The Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI) hosted Dr. Ozum Yesiltas, Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University, and she’s researched and written on international relations theory, American foreign policy, international human rights, peace and conflict studies, and gender and identity politics in the Middle East. Her most recent book, Rethinking State-Non-State Alliances, Change and Continuity in the US-Kurdish Relationship, investigates anti-statist discourse and the dynamics of how best to treat non-state actors in international relations theory. The Kurdish struggle is the case study she uses to structure her argument. We had the opportunity to pick her brain and discuss her research today.
What is it about the Kurdish case that led to your decision to focus on the, the US relationship there?
I was born and raised in Turkey, so I got involved in the Kurdish issue both politically and academically early in my life – I would say since the early 1990s. My involvement with the Kurdish issue in Turkey was mostly political and I worked with campus groups, non-governmental organizations, political parties, etc. But after I moved to the US the interests took a more academic turn. I wrote my dissertation on the comparative study of the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. I mainly looked at their role in the democratization processes in these four countries. Having lived in the US in 2007, though, I observed the marginality of the Kurdish question in US foreign policy. So this book actually emerged out of this concern that we need to put more academic and on the ground effort to mainstream Kurdish issues in US foreign policy.
In terms of sub- and cross-national groups more generally, what problems does the current international system kind of have and how it views and, and reacts to them?
I would say the book has two layers. There’s a theoretical layer and then there’s an empirical layer, which you mentioned in your introduction. In the theoretical layer, I try to bring in a critical outlook to the ontological scope of the theories of international relations. The criticism here is mainly the fact that IR theories are fundamentally state centric. And just like how the Kurdish question has been marginal in foreign policy, non-state actors in general, conceptually have been marginalized in the field of international relations. The theoretical part of the book is basically making the argent that, especially now in the 21st century, and especially focusing on the Middle East regionally, this argent that non-state actors are not wielding much power and are marginal actors does not really apply anymore. If you look at the practical politics of the Middle East, you see that non-state actors are actually pretty much acting like state actors.
They mimic a lot of state behavior because they have the resources to do so: they hold elections, they control territory, they use force, they have monopolies over the use of violence, just like a state actor. So how we discuss foreign policy, how we discuss international relations – from a state perspective – pretty much applies to a lot of non-state actors in the Middle East as well, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and especially the Kurds. The first part of the book creates this theoretical environment and argent that we need to start taking non-state actors more seriously from a theoretical standpoint – especially in the context of the Middle East. Then I move to the US-Kurdish case and the same type of marginalization is happening in US foreign policy too. I think one of my main argents in the book is that the US is kind of late to the party in the Middle East in terms of how it incorporates non-state actors within its foreign policy.
Especially if you look at the main rivals of the United States in the region – like Russia, like Iran – they’re using these non-state actors to achieve their goals in the region, especially looking at the long-term connections between Iran and groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The argent of the book is that the United States also needs to start taking non-state actors more seriously and incorporating them into their foreign policy.
If you look at the general landscape of non-state actors in the region, the majority of them are based on some form of religious ideology, while the Kurds can be singled out as one of the very few non-state actors which are based on a secular ideology and who pursue democratic ideals. In that sense, they’re actually a pretty attractive candidate in terms of establishing a long-term alliance with the US.
What levers can we pull in the US government to get to that point? Is this more trade? Is this diplomatic recognition? What are some of these targets that we could aim for along the way?
I think one of the issues in US foreign policy that I’ve always seen as problematic is the prevalence of short-term thinking and short-term calculation of strategic interests. In the specific case of the Kurdish issue, I think the United States has a tendency to refuse to deal with the political consequences of its military actions. The United States cooperated with the Kurdish militarily on many occasions: the 1991 Gulf War, 2003 Iraq War, and now what’s going on in Syria. And these – from the US perspective – ad hoc temporary alliances had long-term political consequences for the Kurds in the region, and those political consequences – in turn – came back to haunt the US and to affect the longer-term policies of the US in the region. It caused a lot of problems with US relations with Turkey. It’s definitely causing issues for United States in Iraqi politics, the Iranian influence going on in Iraq, problems between the Central Iraqi government and the KRG, the disputed territories, et cetera.
Refusing to deal with these political consequences is causing a lot of contradictions and dilemmas for US foreign policy. And I think one of the solutions to resolve these dilemmas and contradictions is a recognition that the Kurdish issue is a transnational issue. The United States’ first step is to recognize the fact that it cannot comfortably compartmentalize its approach to Kurds living in different parts of Kurdistan anymore. Understandably, Kurds have been operating for a long time within the borders of four different countries, so there are different Kurdish movements in different parts of the region… They’ve evolved differently, but I think for the past decade or so, those borders have been very fluid, Kurds are connected more than ever before, and the transnational aspect of the Kurdish question has been more and more defined. So this compartmentalized approach is not working anymore. What happens in one part of Kurdistan has direct consequences for the Kurds in another part, and it has direct consequences for the US’ bilateral relations with Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Recognizing this transnational aspect and coming up with an overall coherent Kurdish policy should be the first step. And from the Kurds perspective, I think coordinating actions more, especially in Washington DC in how they lobby before the United States government, would be a constructive step.
Representatives perhaps from Kurdish political parties or the autonomous regions in Syria and the KRG all working together when one of them shows up in Washington to ask for assistance, they should all be there or?
Kurds are in DC. HDP has a strong representation in DC, KRG is there, Rojava’s representatives are in DC as well. They have strong lobby groups in DC, so I don’t think that’s where I see the problem. And again, understandably, all these representatives and lobby groups in DC are trying to raise their own issues going on in their part of Kurdistan, and that’s more than understandable. But some coordination in terms of putting pressure on the US government regarding this transnational aspect is also out there. So, for example, the State Department is going to have to establish a separate Kurdish desk to deal with all these problems with one voice. I think that would be a very productive approach in terms of the right direction for US-Kurdish relations.
How do ideological differences between Kurds in various regions assist or complicate Kurdish-US relations?
Personally, I’ve never seen it as a problem. I participated in Kurdish studies conferences, collaborated with colleagues, studied the KRG and traveled to the region. There has always been some criticism that there is no Kurdish unity, and that’s one of the shortcomings of the moment. I personally actually never saw it as a disunity, but maybe I looked at it more from the perspective that this is political diversity in Kurdistan. When we look at sovereign countries, we see several political parties holding polar opposite positions too, right? Look at Democrats and Republicans – they barely agree on anything these days. There is political diversity in Kurdistan too, and that’s a good thing. We have leftist groups, we have more conservative groups, and as long as they’re maintaining a civil dialogue and coordinating their actions in a constructive way, I don’t think this diversity necessarily needs to lead to a problematic disunity. I do understand criticisms on the ground that the Kurds are separated by borders, and one of their main goals is political self-rule. And to achieve that, yes, definitely there needs to be some unity in terms of coordination, but I don’t think that means they need to merge their political ideologies and outlook in the world. I think that diversity is very much needed for political richness, and I don’t know, establishing a more open-minded future for them.
In terms of their coordination with the United States or European actors, do you think that this ideological diversity is more helpful when working with the West? Do you think it comes into play when we talk about how other countries are treating the Kurdish struggle?
So far, from the outside, this diversity was perceived more as an inability to talk with one voice. The question then becomes, “how can we help you in the first place?” I think there’s need for a change in outlook on both sides. Kurds need to better express themselves that this is not disunity, this is just us expressing ourselves from different political standpoints. But of course, when the West sees something like how the PYD and the KRG-backed KNC are clashing or having deep disagreements in the context of Iraq, that looks bad. I think those dialogues need to be established in a more constructive way and not in the form of “Kurdish unity perception.” There’s a need for nuanced strategic moves on the part of the Kurds. For sure, I don’t think they need to all have one ideological political voice, but I think there’s definitely a need to have that dialogue visibly among themselves. It needs to be explained to the west that this dialogue is not in the form of a confrontation, but just the natural consequence of political diversity in Kurdistan. It’s not something that would hurt Kurdish interests and it’s not something that the west needs to consider as an intractable confrontation or clash in Kurdish politics on the ground.
Isn’t this what the United States claim to want? We’re trying to encourage other countries to have this pluralism and debate – sometimes more rigorous than other times – that’s healthy, right?
Yes. The main issue is that the international community, like the IR theories, are still very much state-centric. If you do not have sovereignty, if you’re a stateless actor, then your political diversity is being perceived as political disunity. I’ve always been very outspoken on this when people criticize the Kurds harshly about having not a united voice, but I think they do. I think they do, but maybe there needs to be more explanation for it. Political diversity needs to be more visible or needs to be explained more capably to the west.
There’s room for growth on both sides, to be sure. US policymakers understanding these concepts a little bit more in depth would be really helpful. But you did mention the theory being focused on by state actors. I really liked that you kind of take a realist, a liberal internationalist and a constructivist perspective and look in your book at each of these frameworks’ explanatory value. For researchers, for people who are interested in furthering this cause at the theoretical level, do you have any suggestions for projects or concepts maybe to explore? How can we assist this at the academic level and hopefully produce research that bleeds down to the policy realm?
I think the study of non-state actors is a very strong avenue right now in order to better understand IR theory and to better explain all the issues faced on the ground. There is actually a large literature on the study of non-state actors, but to my observation, the majority of this literature is based on the study of actors like transnational organizations, international organizations, international institutions, multinational organizations, etc. The study of violent non-state actors, non-state actors that actually use force to achieve their political goals, is very limited. The literature’s mainstream approach to these organizations mostly studies terrorist organizations and how they hurt state interests and how they affect state interests in Middle East or any other region. I think there’s need for looking at non-state actors as agents, rather than just something that may or may not affect state interests in any given region. So I think we should put more theoretical effort in studying non-state actors as distinct agents in their own right. Once I think we have this critical outlook on IR theories that comes with it, especially in the context of the Middle East that I explained to you in the mid, in the beginning of our conversation.
What’s next? The subtitle of your book is “Change and Continuity in the US-Kurdish Relationship”. Do you think we’re going to see more “change” or more “continuity” moving forward?
The book subtitle is Change and Continuity because I looked at the evolutionary trajectory of US-Kurdish relations throughout the 20th century and the phases they went through how the Kurds were mainly proxy actors in US foreign policy, which now for the most part has transformed into strategic allies, especially in Iraq and Syria and moving forward to the future. The main question is if this is really going to turn into a long-term alliance, a stable alliance, which I don’t think we’re there right now, but whether that happens is definitely a question worth asking. And I think the answer to that question lies with another: we’re waiting for a clear US position, especially on Kurdish territory in Iraq and Syria. The United States is still founding its foreign policy in Iraq and Syria on short-term calculations, and there’s no clear political position on the future status of Rojava.
We still don’t know the future of how the conflicts between the Iraqi central government and the KRI will be resolved. If you look at all four parts of Kurdistan, they’re all going through pretty intense transition processes. Iran is going through a protest cycle where minorities, especially Kurds, are playing an important role. Turkey is facing an election this coming summer. What’s going to be the future political future of the Erdogan government if the administration in Turkey changes? A lot can potentially change for the Kurds. Transitions in Iraq and Syria are already speaking for themselves. All these transition periods, where the Biden US is going to stand on all these transition periods… it’s very exciting to watch. And we still need a lot of answers, but we don’t have any definitive ones for the moment.
Dr. Yesiltas, in terms of your platform, where can people go to see more of your wonderful work?
People can reach out to me through my personal email from Texas A&M University-Commerce. I will be happy to share my work with whoever is interested. And I have a bio page on Washington Kurdish Institute too, which highlights my studies.
I also wanna take this opportunity to announce that there’s an initiative in Iraqi Kurdistan to educate on genocide studies. Right now they’re organizing a conference for April on the Kurds. As far as I know, a lot of scholars from Europe and the US will be participating, as well as from the Middle East. Most likely I will be attending as well. And they’re planning to extend this initiative to a long-term study of the Kurds in genocide studies, which is, I think, a very valuable initiative because again, the Kurdish issue is not very mainstream in genocide studies. So, I think that’s going to be very good.
This first conference will be in Erbil. There’s some discussion that one of the conferences could take place in the US too, but the initiative is right now at its very early stages, so there’s no decision on that yet, but the first conference will be in Erbil in April.