The Gaza war has shaken the political balance in the Middle East. ADM analyses the latest developments in the region and outlines prospects for democratic solutions.
With the ongoing war in Gaza and Israel since the beginning of October 2023, the so-called “Middle East conflict” has once again moved to the centre of international public opinion and politics. There are warnings of a chain reaction and a conflagration in the region. With over 30,000 civilians dead in Gaza as a result of the genocidal attacks by the Israeli army, there are increasing calls for an end to the Gaza war and various regional and international players are presenting plans for a sustainable peace in the Middle East. However, the historical and social realities of the region are hardly taken into account. The warning by he foremost theorist and leader of the Kurdish freedom movement Abdullah Öcalan that “the greatest catastrophe for a society is to lose the power to think about itself and to act independently” (1) is particularly pertinent in view of the latest developments and discussions surrounding the war in Gaza. For Middle Eastern societies, the latest escalation is the continuation of a war and conflict that has been going on for a long time. In Kurdistan and Palestine in particular, there has been an uninterrupted war for a hundred years.
The Middle East as the centre of the Third World War
The current crises and wars, especially in the Middle East, but also at international level, are categorised by the Kurdish freedom movement within the conceptual and theoretical framework of the “Third World War”: “If we shatter the Orientalist paradigm, we see that the end of the Cold War for the Middle East is tantamount to the leap of the hot war to a higher level. The fact that the Gulf War took place in 1991, one year after the end of the Cold War, confirms this view.” (2) In this war, the prioritisation of geographical areas changes, but the war is waged in various forms in many regions simultaneously. Sometimes diplomacy (soft power) takes centre stage, sometimes violence (hard power). The war in Ukraine, which has been going on since 2022, also fits into this picture. With Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Third World War has left the borders of the Middle East for the first time. However, the latest developments in Gaza-Israel indicate that the centre of the war will once again be the Middle East. This Third World War, which has been going on for almost 35 years, can also be defined as a global reorganisation process that has been ongoing since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Within this framework, strategies such as the “Greater Middle East Project” (GME) are primarily based on cleansing the Middle East of potential threats to the USA and the West, controlling energy resources and energy corridors and guaranteeing Israel’s security.
The Third World War can be divided into four phases, in which different interests and actors were and are influential. In line with the objectives mentioned above, the USA began this war with the Gulf War in 1991 and the expansion of its military and political power by sending tens of thousands of soldiers into the region. In the second phase, the USA and its allies intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq. The international plot (3) against the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, also took place during this period. This plot was intended to weaken the influence of the Kurdish freedom movement in the Middle East. This underpins the important geopolitical and geostrategic role of Kurdistan in this war. The third phase was initiated with the so-called “Arab Spring”, in the course of which the peoples of the Middle East entered the political stage as a central subject for the first time in the modern era. This social uprising, which began in Tunisia on the 17th December 2010, led to a radical change in the balance of power in the region. Since then, the existing security, economic and political structures in the region have been undergoing an irreversible process of change. The external interventions of global powers in the conflicts and political struggles that emerged after the Arab Spring have further complicated the already complex regional relations. In Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya in particular, the bitter struggle between local powers continues, while on the other side global powers such as the USA, China and Russia are simultaneously involved in a bitter power struggle in the region. These power struggles between many players make the process very complicated. The fourth phase of the Third World War, on the other hand, is characterised above all by disputes over the dominance of energy resources and energy corridors. The current war between Hamas and the Israeli state can also be seen as a direct part of the Third World War.
Energy wars in the Middle East
In the context of the global reorganisation process, US hegemony is crumbling and the influence of states such as China, Russia, India etc. and communities of states such as the BRICS states is growing. In the development of a multipolar world order, trade routes and energy corridors are also being reorganised and the countries of the Middle East want to be part of this process of negotiating new main trade routes and energy corridors between Asia and Europe. The Middle East has thus once again become a field of competition between the main players in the global system, namely China, the USA and Russia. In contrast to the first phases of the Third World War, we cannot (yet) speak of a military trend. In the USA, we see a tendency to withdraw American troops and build up defence mechanisms through local actors. The conflict is therefore taking place at the level of economic competition. The key question for international players is whether China or India will be the main player in this trade. Currently, the US intends to secure the flow of goods and services to the West via India against China and to strengthen India for this purpose. China, on the other hand, which has shown little interest in the Middle East in the past, has recently become a rising player in the region. In addition to political initiatives, China has now made serious economic investments in large parts of the Middle East, from Egypt to Syria and the Gulf states. Energy security has become very important for China, which has become the world’s second largest oil importer in the last decade. The competition between China and the USA for control of global energy resources and transit routes is therefore becoming ever more apparent. The battle for energy resources and transit routes between China and the USA is not only taking place in the Middle East, but also in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Africa and South America.
A concrete expression of this competition for the Middle East is the attempt to minimise the impact of the Chinese project of a modern Silk Road in global competition. This was announced at the last G20 summit on 9 and 10 September 2023 in the Indian capital New Delhi by the participating countries of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) (4). The project will run from Mumbai in India via the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to the Israeli port of Haifa, then via Southern Cyprus to the European continent to the Greek port of Piraeus and from there through Eastern Europe to the German port of Hamburg. India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, France, Germany, the USA and the EU – the parties to this agreement – have launched the project by signing a Memorandum of Understanding. This project diminishes Turkey’s geopolitical importance and led Turkish state representatives to make open threats, saying: “Turkey may not be a game changer in the region, but it can disrupt it!” Behind conflicts such as the Nagorno-Karabakh war, there are therefore also efforts by the Turkish government to open up new trade routes via Turkey and Central Asia.
The hopelessness of the nation state
While these interstate conflicts and wars are centred around the hegemonic quest for power to secure energy corridors and resources, it is the societies in the region that suffer. In order to be able to develop democratic solutions, those responsible for this graveyard of cultures and peoples must first and foremost be named and held accountable. For Öcalan, it is clear that the source of hopelessness is nation states themselves: “We cannot talk enough about the imposition of the nation state, which is carving up Middle Eastern culture as if with a knife. For the most incurable of the traumas suffered was triggered by this knife. (…) The wound continues to bleed. Let’s look at the everyday conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India, the slaughter in Kashmir, in the Uighur region of China, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the bloody struggle of Chechens and others in Russia, the fighting in Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and all Arab countries, the conflicts of Kurds with Turks, Arabs and Persians, the sectarian struggles in Iran, the ethnic slaughter in the Balkans, the extermination of Armenians and Greeks and Suryoye in Anatolia – can it be denied that the countless ongoing and completely unregulated conflicts and wars like these are a product of the capitalist quest for hegemony? ” (5)
The cultural reality of the region is at odds with the nation-state model imported from the West. The starting point of this nation-state order is the Sykes-Picot Agreement signed over a hundred years ago on the 16th of May 1916 between Great Britain and France on the division of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. It was the forces of capitalist modernity that designed the Middle East on the basis of nation states – without taking into account the interests and concerns of the peoples of the region. When drawing up the borders, Britain and France primarily took into account the rich water and oil resources of the region and neglected the diversity of the peoples. Thus, the order established in Kurdistan and Palestine is an expression of this operative intervention of capitalist modernity. The order established in the Middle East is based on the denial of the right to self-determination of both peoples. Therefore, both positive and negative developments in Kurdistan and Palestine have an impact on the entire region. The struggle of both peoples for democratic and liberal achievements shakes the genocidal and colonialist order in the Middle East to its core. The founding of the state of Israel, which led to an escalation of the historical Arab-Jewish conflict and the emergence of the Palestinian question, is closely linked to the Middle East policy of the forces of capitalist modernity. After all, one of the cornerstones of the established order in the Middle East is the existence and security of the state of Israel. The emergence of the Kurdish question and the fact that it remains unresolved is also a result of the nation-state approach. Other problems such as the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian genocide are also based on the nation-state approach.
Without overcoming nation-state approaches in the Middle East, it will not be possible to solve these problems sustainably. The latest developments in Gaza show that the unresolved problems could plunge the entire region into war at any time. The same applies to the so-called Kurdish question. The nation-state mentality and policies of the Turkish state against the Kurdish society and freedom movement cause permanent tension, conflict and war. In contrast to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the dimension of this conflict is even more complex. Öcalan warned: “If the nationalist-statist current gains the upper hand in Kurdistan, there will not only be a new Israel-Palestine conflict, but four of them.” These contradictions in the region are behaving like an active volcano that is about to erupt. The nationalisms in the Middle East have led to a dead end and caused much blood and suffering.
The “Democratic Confederation of the Middle East”
A solution to the Arab-Israeli problem, like that of the Kurdish question, depends to a large extent on peace and democratisation in the region. The fact that the problems cannot be solved by the nation state, but are instead exacerbated by it, is best illustrated by the Arab-Jewish conflict. As long as Islam and Judaism are not freed from the context of power and state, they cannot be reconciled. As long as they insist on being forces of power and the state, both forces will find their existence in destroying each other, as they have done throughout history. According to Öcalan, any system that wants to seize the opportunity to offer a solution in the Middle East must therefore first conduct a successful ideological confrontation with nationalism, sexism, religionism and positivism. What is needed is the development of diverse non-state-orientated, democratic social activities and the liberation of the individual, which is focused on power and state culture. Beyond state- and power-orientated approaches, Öcalan sees the solution in a “confederation of democratic nations” (6), in which all cultural identities lead a peaceful life as members of an egalitarian, free and democratic society.
This “Democratic Confederation of the Middle East” is not understood as a utopia or a political programme for the future, but as a project that needs to be built up step by step in all areas. It has a strong social basis, and the dynamics of the political phase also offer the potential for democratic awakenings. The fact that democratic movements and organised social forces with small and effective traits can build something in a short time that will determine the future in the long term is demonstrated by the development of democratic confederalism in Kurdistan and the new social order that has been established for over ten years in the Democratic Self-Government of the North and East Syrian Region (Rojava).
The social contract – a new milestone in the region
A new social contract (7) was ratified there on the 12th of December 2023. This is intended to do justice to the developments of the past eleven years and is a significant step towards consolidating the democratic model of society in Rojava. The social contract takes into account all ethnic identities, religions, denominations, languages, cultures and world views. While nationalist-statist approaches propagate the solution of separation and division, the democratic-confederate approach has once again brought peoples together to agree on a common life based on “unity in diversity”. This ongoing democratic awakening in North and East Syria not only represents a concrete perspective for solving the social problems in Syria and an inspiration for resistant societies in the entire region. For the regional nation states and international actors that insist on the established order, this perspective also represents a danger, as it shows what societies that have the strength to think about themselves and act independently are capable of. It is therefore not surprising that the war crimes committed by the Turkish army fall on deaf ears internationally. This is despite the fact that former Turkish intelligence chief and current Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan openly announced at the beginning of October last year that the entire infrastructure in northern and eastern Syria was a “legitimate target” of the security forces, military and intelligence services.
War crimes as a foreign policy paradigm
The latest attacks by the Turkish state in various parts of Kurdistan are part of a chronicle of violence that we have been observing particularly since 2015, i.e. since the AKP government’s election defeat and the unilateral cancellation of the peace talks with the PKK. The Turkish government ended all negotiations with Öcalan and the Kurdish movement in 2015 and has been pursuing a policy of military annihilation ever since. With the Erdoğan government’s decision to go to war, the “Çökertme” plan (“decomposition plan”), i.e. the political-military offensive to crush the Kurdish freedom movement, came into force. In this context, the Kurdish question was not treated as a social problem, but as a security issue. After the Turkish state was able to acquire drone technology with the help of several NATO countries in autumn 2016, the former Interior Minister Soylu declared in April 2017 that no one would be talking about the PKK in the near future.
Against this backdrop, the Turkish state launched a war on several fronts simultaneously, which continues to this day. In northern Kurdistan, outright Turkish state terrorism is raging against Kurdish society and its political institutions, especially against the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM). Over ten thousand activists, politicians, women’s rights activists and journalists are in political prison. However, the Turkish state’s war policy against the Kurdish freedom movement is not limited to Northern Kurdistan and Turkey. A central dimension of the “decomposition plan” is Turkey’s new foreign policy doctrine of waging war primarily outside its own state territory. In addition to Northern Kurdistan, the government under Erdoğan’s leadership is escalating the war in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) and in Rojava. Over the past nine years, thousands of Kurdish civilians and members of the self-defence forces have fallen victim to these attacks, which are justified by the Turkish military with the “terrorism” discourse. Military operations that violate international law and war crimes have become Turkey’s foreign policy paradigm in Kurdistan.
The isolation of Kurdish politics
Another dimension of the Turkish state’s strategy, which has been ongoing since 2015, is the isolation of Kurdish politics at all levels. It was initiated with the total isolation of Öcalan on the prison island of Imrali. Since 25 March 2021, he has been denied access to all means of communication and contact with the outside world, including his lawyers and family. For almost three years, this form of detention has been practised by the Turkish state as illegal incommunicado detention (8) and politically symbolises, among other things, the refusal of a peace process and the insistence on the annihilation and denial of Kurdish existence. Starting from Imrali, this isolation is applied to all prisons and areas of political life in Turkey. Turkey’s foreign policy also aims to isolate areas in Kurdistan that organise themselves according to the paradigm of democratic confederalism. Be it the ongoing embargo against the revolution in Rojava, the encirclement of the self-administered refugee camp Mexmûr in South Kurdistan and the continuing threat to the main Yezidi settlement area Şengal; in all these areas, people are trying to realise the principles of radical democracy, women’s liberation and ecology. Isolation aims to stifle these examples of grassroots social organisation and shield them from the outside world.
Successful self-defence against the second largest NATO army
While Turkey intensified its attacks against the Kurdish freedom movement using all the means of a NATO state, war crimes and special warfare methods, it did not succeed in breaking the Kurdish guerrillas and rendering them incapable of action. The system of barracked special units, intelligence networks, paramilitary forces and a dense network of army bases was also unsuccessful in regaining control of the Medya defence areas in southern Kurdistan controlled by the Kurdish freedom movement. It remains in the hands of the Kurdish freedom movement. Several propagandised military operations have been unsuccessful and now it is the Turkish army itself that is encircled and suffering heavy losses. Thanks to technical and tactical innovations in guerrilla warfare, the Kurdish freedom movement has been able to adapt to NATO’s arming of the Turkish army with drones and new helicopters. The high losses suffered by the Turkish army in guerrilla operations at the end of December 2023 and beginning of 2024 could no longer be concealed even by the Turkish state and triggered a discussion about the meaning and purpose of Turkey’s cross-border military operations.
The political structures in the various parts of Kurdistan are also still able to set their own agenda despite strong repression and, with the help of social cohesion, resist the regular bombardment by the Turkish army, the embargo and other forms of warfare.
The parallelism between Öcalan’s situation and Kurdish society
In this context, the “Freedom for Öcalan and a political solution to the Kurdish question” campaign, which began on October 9, 2023, is a continuation of Kurdish society’s ongoing resistance to Turkey’s policy of isolation and destruction. It is a strategic goal of Kurdish politics in the midst of the Third World War in the Middle East, because Öcalan’s situation is closely linked to the solution to the Kurdish question and the situation of Kurdish society. He is the founder and thought leader of the Kurdish political movement and a representative of 50 years of Kurdistan’s political history. Therefore, the question of his freedom includes not only legal and human rights aspects, but above all political ones. Isolation on Imrali is the starting point of Turkish state policy towards Kurdish society. The Turkish state is also aware of this reality and is arbitrarily adapting the situation on Imrali to the political situation and current developments. These parallels between Öcalan’s situation on Imrali and the situation of Kurdish society have existed since the beginning of his 25 years of imprisonment. A tightening of the Imrali isolation was and is synonymous with an intensification of the war in Kurdistan. Phases of dialogue and negotiations with Öcalan also have a positive impact on the life of Kurdish society. Therefore, the degree to which the isolation on Imrali can be reduced will also give Kurdistan’s societies more breathing space and a political solution to the Kurdish question may come closer.
In addition, the freedom of the architect who initiated the strongest radical democratic, multi-ethnic and politically open grassroots movement for the Middle East and founded the political philosophy of Democratic Confederalism will also be a significant step towards a Democratic Confederation of the Middle East.
References
(1) Abdullah Öcalan, Manifesto of Democratic Civilization (Fourth Volume), Democratic Civilization: Ways Out of the Civilization Crisis in the Middle East
(2) ibid.
(3) Illegal kidnapping of Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya on February 15, 1999 and his imprisonment on the Turkish prison island of Imrali, which continues to this day.
(4) https://en.majalla.com/node/303536/politics/all-you-need-know-about-india-middle-east-europe-economic-corridor
(5) Abdullah Öcalan, Manifesto of Democratic Civilization (Fourth Volume), Democratic Civilization: Ways Out of the Civilization Crisis in the Middle East
(6) Abdullah Öcalan, Manifesto of Democratic Civilization (Fourth Volume), Democratic Civilization: Ways Out of the Civilization Crisis in the Middle East
(7) https://nordundostsyrien.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/The-Social-Contract-of-the-Democratic-Autonomous-Administration-of-the-North-and0AEast-Syria-Region.pdf
(8) Abdullah Öcalan, Manifesto of Democratic Civilization (Fourth Volume), Democratic Civilization: Ways Out of the Civilization Crisis in the Middle East
