Prominent novelist and author U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.) has recently published a controversial op-ed in the Armed Forces Journal titled “Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East Would Look.”¹ The piece caused a controversy among Turkish intellectual circles to the point of re-examining the fundamentals of Turkish-American relations and America’s motives in the region. The implications of this controversy for the Middle East in general, and U.S.-Turkish relations in particular, must be analyzed more closely. 

To start off with the piece itself, Peters states that “international borders are never completely just.” The degree of injustice borders inflict upon those who live there, he continues, makes the difference between “freedom and oppression,” “tolerance and atrocity,” “the rule of law and terrorism,” and “peace and war.” Without expressly putting it, Peters seems to be telling the U.S. government that whatever it does or does not do, the borders of the Middle East are poised to change; Washington should act on this and take advantage of the situation. 

Peters advocates a re-adjustment of national borders and comes up with a list that spares no punches: A separate Sunni Iraq, a Shia Arab state (made up of southern Iraq, Iranian Khuzestan, and eastern Saudi Arabia), secession of Iranian Azerbaijan and its merger with the Republic of Azerbaijan, creation of “Greater Lebanon” from Syria’s Mediterranean littoral, Armenia (finally) taking Mt. Ararat, uniting Farsi-speaking parts of Afghanistan with Iran, the disintegration of Pakistan, and last but not least, a Free Kurdistan (with territory from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey). The panacea does not touch on the critical Israeli-Palestinian conflict because, in Peters’s words, it is “too intractable.” 

What was truly remarkable about “Blood Borders” was its reception by Turkish intellectuals. Last week, veteran Turkish diplomat Gündüz Aktan dedicated his entire column on Radikal to the Peters essay. Calling it “unbelievable,” Ambassador Aktan found it incredulous for a retired American serviceman to advocate such a crude and impracticable idea.² According to another Radikal columnist, Mehmet Ali Kışlalı, who enjoys an analytical outlook with Turkey’s military establishment, the article was part of Washington’s “carrot-stick” policy toward Ankara. With the July 5 declaration of “Strategic Vision and Structured Dialogue” by the United States and Turkey, the Bush administration was extending a “carrot.” Peters’s work, according to Kışlalı, was the “stick.”³ 

That two very respectable Turkish observers have taken issue with Peters needs scrutiny. Critical thinking is not to make judgments forthwith, but first to question the matter at hand. It is necessary to further scrutinize the meaning of “Blood Borders.”  

The worth of an idea is not really measured by its originality, but by its compatibility with reality. In order to realize the above-mentioned borders, the United States would have to expend so much G.I. blood that it would make the current American casualties in Iraq look like a pleasantry. It is highly improbable, to say the least, for the disgruntled American public opinion to give the Bush administration such a luxury after Iraq. 

The United States, precisely because of the Iraq quagmire, is neither in a condition to dictate terms in the region nor around the world. The insurgency in Iraq would not be defeated and the Palestine-Israel question seems anything but on a “road map.” Meanwhile, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela conspicuously defy “Pax Americana” and easily get away with it. 

Specifically, and this relates to the reason why Turkey must not be too frightened with the “Free Kurdistan” scenario, is that the Kurds, be they Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, or Turkish, are not stupid. They know the dire consequences of being perceived as “a second Israel” in the Middle East. A state that is formed under the auspices of “the imperialist West” will never have an easy time in the region after its sponsor leaves. This is the reason why the Kurds are only going to rely so much on the Americans. The leader of the autonomous Kurdish region, Masoud Barzani, knows this better than anybody. It was his father, Mustafa, who was abandoned by the United States in the 1970s as a quid pro quo for Washington to thaw its relations with the Baathist regime. 

This point ties to Peters’s lack of knowledge on Turkey’s Kurds. While the “new map” happily gives an enclave to “Free Kurdistan” on the Black Sea coast, had Peters been informed about Kurdish demographics in Turkey, the proper provinces would be Adana and Mersin on the Mediterranean, where they are in a majority, and not the Black Sea, where they hardly reside. 

Speaking of demographics and politics, it is apt to note that almost half of Turkish Kurds live outside “Free Kurdistan” and are unlikely to return if that country ever came about. As for their voting patterns, even though comprising about twenty to twenty-five percent of Turkey’s 70 million population, Turkish Kurds hardly vote for Kurdish parties, as evinced by these parties’ poor electoral performance.

Economically, Turkey’s Kurds do fairly well. The Ceylan and Toprak corporations, owned and run by Kurds, have been around for so long that nobody recognizes them as distinctly “Kurdish;” they simply do not make news for that. People of Kurdish origin fill the ranks of Turkey’s nascent middle class.  

One last point about Kurds, who evoke Peters’s sympathy because they “have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to ‘mountain Turks’ in an effort to eradicate their identity.” That most Kurds have migrated to western Turkey proves quite the opposite: People always run in the opposite direction when they are oppressed. During the 1990s, Turkey’s Kurds did not flee to Iraq, Iran, or Syria. Instead, they chose Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Mersin, and Bursa as their new homes. 

Ralph Peters has always stood out as a very smart and original analyst; he has said things as he saw them and said what others would not say. Outspokenness is a virtue that is in dire need these days. Unfortunately, Peters has not done a very convincing job with “Blood Borders.” 

Some of Peters’s previous prophecies have already been invalidated. Three years ago, after the fall of Baghdad and President Bush’s announcement that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” Peters published “Au Revoir Marianne…Auf Wiedersehen, Lili Marleen: The End of America’s European Romance” at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.⁴ In that article, Peters pronounced the death of Europe’s strategic significance (at least that of “Old Europe”) for the United States. In just three years, with the United States relying on the P5+1 initiative over the nuclear crisis with Iran and with increasing U.S. support for Turkey before and during every major EU-Turkey summit, it is safe to say that this prediction has been proven inaccurate. 

Recently, Peters refuted the claims that there was a civil war brewing in Iraq, after the bombing of the al-Askari mosque in Samarra last February. His New York Post op-ed of March 5, 2006 was titled as a reference to a teenage comedy of a similar name (Dude, Where’s My Car).⁵ “I’m looking for the civil war,” Peters had said, “and I just can’t find it.” In the past four months, many Iraqis have not been that fortunate. 

If the new American grand strategy of bringing peace and prosperity to the Middle East through democratization has any hope of success, the answer is not cropping up new states, but working with the ones at hand. Only a unified/federal Iraq can bring true peace to the Iraqi people, including the Kurds. A “Free Kurdistan” would never be free – it would be choked upon birth, exacerbating region-wide strife.  

Only a peaceful, democratic, and secular Turkey can legitimize U.S. policies in the region. For if neutrals and adversaries regard U.S. policies as damaging to an ally like Turkey, the United States will never be able to gain their confidence. 

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, a well-functioning Turkish-American partnership may be the world’s “last best hope.” It is critical for Turks and Americans to realize this sooner rather than later.