as more than just an option, but as a real avenue for the future,' said Andrew Harper, head of the UN high commissioner for refugees' agency in Jordan.
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"The growing exodus will bolster fears in Europe that the refugee crisis, far from abating, is likely to surge with a vengeance next spring, when better weather returns to the Mediterranean and Balkan refugee routes."
An uncertain endgame. The addition of Russian muscle in the more than four-year-long civil war has pushed warring parties to dig in, resulting in a deadly calculation on all sides, laments Mideast analyst Hussein Ibish:
"As it stands, both of the main sides in the conflict believe they can enhance their bargaining position through further fighting, despite being aware that they will ultimately have to settle for whatever they can get on the ground and at the negotiating table. Therefore, neither the global nor the regional patrons of these local forces can force them to make a deal at present.
"It's not hard to see the outlines of an agreed or de facto outcome in Syria based on the formal or informal division of the country into zones of influence, perhaps along Lebanese lines. But before such an endgame can emerge in practice, the main local parties will have to conclude that they have maximised what they can accomplish politically on the battlefield. Until then, the fighting in Syria will, alas, continue."
A reported Russian proposal for a constitutional referendum and early presidential elections aimed at solving the seemingly intractable crisis was swiftly rejected Wednesday by Syrian opposition figures.
Who killed Arafat? Today marks the 11th anniversary of the death of former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, and with it comes the annual speculation surrounding the cause of the Palestinian leader's sudden death. Agence France-Presse reports:
"The head of the Palestinian team looking into the death of Yasser Arafat on Tuesday again accused Israel of assassinating the iconic Palestinian leader in a Paris hospital.
"His comments came on the eve of the 11th anniversary of Arafat's death and two months after French judges closed an investigation into claims he was murdered, without bringing any charges.
"‘The inquiry committee has been able to identify the assassin of former president Yasser Arafat,' said Tawfiq Tirawi, the head of the probe opened in 2009.
"'Israel is responsible,' he said, without giving further details other than to add that ‘we still need some time to elucidate the exact circumstances of this assassination.'"
Correction
Yesterday we inaccurately reported that the location of a deadly shooting in Amman, Jordan, was the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center. The shooting in fact occurred at the International Police Training Center. We apologize for the error.
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