Don't Throw the Kurds under the Bus

Former Director of Central Intelligence Michael Morrell gave a three direction analysis of Iraq on Charlie Rose a few nights ago.  First and most likely is a partitioning of Iraq among Shia, Sunni and Kurds. Second was a Shia power play  using Iran’s Republican Army and Hezbollah to direct the Shia militias in Iraq and third was a pipe dream of harmony and peace directed by U. S. and other outside interventionists. It is a pipe dream because Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did a thorough job of destroying the germ of reconciliation that General Petraeus’s Iraqi surge so carefully nurtured.  It took blood, treasure and maximum persuasion to convince moderate Sunni leaders to work with Baghdad despite the Shia majority. This effort lead to a coalition government in Iraq with a Sunni, Tarek al-Hashemi, as Vice President when American Forces disengaged in 2010.  From then on it all went south with Al-Hashemi sentenced to death in 2012 after an Iraqi court convicted him of running death squads, something akin to Obama having the Supreme Court string up Mitch McConnell on trumped up charges.  A massive  surge effort on our part will not counter ISIS, The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, insurrection which appears to be better organized, funded and promoted than initially thought.

For centuries the Ottoman Empire let the various regions in the Middle East govern themselves autonomously. After it’s break up during World War I it was left to the British to draw lines in the sand declaring various quadrants such as Iraq and Syria as Nation States.  Currently we are seeing the breakup of this fiction brutally maintained by the likes of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the al-Assads in Syria.  We should let it happen and give our maximum support to the Kurds in Iraq’s Northeast because as the only democratic and sane group in the region they are worthy of it.  The Kurds should not be thrown under the bus for the pipe dream of putting the exploded bomb back together again and appease Turkey and Iran.    

According to The New York Times article by Tim Arango, Bryan Denton and Suadad al-Salhy “In Chaos, Iraq’s Kurds See a Chance to Gain Ground” the U. S. and Europeans are actively trying to thwart early attempts by the Iraqi Kurds to sell oil outside Baghdad’s control.  Because of our loss of confidence in Maliki we should let them sell their oil to fund their defense. It’s really a case of fighting fire with fire since the ISIS group is funding itself with oil from Syria and eventually Iraq as well.

George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 uncorked the Tribal Genie of the Middle East exposing Mike Morrell’s CIA fear that other countries, such as Libya, will have it’s tribes re-examining made up borders draw up by Europeans and cause an even greater chaos  in the Middle East.  The West has to deal with rather than try to stop it.  If we try to cap The Genie and thwart the Kurds, the only sane democratic Middle East actor besides Tunisia, then we betray our only authentic friend and a possible future shining beacon on the hill for American values in the region.