Voice of America’s Kurdish Service Needs Top-to-Bottom Reform

Michael Rubin | American Enterprise Institute

U.S. broadcasting was for decades an important element of U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe were crucial elements of American policy.

Dissidents, ordinary citizens, and disillusioned government officials behind the Iron Curtain surreptitiously listened to American broadcasts to learn the truth about their society. Both radio stations were stalwart proponents of democracy and media freedom; they readily published stories into countries or regions where the government sought to control journalists and hide the truth.

Increasingly, however, U.S. broadcasting falls short for four reasons. First, too many managers and journalists believe criticism of U.S. policy buys credibility. Even if this were true, having limited resources means every criticism of the United States requires sacrificing space to report on adversarial regimes. Second, limited resources hamper effectiveness.

As Turkey has transitioned from ally to adversary, VOA has kept its broadcasts constant. Even though Turks today rival North Koreans, Eritreans, and Russians in terms of the information and propaganda bubble to which their governments subject them, VOA’s Turkish service broadcasts news into Turkey just three hours per week.

VOA’s Latin America Spanish service also falls short, with Russia’s Spanish-language broadcasts into Cuba overwhelming the information space. A third problem is VOA managers who treat VOA as a slush fund for projects outside the mission.

During the Biden administration, for example, top officials prioritized entries for film festivals in the United Kingdom over broadcasts into states or regions of concern. The fourth reason broadcasts fall short is that members of various diasporas use their platform to pursue local political agendas. VOA’s Arabic and Persian services are famous for this; they have, respectively, favored Lebanese leaders or amplified the line of the Islamic Republic’s self-described reformists.

Unfortunately, the Kurdish service falls short for a combination of reasons. In 1990, Congress required VOA to begin broadcasting in Kurdish, Tibetan, and Croatian. It began doing so two years later. Kurdish, like Chinese, is a broad language category that comprises many different dialects, some of which are mutually unintelligible. Complicating this situation further, different dialects and countries use different Kurdish alphabets.

Thirty-five years ago, the world was far different. The Cold War topped U.S. national security concerns. So, too, was the situation of the Kurds: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq repressed Iraqi Kurds who were still recovering from his chemical weapons two years before.

Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria likewise repressed Syrian Kurds, many of whom he had stripped of citizenship. Turkey, too, was different. President Turgut Özal, who had become president the prior year, was open to negotiating with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), then at the height of its insurgency.

Today, in contrast, Kurds are most free in North and East Syria and enjoy substantial autonomy across northern Iraq. There, the biggest challenge to Kurdish freedom and liberty comes not from Baghdad, but from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) autocracy in Erbil or the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) kleptocracy in Sulaimani.

While the world has changed, the mission of the Kurdish service has not. If VOA Kurdish sought to advance U.S. policy and interests, it would support Syrian Kurds and promote democracy and expose corruption across Iraqi Kurdistan. Most importantly, it would broadcast news in the local Kurdish dialect into Turkey to break the Turkish media monopoly and counter its racist approach toward Kurds and its anti-Western incitement.

Alas, VOA falls short. While 20 million Kurds live in Turkey and 6 million in Iraqi Kurdistan, VOA Kurdish directs most of its content at Iraqi Kurds in the Sorani dialect, which fewer than half of those in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region speak. If VOA Kurdish prioritized reach and effectiveness, it would prioritize Kurmanji, the most widely spoken Kurdish dialect.

Outdated emphases also impact regional focus. Governance in Iraqi Kurdistan might be flawed, but the region has hundreds of media outlets. In contrast, VOA Kurdish neglects Kurds in Turkey, who make up over half of the Kurdish population; there is not a single VOA Kurdish program directed to Kurds there.

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan turns against the West, many Kurds in Turkey are increasingly interested in American society and culture. This could be a huge opportunity for VOA to demonstrate its impact, but Kurds who originated outside Turkey conflate focus with their own power. As a result, VOA Kurdish maintains only minimal representation from Turkish Kurds, seldom exceeding two employees and often employing just one.

Nor are the Turkish Kurds alone in neglect. Syrian Kurds were crucial to the defeat of the Islamic State. While they have partnered with the Pentagon and receive global attention, VOA Kurdish provides them only limited coverage. The same neglect extends to Iran, where the Kurds make up perhaps 10 percent of the population and play an oversized role in the country’s political and cultural life, but receive only minimal coverage from VOA, which employs only one Iranian Kurd.

Diaspora politics also paralyze the service. For more than 15 years, KDP partisans led the Kurdish Service. Fakhria Jawhary headed the service until her 2022 retirement under a cloud of mismanagement allegations. Motabar Shirwani, another well-known KDP supporter and the wife of Dasko Shirwani, a KDP member and director of outreach for the Kurdistan Regional Government, took over as managing editor, though she abruptly resigned.

Since then, the Kurdish Service has lacked permanent leadership. As VOA oddly does not have a dedicated Middle East or Near East division, the Kurdish Service operates under the South and Central Asian Division, which also oversees Uzbek, Urdu, Dari, and other languages.

Ayesha Tanzeem, a Pakistani American appointee with limited experience in the region, serves as the division director and, for a period, appointed herself as acting service chief. She subsequently turned over the keys to other figures alleged to favor the PUK.

The Kurds are on the front lines of several conflicts and will only grow in importance because of Turkey’s forthcoming invasion of Syrian Kurdistan and the Iraqi elections. While managers can tweak personnel, this is like offering a Band-Aid to an Ebola patient.

If VOA Kurdish Service is to fulfill its role, it is essential that the U.S. Agency for Global Media that overseas VOA revises its organization and emphases. If it is unable to nudge VOA Kurdish into the 21st century, Congress must do so.

If VOA Kurdish cannot serve its purpose, or if poor management, internal rivalries, and provincial agendas prevent it from doing so, then Congress should ask if its existence serves a purpose commensurate with the investment that taxpayers make in it.

Michael Rubin is a former Pentagon official whose major research areas are the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and diplomacy. He is author of “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter, 2014). He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute AEI. His major research area is the Middle East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdish society.

The article first published at aei.org

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.