As stories start to emerge about the kind of everyday terror the Iraqis faced under Saddam Hussein, I have to say that I am afraid there may be worse times ahead. The reason has much to do with history and water. Rivers and less pleasant objects roll downhill, unless something stands in their way. Nobody seems to be stopping the Turks from rolling down onto the Kurds, and the Turks reserve the right to stop the water from rolling downhill. In fact, they've invested billions.
To the north in Turkey stands the massive Ataturk Dam, but even more controversial is the Ilisu. Why? Well, you'd have to understand something about Turkish nationalism to understand what kind of nation would consider turning a dam project into a weapon.
The Turkish state has long denied the Kurdish people their ethnic and cultural identity and for the past 16 years has waged a war against Kurdish guerillas, which has seen three million people displaced and 30,000 killed. Dams are another weapon in the Turkish state's arsenal: what better way to dispossess and crush a people than to flood their lands and cultural sites? The Ataturk dam, built by the Turkish state during the 1980s, displaced some 60,000 Kurds. Inscribed on the dam's centrepiece are the words of the modern Turkish state's founder, Kemal Ataturk, 'Ne Mutlu Turkum Diyene' – 'Lucky is the one who is a Turk'.
Start in Anatolia. This is the region of Turkey where many of the world's 20 million Kurds live. At the same time that they are treated as second class citizens in Turkey, the government of Turkey has embarked on a massive project to improve the area. This is the GAP.
The GAP includes a massive hydroelectric project. There is a fairly established school of geopolitical analysis dedicated to the ways in which water projects are used in a form of hydro despotism. Whether it is the Chinese or the Egyptians, there is a common thread. Powerful people steamrolling over the less powerful in the name of progress. But even after such projects are completed despite whatever reasons they were proposed, they end up as targets or objects of conflict.
So if the United States is positive on the matter of the GAP, it would explain why they are willing to, in the words of Colin Powell referring to the Kurds controlling Kirkuk, "Take them out". There is quite obviously a conflict between the possibility of the establishment of an independent Kurdistan and Turkish control of Anatolia. I think GAP is the centerpiece. Some of the greatest florid rhetoric out of Turkey talks about their intentions to turn Anatolia into the 'California' of the area. Imagine if those Kurds tried to nationalize.
From what I am able to gather of the Kurdish perspective. One of their hottest buttons lie entangled in the fate of Hasankeyf. Hasankeyf stands as one of the last great examples of Kurdish cities in the world but it is in the Anatolia region of Turkey. The UK's Balfour Beatty, which had been a prime contractor on the project, pulled out two years ago over the controversy of flooding Hasankeyf. Recriminations are still biting today.
No matter what federal recognition they get in Iraq, Kurdish prospects will depend to some extent on the water they get, or don't get from the north. Oil as a resource will allow them to control their own fate and there are no doubts that Pesh Mergas will find their way to some of that oil revenue. Kurds in Turkey will suffer if Ilisu moves forward. How likely will they tolerate the Turkish governments grand plans for Anatolia? Let's watch.