The Iraq Conundrum Is Not Over

By Joon Suh

“Sovereignty” seems to be the buzzword in the world’s currently most troubled country. After six years of national security life-support from the United States, Iraqis made the audacious attempt to seize the opportunity of self-determination, finally reclaiming the role of policing its own streets. Regaining sovereignty was followed by a nationwide festivity, marked by a new holiday, National Sovereignty Day.

Reclaiming its own streets is, without doubt, a great achievement for Iraq—certainly worthy of commemoration. However, it does not provide a solution to all of the conundrums that have so far obstructed Iraq from statehood. In fact, it generates new ones, and they are challenges that necessitate an orchestra of diplomatic goodwill from within the Middle East and outside the Middle East—with a special emphasis on the former.

Iraq’s sovereignty conundrum stems from the turmoil in its northern region. At a glance of the word “northern region,” many are inclined to envisage the urban combat in Mosul, which has received the lion’s share of global media attention as Iraq’s most violent city. However, in Iraq, where ethnic identity constitutes the core of virtually all social relationships, the first problem relevant to sovereignty rises along borders separating the Kurdish ethnic sect from the rest of Iraq.

Although the Kurds have persistently moved to escalate the status of their region to full-fledged statehood, its defiance of the Iraqi authority has escalated recently as Kurdish heavyweights are pushing forward Kurdistan’s own constitution. The fact that a referendum on the constitution was scheduled strongly suggests that Kurdistan’s relationship with Baghdad is worsening.
For Iraq, this is a potent and grave threat to its national sovereignty. It is a threat because territorial integrity is being jeopardized by an active and organized secessionist movement within defined territory; more so for the reason that it places Iraq in a thorny seat at the table with Turkey, which will immensely influence Iraq’s short- and long-term future.

That is because Kurdish secession and the simultaneous claim of Kurdish statehood is a national security threat to Turkey. The Kurdish nation is largely divided by the border that lies between Turkey and Iraq. An independent Kurdistan not only provides safe haven for secessionist groups like the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) but also creates a state actor whose interest is to reconstruct the Kurdish nation that stretches over two state territories. Turkey has always been interested in preventing the erection of a Kurdish state, which explains its incursion into northern Iraq in 2008, an act for which it was reprimanded by the United States.

Today, Turkey possesses more sway than ever over matters in the region, and this has profound implications for Iraq. Turkey is highly likely to have significant sway over Iraq’s human security—a new dimension of national security that concerns securing resources and infrastructures vital to the humanitarian needs of a country. For instance, while the Euphrates is drying up with cleft river beds being revealed, Turkey and Syria control the hydro supply in Euphrates’ upstream region where they have eight dams in total. The part of Euphrates that bleeds out from Turkey is the most northern part of the river. This means that the control panel for the hydro supply via Euphrates rests in Turkey, which would make Syria partially vulnerable, and Iraq significantly vulnerable to Turkey’s influence over the river.

The drought works immensely to the detriment of Iraq. Rice farmers along the river are no longer able to harvest due to the drought which leads to more imports of grain. This is a classic example of hydro security’s domino effect. Havoc in hydro security is being wreaked on food security and it could also damage public health security in many of the urban centers that rely on the Euphrates for water because water is central to public health and sanitation. Hydro security is vital for survival.

Turkey is also a strategic foothold of high importance to Iraq. It is a logistics stronghold, a gateway for strategic and humanitarian supplies into Iraq. During the time of the US occupation, 70-80% of US supply was transported via Turkey. It is a serious foreign policy conundrum for Iraq to come to terms with Turkey in maintaining a safe corridor for aid supply.

Aside from Turkey, another country that Iraq must establish rapport with is Syria, and this could, in fact, be one of the greatest challenges that Iraq will face in diplomacy. Syria’s affiliation to Iran puts the United States at odds with Syria. Iraq, still a client of the United States and the beneficiary of its assistance, will face grave difficulty in weighing the Iraq-US relationship and the Iraq-Syria relationship.

Often, adolescents crave adulthood, a status of independence and liberty. However, they seldom have a complete understanding of the gravity that adulthood levies upon their shoulders. Today, Iraq is an adolescent seeking adulthood, and it may appear that it has reached adulthood. However, adulthood creates new problems and much heavier responsibilities. This infant democracy needs all the support that its patron state, the United States, can afford. However, it should keep in mind that its survival in the “jungle” should not come at the expense of good relations with its neighbors.

Welcome, Iraq, to the jungle.

Passing Away with an Impact: What We Should Learn from the Late Cardinal

Joon Suh

The world today is increasingly divided by ethnic bigotry and inter-religious strife. In some parts of the world, coexistence and reconciliation between or among religions is an extravagance, if not, an impossibility. Too often, religious fervor is expressed in atrocities – in forms of war, terrorism, genocide, and other ways beyond brute force. It’s a shame that lives must be claimed in the names of mythical figures, while those mythical figures have never preached for violence and hatred (except for their occasional threats of damnation upon disobedience to their teachings) but for peace and prosperity.

Compared to the rest of the world, South Korea has been lucky in this respect. South Korea is a land where the cross, the crescent and the swastika dwell together as neighbors in a society without violence having to erupt over faith. As long as you are not male and Jehovah’s Witness, your freedom to religion has been and is still well preserved.

Koreans owe this kind of freedom to men like the late Cardinal Sou-hwan Stephan Kim, who have surmounted walls that, in some dark corners of the world, would have provided fuel and ignition for bloody conflicts. He was the personification of love and humanity that is silently fading away at a quick pace in the contemporary society. This devoted model citizen was a hero which makes his recent death especially tragic for South Korea. He may no longer live but the legacy of this hero must continue to do so to better the Korean society that is suffering from malnutrition of simple human values. The values Koreans must uphold to continue his legacy is twofold: love and justice, both of which come in short supply in this society.

While this society honors the greatness of the winners, it must also be able to embrace the losers – it’s living up to the old saying “Win with humility and lose with grace.” Cardinal Kim’s distinguished spirit of service is a perfect substantiation of that. In spite of being a Catholic clergyman, his love for mankind had no religious or social boundaries. Any good human, regardless of his or her size of wealth, level of education, and faith, deserved his blessings. Yet still, he applied the principle of equal but differentiated love. Always on top of his agenda were the underprivileged of our society. His priorities entailed helping those who cannot help themselves help themselves, so they can lose with grace and not with despair and find new opportunities for a better life. His contributions to various poverty alleviation efforts and donation of his two corneas are just some of the examples of his love. An increasing number of people are following suit as they choose organ donations as aftermath of their deaths. In this sense, his greatest work, I would say, was using the name of God in good will, broadcasting the message of love itself and making an impact that would draw others to join causes of love.

Contrary to his benign face, the cardinal knew his moment to be stern and bitter. During Jeon Doo-hwan’s dictatorship, the cardinal spoke against government oppression on pro-democracy movement demanding Jeon’s abdication, analogously comparing the then South Korea as a “western film” in which “the person who draws his gun first wins.” However, on June of 1987, when civilian protestors sought asylum at the Myung-dong Cathedral on the run from armed riot controllers, he demonstrated that “the person who draws his gun first” does not win after all. He unequivocally told the riot controllers that only over his dead body – followed by priests and nuns – will they be able to infringe upon the protestors. That day, South Korean democracy was reborn because he exemplified the superiority of conscience and justice over violence and tyranny.

Today, over his dead body is a country with a flourishing economy and a relatively stable democracy, at the same time, one that is incomplete in many ways. The fact of the matter is South Korea today is hit by the worst economic hardship since the birth of the republic and suffers from political stalemate derived from irrationally excessive partisan division. We mourn Cardinal Kim’s death because he had what this country needed the most: a sense of solidarity. Yet, at the same time, we cherish his legacy as a prophet of love and justice. Rest in peace, Cardinal Kim. I’ve never been much of a church goer but I will miss you and so will the rest of South Korea.