Peshmerga, An Army, Not a Militia

[frigidmagi]

Totten

[quote]SULEIMANIYA, IRAQ – Iraq is a country with three armies and I’m-not-sure-how-many militias and death squads. The Iraqi Army is nominally the national army, but it’s still being trained, supplied, and augmented by the coalition forces, which is to say the Americans. It’s also not allowed to operate in the north. The third army is the Kurdish Peshmerga, the liberators and protectors of the only part of Iraq – the three northern governates – that may be salvaged from insurgency, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and war. Do not confuse the Peshmerga with the ragtag ethnic and sectarian militias running rampant in Iraq’s center and south. The Kurdish armed forces are a real professional army and are recognized as such in Iraq’s constitution and by the so-called central government in Baghdad.

My colleague Patrick Lasswell and I spent a couple of days with officers and soldiers at the Ministry of Peshmerga in the northern city of Suleimaniya. I knew already that the Kurds bristled at charges that their Peshmerga was yet another of Iraq’s many militias, and I have to agree now that I’ve seen and interviewed them myself.

Colonel Mudhafer Hasan Rauf arranged our visit and hosted us in his office. He was, I believe, the only officer we met who did not wear a uniform.

The fact that the Peshmerga can dress nicely and have formal offices where journalists can meet them does not in and of itself make them an army and not a militia. Hezbollah has offices south of Beirut where journalists can go – if, unlike me, they haven’t been threatened and blacklisted. Unlike Hezbollah, though, the Peshmerga take their orders from the locally elected and centrally sanctioned civilian authorities.

“The word Peshmerga is a holy word among Kurds,â€

[Mayabird]

I've heard many good things about the Kurds and Kurdistan, including some from a diplomat and former U.S. ambassador who'd worked in the Middle East for over twenty years. He told me that every Iraqi he's ever met that he liked turned out to be a Kurd. They have a rather American sense of humor and are pretty darn progressive (especially for the area) in women's rights. Daughter wants to be a doctor? Sure, why not? Everybody needs a doctor.

[Josh]

Here's hoping we don't leave them in a lurch.