Like father, like son

In the wake of Gulf War I, when Iraq was disarray and the regime of Saddam Hussein seemed to be teetering, the US encouraged the Kurds in northern Iraq to rise up. They did. However, when it quickly became apparent that the result would not be the desired coup in Baghdad (in May, 1991, a staff report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee quoted an NSC aide as saying "our policy is to get rid of Saddam Hussein, not his regime"), we opened the floodgates of bloodshed by allowing Saddam to use US-supplied helicopter gunships in crushing the rebellion.

Fast forward to 2003. Those same Kurds, despite having lost their bid for independence, have established a semiautonomous zone under the protection of the US-UK "no-fly zone." They are among the most enthusiastic supporters of the US war on Iraq. The US is eager for their support. The Kurds prove effective fighters and later help to track down Ba'athist fugitives, possibly including Saddam himself. And through it all, they make it clear they believed that they had an understanding with Washington, a belief Washington does little if anything to contradict.

That was then. This is now.

Irbil, Iraq (AP, January 28) - There is growing concern among Iraq's Kurds that the United States will once again abandon them midway in their age-old aspiration to set up a federal Kurdish state.

Kurdish leaders and many others in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq are convinced that Washington promised, just before invading Iraq 10 months ago, that the Kurds would be granted autonomy under a federal system after the fall of Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials say no such guarantees were made. ...

The Kurdish goal is to formalize their existing autonomy under a federal system and even expand it to the oil-rich area around Kirkuk, historically a Kurdish city. ...

Barzani, who is nephew of KPD leader Massoud Barzani ... said that during meetings between U.S. officials and anti-Saddam opposition groups and Kurdish leaders before the war, "it was confirmed that the Kurds will get a lions share in the new Iraq."

"And things gradually changed. After the war, they forgot everything."

Do I believe the US made promises and then turned its back on them? Well, it would hardly be the first time we'd done so. Lenin supposedly referred to people who could help advance his goals without agreeing with them as "useful idiots." Several times, the Kurds have been our "useful idiots." We opposed them when the Kurds in Iran rose up against the Shah (a US ally). We supported them during an uprising in Iraq in the 1970s (when Iraq was a Soviet ally). We discouraged them during the 1980s (when Iraq was a US ally). We have consistently turned a blind eye to repression of Kurds in Turkey (another ally). We encouraged them and then turned our backs on them in 1991 when they rose up against Saddam. So do I believe we could have made promises, gotten their help, and abandoned them again? Damn straight I do.