As Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was in Washington this past week to meet with other Iraqi opposition leaders and administration officials, his rival Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was conspicuously absent. As President George Bush continues to promote his policy of ‘regime change’ in Iraq, the White House has hosted recent high-level meetings with Iraqi Kurdish groups to determine their level of support for a potential U.S.-led assault to oust Saddam Hussein.
Barzani’s absence signals the conflicted attitude of many Iraqi Kurds toward U.S. military involvement in the region. Many Kurds want guarantees from the U.S. of protection should the Iraqi dictator launch pre-emptive attacks against them, as he did in 1988, when he bombarded several Kurdish towns with deadly chemical agents. Barzani refused to attend the Washington meeting reportedly because he was displeased that the U.S. has failed to commit to such prior protection. Kurdish leaders are also unhappy with what they regard as the government’s failure to follow up on promises made last spring to provide training, equipment and funds.
Talabani, on the other hand, president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), offered measured support for a U.S. military action. In a television interview this past week, he suggested that he had offered to U.S. officials the use of the Kurdish region of Iraq as a possible base for military operations. He later backtracked, saying his remarks had been misinterpreted, and stated that “the Kurdish people, to whom the United States has offered aerial protection, will favorably welcome the presence of U.S. forces to protect them against foreign intervention and any chemical attack.”
There are other reasons for ambivalence as well. Since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed unprecedented autonomy and economic prosperity. With the protection of the U.S. and British enforced ‘no-fly zone’, the Kurds have set up their own de facto state. Many Kurds fear that, in the wake of a war against Iraq, powerful neighbors hostile to the Kurdish cause, such as Turkey and Syria, would foil any attempt to preserve Kurdish self-determination in the region. Turkey, Syria and Iran all have significant Kurdish populations. Turkey has repeatedly voiced its concerns to the U.S. that no independent Kurdish state will be set up after any regime change in Baghdad.
In a visit to Turkey last month, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz promised, “the formation of a Kurdish state will not be permitted and also that the territorial integrity of Iraq will be protected.” News reports from the region suggest that since the meeting Turkey has built up its military presence on the Iraqi border to the tune of some 80,000 soldiers. Kurdish observers speculate that, in the event of an attack on Iraq, Turkey is preparing to invade the de facto state of Kurdistan and create a buffer zone to prevent a Kurdish declaration of independence. Turkish officials are afraid that any step towards an independent state by Iraqi Kurds will inflame their own Kurdish minority – 20% of the country’s population - with similar aspirations.
Iraqi Kurds, who make up close to 20% of Iraq’s population, have on the whole suffered horribly under Saddam’s regime. They have been victims of repressive laws and outright massacres. It is estimated that 5,000 Kurdish villages have been destroyed by Saddam’s forces. In 1988, the Iraqi government killed 5,000 residents of Halabja with nerve gas. The same year it forced over 150,000 Kurds from their homes to make way for Arab settlers, as part of a concerted campaign to ‘arabize’ the region.
The U.S. had been hoping that the two Iraqi Kurdish leaders could mobilize 70,000 fighters to take part in an assault. The mixed response of last week’s meeting suggests that the Bush administration must take further steps to secure Kurdish cooperation in its war plans. The Iraqi Kurdish community seeks above all to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the last war, when their communities were left at the mercy of a vengeful Iraqi army. This time it seems resolved to challenge any attempt by foreign powers to bargain away its hopes for self-determination to neighboring states.
