Chief of Police of Malibu

The Bush Administration persists in applying the pyrrhic values of gangsta rap to its relations in one of the most critical parts of the Middle East: the region in Iraq and Turkey inhabited by the Kurds.  The PKK, the Kurdish military group inside Turkey, has recently declared a unilateral cease-fire inside Turkey, providing a perfect opportunity to initiate peace negotiations that could head off war in the only stable part of Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan.  But since the Bush administration seems to prefer war to talk, it seems we’ll miss a golden opportunity and consign another chunk of the Middle East to the flames of inter-ethnic violence.

The long war between the PKK and the Turkish army does not appear to have any end in sight, as "Turkey has rejected several past
cease-fires declared by the group, vowing to maintain its military
drive until all rebels surrender or are killed" and there is little sign that all the rebels are going to either surrender or be killed anytime soon.  This is especially true now that the group has at least the moral and probably material support of the official administration of the Kurdish region of Iraq, which is the most stable, democratic, and successful piece of a country otherwise ablaze in civil war. 

But how long will the peace last if the Kurds in Iraq give any kind of succor to members of their ethnic group fighting across the border in Turkey?  How long will the Turkish military avoid bringing war to the one peaceful part of Iraq?  The government can make demands until it’s blue in the fact that Iraqi Kurds abandon their ethnic relatives, or that the Kurds in Turkey give up all their weapons and their grievances, but such ultimatums in a war that’s gone on for decades are naïve.  The Kurds in Turkey likely have some legitimate grievances, and the war there will not stop until they get something, especially now that the Kurds across the border in Northern Iraq control the resources of a de facto state. 

This brings us to the current critical moment, where the PKK has declared a unilateral cease-fire, demanding nothing in return for a promise to stop attacks.  This is the perfect time for the United States to reach out to its allies (Turkey on the one hand, and Iraqi Kurds on the other) to start negotiations that might draw the match away from the potential powder keg that is Kurdistan (which extends into Iran as well, and has as much potential as anything to bring both Turkey and Iran into the fiery cauldron of death that Iraq has become).  Some mild form of autonomy for Kurds in Turkey, with rights connected to the administration of Iraqi Kurdistan (like that of the Hungarian minority in Romania) could at once demobilize the PKK, assure continued peaceful development in Iraqi Kurdistan, and perhaps bring together two of the forces most friendly to the US in the region (dare we dream, Camp David Accords?).

So what is the problem?  At some point, some analysts coding different armed groups in the world decided that the label "terrorist" should be applied to the PKK.  Probably, in fact, someone of a mid-level staff position in Washington, DC.  But this label adjudged by some staffer now rules the decisions of the whole American government: "The PKK is a terrorist
organization," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "We take quite
seriously the concerns of the Turkish government. They’ve lost lives
… and it’s an issue that needs to be dealt with."

So the State Department cows to the mocking critique of the likes of rapper Proof in the Eminem song "When the music stops": "Y’all don’t want war, you want talk". President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice apparently draw their values from the mean streets of gangland, where negotiation is ridiculed and any option but war is seen as cowardice. 

This has not always been true of our government.  The 1995 Dayton Accords showed that the US can be more interested in talk to seek peace than continuing war for the sake of gangsta values, even when the talking partners have killed thousands of innocents.  Why?  Perhaps it was more important then to keep more innocents from dying.  Today, our gangtsa pride trumps our compassion for them.

This a plea to Secretary of State Rice: you are a scholar of international relations and you know that there must exist some point of compromise that can head off war between Turks and Kurds.  Take your cues from history, scholarship, and compassion for human life, not the values of gangtsa rap.  This is the perfect opportunity to defuse a major time-bomb that could push the Middle East into a wider regional war.  Don’t be afraid to embody what Proof ridicules–it’s ok not to want war, but to want talk.  After all, just four years after the release of "The Eminem Show," Proof was killed in a shoot-out outside a Detroit nightclub.