Catching Up With Kurdistan:The Obama Fallacy

[pgresearch]

The Iraqi national borders are factually a culturally blind, capitalistically minded creation of 20th century Imperial England. After World War 1, during the fragmentation of the former Ottoman Empire, the League of Nations granted England the land currently known as Iraq. With quixotic visions of the Garden of Eden sprawled out through their minds, the English pictured a time when their Indian colonists would grow enough food for the entire British Empire, cultivated on the fertile shores of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Originally slated to become an independent state, the Kurdish Region, including Its ancestral capitol of Kirkuk, later was denied and fused with the rest of modern Iraq; the discovery of large oil reserves surrounding Kirkuk had made the area especially important to the English. In 1918, Kurdish leaders unsuccessfully requested English support for a united, independent Kurdistan. Tensions between the Kurds and the British occupiers would continue to mount when the Meccan born Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashim, a man nearly no Kurd had ever heard of, was installed the first King of Iraq.

The people of the region have faced their share of death, destruction, and betrayal since 1918: in the 1920s, Winston Churchill advised and authorized use of mustard gas to suppress Kurdish leader Mahmud Barzanji’s Kurdish revolt; in 1945, the short-lived, soviet backed Mahabad Republic was created, abandoned, and left to be destroyed by Iran; in 1974, seeking only to slightly weaken the Iraqi Government, the United States and Iran initiated a Kurdish revolt- only to abandon the plan midway and leave the Kurds to be massacred; during the 80s, Hussein led the infamous Al Anfal campaign against the Kurds, murdering and displacing tens of thousands. Propaganda, Exploitation, and cruel despotic power have been the only agents of Iraqi preservation.

In 1991, after the Gulf War, the American exit allowed the Saddam Régime to reinstitute its genocide of the Kurdish people. As a result the United States would eventually enforce a no-fly zone over the Iraqi Kurdish region. It is under this most recent protection that the largest ethnic group without a recognized nation-state began their most promising attempt at independence.

Now free from the destruction and violence of Hussein’s genocidal Al- Anfal campaign, the KRG’s 1970’s autonomous accord agreement was finally reaching its desired fruition: A Kurdish flag was flown all through the region; a national anthem was created; a new generation grew up within this autonomous zone, isolated from the Arab culture and language of the south; various political parties have formed; independent relationships with many international governments had even formed. Israel and China have both released statements supporting Kurdish autonomy. Through Foreign aid and black market deals with Turkey and Iran, Kurdistan began to grow its wealth. In addition to the oil being exported in the U.N.’s nobly titled oil for food program, the Ibrahim al-Khalil crossing on the Turkish border become a viable, profitable method for transporting oil out of the region. The relationship with Turkey would prove critically valuable in the future. The culturally tolerant, pro-western Kurdish region now stood in sharp contrast to the genocidal Government threateningly looming just below its borders.

When America would officially return in 2003, they would allow the Kurds to come even closer to their dreams of independence. Fighting on the side of the coalition forces, the Kurds established a great deal more power during the chaos of war times, even briefly seizing control of Kirkuk. Afraid that a Kircuk included KRG would spark a civil war, the United States convinced the Kurds into militarily exiting their ancestral home. Although leaving Kircuk was a bitter reminder of how quickly fortunes can change, The Kurdish people rejoiced to be finally free from Saddam Hussein. When entering in the North of South of Iraq, American soldiers had been greeted as liberators.

The celebration over the fall of Saddam Hussein was short lived, as the struggling new Iraq quickly began to break down. The third American approved Shiite prime minister since the 03 invasions Nouri al- Maliki promised to increase Sunni representation in the army and central government. However, Prime Minister al-Maliki’s detention of thousands of Sunnis without trial, destruction of the democratically chosen Iraqiyya party, and the bombing of Sunni civilian areas has only further alienated the majority of the afflicted Sunni population. Prime Minister al-Maliki’s grandfather actually served as minister of education under the first British installed puppet king of Iraq.

When the IS, an extremist Al Qaeda splinter group would aim to create an caliphate out of Iraq and Syria, they would find their enemies terminally divided. With Iraqi troops fleeing from IS forces and abandoning their positions in Kirkuk and its neighboring territory, the Kurds returned to their ancestral land and are currently protecting the region’s diverse population and coveted oil fields. However, the IS threat against the KRG has never been greater. Already in control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and a southern neighbor of the KRG, the IS forces have used abandoned United Sates weaponry, vehicles, and military bases to launch their first successful attacks on Kurdish territory

The Obama administration, afraid to be credited with the splitting of Iraq, has appeared more fearful of Kurdish autonomy than Kurdish destruction. While the IS battled for supremacy within the region, Baghdad and the United states declared oil originating from the Kurdish region as stolen, despite the Supreme Court of Iraq stating the contrary. Any actor who perpetrates the alleged criminal act of purchasing the oil will likely face charges and be banned from future southern Iraqi Oil fields dealings. Rather than assisting the Kurdish people in thwarting the IS, the American administration had focused entirely on how to keep the KRG embattled and financially blockaded enough to no longer seek autonomy.

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Only with the global community rising up in the face of potential genocide and unprecedented instability, the pensive, conforming, tarrying, Obama administration finally confronted their fear of saying the word “Iraq” and did what should have been done months ago: provide incentives for Shiite politicians to oppose the divisive al- Maliki: provide the Kurdish people with financial and military aid: protect billions of dollars worth of foreign investments; ensure that American weaponry doesn’t fuel the creation of a genocidal, fascist Islamic state. For months the KRG has pleaded with the Obama administration for military aid, only to be told to first acquiesce to the demands of Baghdad. Financially starved and militarily drained, with all of Iraq on the brink of destruction, the Kurdish region, had finally received American assistance

On the subject of the Al Qaeda splinter group becoming a significant threat, President Obama stated,”If a junior varsity team puts on Lakers uniforms, does that make them Kobe Bryant?” That splinter group has become a full-fledged military force, in no small part due to the United States’ complete failure to recognize, at the least, a significant regional threats. President Obama’s previous support for an administration that fails to honor the Iraqi constitution or the Iraqi Supreme Court, and his complete forsaking of the Kurdish and Sunni people has contributed to the division and disenfranchisement that so frequently breeds terror.While the ever-pleasing President Obama accomplished his main goal of satisfying his constitutes enough to win two terms, the abrupt, vote pandering exit and political misinterpretations that followed have brought Iraq back to crisis. An administration that places more importance on electioneering than human rights and moral responsibilities certainly doesn’t embody change anyone can believe in.

If the IS is destroyed tomorrow, the United States will pressure the Kurds into giving Kirkuk to the central Iraqi government, regardless of whether or not al-Maliki is present. The KRG has questioned the constitutionality of the Iraqi oil Ministry’s deals with foreign oil companies, as the disputed land’s ownership has yet to be determined by referendum. The Iraqi constitution granted right wont stop the United States and Baghdad from requesting Kurdish withdrawal from their ancestral homelands -and a return to a unified Iraq. The Obama administration and Bagdad could never militarily force a Kurdish exit, especially due to many years of positive media portrayals of the the Kurds. If the IS happens to be contained after the KRG loses land to the extremists, America’s largest obstacle in obtaining Iraqi unity would be removed- without the political and global complications of taking the land directly back from the Kurds. Conflicting motives make poor allies.However,with the insatiable need China and Russia have for oil, the Kurds are not short on potential allies who don’t mind crossing America.


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[M.D. Rawlings]

Excellent piece!

I touched on this in another thread:

Finally, the Obama Administration's so-called inclusive-government strategy is in fact the very same dunderheaded doctrine as that of the Bush Administration, which incessantly pressed Maliki to provide for a more inclusive cabinet during the Surge. While the Surge was wildly successful, the Bush doctrine is predicated on the WWI-era relic of a united Iraq, when the best approach for securing an enduringly stable Mesopotamia among the irrevocably balkanized factions in Iraq would have been a three-nation solution carved out among the region's sectarian groups under the umbrella of an extended military presence of American forces, which would have been facilitated by the fact that the three major groups of people are already regionally divided within Iraq anyway.

Also:

But as I have said before, at this point, the hell with it. Let the Iraqi Shias sleep in the bed they made for themselves as the Sunnis of ISIS ravage their nation. All of our efforts should now be directed at defending Kurdistan, which was the only reliably stable and friendly region of Iraq anyway, primarily because its people are not lunatics.