Objections to the Iraqi Kurdistan’s referendum scheduled for Sept. 25 have gone beyond the political arena. Mosques are now involved, and religion is being inserted into the equation of supporting or opposing the calls for an independent state.Oh? For example?
These don't sound like religious arguments to me!
Mohammad Mahdi al-Khalsi, the religious authority in al-Kazimiya, called on all Iraqis July 7 to stand up against “divisive projects” and asked to put a nail in the coffin of this "suspicious" project. He also warned the Islamic world against forming a new Zionist entity that is Kurdistan.
Ammar al-Hakim, who heads the Shiite alliance, the largest political Shiite coalition in Iraq, said on TV in Egypt April 19, “I personally do not know any country that might recognize a Kurdish state — if announced — other than Israel. The Arab countries have Iraq’s unity at heart.”
Remarkably, linking Israel to a Kurdish state goes as far back as the Baathists, when the Kurdish movement was described as “Israel’s spy.”
In the end, of course, no one is thinking about whether Kurds deserve a state considering their history and their fierce ties to the land. They are, as always, looking out for their own self-interests and pretending that their positions on Kurdistan is aligned with high sounding principles like "unity".
By any sane measure, Kurds deserve a nation far more than Palestinians. But sanity is not the deciding factor in the world we live in.