Trump Throws the Kurds to the Wolves
The one part of Iraq that was considered an unalloyed success until now is going to hell, and it’s partly Donald Trump’s fault.
Last month, voters in the Kurdish autonomous region chose overwhelmingly to secede from Iraq, which they’ve wanted to do since the day the country was forged in the ashes of the British Empire in Mesopotamia, and Israel was the only country in the entire world to support them. The United States said no. Europe said no. NATO said no. The hostile regimes in Iran, Syria, and Turkey said hell no , of course, as did Iraq’s central government in Baghdad.
Turkey closed the border and said the Kurds of Iraq will surrender or starve . Iran closed the border. Iraq sent in troops and grounded all flights into and out of Iraqi Kurdistan’s international airports.
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Then Iranian-backed militias moved into the city of Kirkuk and clashed with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces while US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson engaged in an excruciating display of both-siderism , as if fighting had just broken out between Britain and France rather than between America’s best friends in the region and its worst enemy.
“We are concerned and a bit sad,” Tillerson said. “We have friends in Baghdad and friends in Erbil and we encourage all parties to enter into discussion.”
Najmaldin Karim, the democratically elected governor of Kirkuk Goverornate, fled in the night to escape the wrath of Iranian militias. “If I go back,” he told Eli Lake at Bloomberg , “my life is in danger. Even the night when all this happened, I had to maneuver carefully to go to safety.”
What’s never wise or defensible is siding with an enemy against an ally. Ostensibly, the Trump administration is playing the part of a neutral actor between Baghdad and Erbil. The problem with both-siderism, though, is that it implicitly favors the stronger side. How could it not? If one side is in the process of steamrolling the other, you’re at least tacitly accepting the final inevitable outcome if you stand aside and do nothing.