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Published,
January 8, 2002 in the Los
Angeles Times
Commentary, August 8, 2002
“ A Relationship With Bite”
After so many betrayals, Kurds will be cautious about deals with
the U.S.
KEVIN McKIERNAN, Los Angeles Times.
There's a Kurdish proverb that warns that someone who has been bitten
by a snake will "always be careful of rope." That's good
advice for the State Department to remember as it opens strategy
sessions today in Washington with leaders of the Kurds and other
Iraqi opposition groups.
The Kurds have been burned before and, of the groups invited to Washington
this week, only they have a military presence inside Iraq. That fact
is of considerable appeal to Pentagon planners hoping to duplicate
the United States' success with indigenous fighters in Afghanistan.
Today, two rival factions, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, rule an area in northern Iraq roughly
twice the size of Massachusetts. The region has been under Western
protection since 1991. With a combined army of 80,000 lightly armed
peshmerga ("those who face death"), the Kurdish troops
might be recruited as a new "Northern Alliance" in a ground
campaign to unseat Saddam Hussein.
But this is not the first time the U.S. has encouraged the Kurds
to rise up against Baghdad, and many Kurds are wary of betrayal. "We
are not 'soldiers on demand' or 'custom-made revolutionaries,' " Kurdistan
Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani told me in a recent interview
in northern Iraq. "We won't permit another sellout by the United
States," he declared, referring bitterly to the uprising fomented
in Iraq by the CIA in 1975 when it armed the Kurds through the shah
of Iran.
As a favor to the shah, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger secretly
arranged for $16 million to bankroll a Kurdish uprising against the
Iraqi government. But the funding was a ploy, according to a 1976
study by the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
In fact, the United States never wanted the Kurds to win, the once-secret
report said. Funding continued only until Kissinger brokered a deal
with Hussein to cut off support for the Kurds in exchange for Iraqi
land concessions to the shah.
Iraq, knowing in advance that aid would be cut off, was able to launch
a decisive search-and-destroy campaign against the unsuspecting Kurds
only one day after the agreement was signed.
Had the United States not encouraged the Kurdish rebellion, the House
report said, "The insurgents may have reached an accommodation
with the central government, thus gaining at least a measure of autonomy
while avoiding further bloodshed."
The Kurds, as another of their old sayings goes, had no friends but
the mountains.
The Nixon administration refused to extend humanitarian assistance
to the refugees it had helped to create, and Iran forcibly returned
about 40,000 Kurds to Iraq.
Declassified State Department cables from the period reveal that
U.S. agents protested the sudden abandonment of the Kurdish allies.
Kissinger dismissed such concerns. According to the House report,
he remarked to a staff member at the time, "Covert action should
not be confused with missionary work."
The leader of the abortive 1975 uprising was Massoud Barzani's father,
Mulla Mustafa Barzani. When the elder Barzani died in exile in a
Washington hospital four years later, Massoud was at his side. I
asked the younger Barzani what advice his father had given him at
the time. "The biggest shock of his life," the younger
Barzani said, "was betrayal by the U.S. He told me to be cautious."
The Kurds bring to Washington bitter memories of what followed the
CIA debacle.
In the 1980s, Hussein's army destroyed 4,000 Kurdish villages, killing
or "disappearing" 200,000 Kurds.
There seemed to be no stopping Hussein. But even after he ordered
the chemical attack that killed 5,000 Kurdish civilians in the city
of Halabja, the White House refused to support trade sanctions against
Iraq.
There is also the sad chapter in Kurdish history following the Gulf
War in 1991, when the elder President Bush exhorted Iraqis to rise
up against the dictator.
The Kurds took the cue, but they found themselves abandoned, their
hasty rebellion crushed by Hussein without interference from the
West. More than 1.5 million Kurds fled to the mountains of Iran and
Turkey; thousands died.
Today, many see a "golden era" in Iraqi Kurdistan. The
economy of the Kurdish region is good, people have jobs, the shops
are full of imported products. There are Internet cafes, satellite
TV stations and cellular telephones. There is a respectable court
system alongside ministries of health, education and transportation.
In short, the Kurds have far more at risk now than the Northern Alliance
did before U.S. bombs started falling in Afghanistan.
The Kurds may be willing to partner with America again, but this
time they are demanding a "transparent"--not covert--guarantee
that they won't be left holding the bag.
They want protection against reprisals from Baghdad, which could
include chemical attacks. They also need to believe that if Hussein
is overthrown, he won't be replaced with an ex-general or some other
autocrat.
Before the Kurds enlist in a new uprising, the U.S. will have to
convince them they will play a genuine and significant role in a
post-war Iraq.Credit: Kevin McKiernan produced the PBS documentary "Good
Kurds, Bad Kurds."
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
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