!KNOW BETTER WITH MESOP NEWS! – KURDISH WAVE OF NATIONALISM ?

  • US FINANCES PYD/PKK(YPG) DIRECTY & INDIRECTLY WITH ABOUT 20 MILLION USD PER MONTH –

Kurdish Seams Threaten Anti-ISIS Coalition in Iraq & Syria /  By Christopher Kozak with Leah Danson and Howlader Nashara (ISW)

The U.S. Anti-ISIS Campaign has inadvertently emboldened select factions of Kurds in Iraq and Syria in a manner that threatens to exacerbate preexisting political and ethnic divisions, stoke regional conflict, and disrupt current momentum against ISIS. The U.S. has provided extensive military assistance to both the Syrian Kurdish YPG and the Iraqi Kurdish Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as indispensable partners in the Anti-ISIS Campaign, enabling both groups to consolidate their control over large swaths of terrain outside of the regions traditionally held by Kurds in Iraq and Syria. The empowerment of these factions in turn revitalized nationalist aspirations within Kurdistan.

The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) – a political coalition led by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) – declared the establishment of an autonomous Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava in March 2016. Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani has become increasingly vocal regarding the possibility of formal independence from Iraq. This wave of nationalism has also reinvigorated insurgencies against the state among the sizeable populations of Kurds in Turkey and Iran.

The eruption of a conflict along one or more of these seams would directly undermine the Anti-ISIS Campaign in Iraq and Syria. The coalition remains over-reliant upon the Syrian Kurdish YPG and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga for military gains against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Any outbreak of violence that fragments the coalition and turns coalition actors against one another – either politically or militarily – threatens to stall ongoing operations against Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa City in Syria. These seams also stand to fuel the widespread regional disorder that provides optimal safe haven to ISIS, al Qaeda, and other Salafi-Jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. Anti-ISIS Campaign risks the long-term failure of its mission to degrade and destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria if the coalition proves unable to reduce tensions along these seams and rebalance its campaign to incorporate a wider variety of partner forces on the ground. www.mesop.de