Our National Debt: To the Kurds

The world—and the United States in particular—only supported the Kurdish people while they were a convenient ally.

Not only did we abandon the Kurdish people because of our greater need to help Iraq fight Iran, but we were complicit in their slaughter.

The Middle East may be the world’s most diverse region. It contains governments ranging from strict autocracies to blossoming democracies, and power vacuums where extremists reign supreme. But this is not a story about the entire Middle East, nor is it one about how the region got to be this way. This is a story about the Kurds, a people who have been divided and repressed for decades—if not centuries—in this tumultuous and ever-changing region.

U.S.-Kurdish relations began during the Wilson Presidency, where Wilson pushed for nation-states across the globe to be built based on a shared culture and ethnicity. The Kurds, as a distinct people from the Turks to the North and Shiite Muslims to the South, constituted a nation under this principle. An independent Kurdish state was established in 1920 after the fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire outlined in the Treaty of Sevres. Only three years later, however, their state was split between Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, which marked the birth of the modern Kurdish struggle for independence and unification. This was the United States’ first failure toward the Kurdish people.

Fast forward to 1970: the Kurdish Democratic Party was encouraged by the United States to support the new Ba’ath government in Iraq under the promise of greater autonomy. For the Kurds, the promise of United States-backed autonomy led them to reconcile with the Iraqis, who thought the Kurds were an inferior group. In a cruel twist of irony, the leader of those negotiations was none other than the future dictator of Iraq and abuser of the Kurdish people: Saddam Hussein.

Hussein soon betrayed the United States by signing agreements with the Soviets, which prompted the United States to arm Kurdish rebels opposed to Hussein’s rule—the first example of the U.S. using the Kurds as a convenient ally. But Washington’s actions precipitated terrible consequences for the Kurdish people.

In the Kurdish territories, it’s called “Bloody Friday.” To exact retribution for Kurdish opposition, Saddam Hussein carried out one of the bloodiest abuses of human rights in modern history. Chemical weapons were dropped on Kurdish cities and towns—men, women, and children were executed for wanting autonomy. Children died in the streets, choking on the air they breathed. As these atrocities occurred, the United States not only turned its back on the Kurds and downplayed the incident, but also gave Saddam Hussein intelligence and chemical weapons that he used to exact mass murder on the Kurdish people. Not only did we abandon the Kurdish people and their hopes because of our greater geopolitical agenda, but we were complicit in their slaughter.

Since then, the United States has continued to turn its back on the Kurds in favor of bolstering relations with other nations. According to the European Commission, Turkey has committed a form of “cultural genocide” against the Kurds: forcing assimilation, barring the use of the Kurdish language, and physically uprooting and spreading out Kurdish communities. Despite the Turkish government’s horrific transgressions, the U.S. seems willing to remain complicit as long as Turkey continues leasing out its air bases to American aircraft. Even when reports from Amnesty International show that the Turkish government is currently engaged in a war with Kurdish paramilitary groups, jailing politicians and burning down villages, the so-called “leader of the free world” turns a blind eye.

The calls for an independent Kurdistan came to a head during the United States’ onslaught against the Islamic state. During that time, the U.S. was looking for allies in a region without stable governments or governments willing to combat the threat of ISIS. They found an ally in the Kurdish people, who fought bitterly to protect their homes and, in the process, earned the respect and support of people around the world. With everything to lose, Kurdish forces single-handedly captured tens of thousands of square miles of territory from ISIS while receiving minimal air support and supplies from the United States. In turn, the United States adopted a passive stance, choosing to ignore the clamor for Kurdish independence and hoping that the movement would blow over.

Doing relatively little to advocate for a Kurdish state in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, or Syria, we let the Kurdish people fight our battles for nothing in return. However, now that ISIS has lost most of its territory in the Middle East, the questions regarding Kurdish independence have similarly vanished. The world—and the United States in particular—only supported the Kurdish people while they were a convenient ally. After all they have done, they deserve so much more.

It is wise and long overdue for the United States to formally support the quest for Kurdish independence. After remaining silent while Kurdish children were gassed in the streets of their villages or as President Erdogan of Turkey uproots thousands from their homes, we owe the Kurdish people our full support. We have dangled the promise of statehood in front of the Kurds for the better part of a century while they received nothing. Supporting the Kurds has benefits far beyond preserving our moral integrity. Becoming an ally of the Kurds would mean promoting a stable, democratic state in an area of the Middle East in dire need of one and supporting a U.S. ally right next to Iran. The story of the Kurds deserves a new chapter: statehood.

INFOGRAPHIC: Kurdistan is a key region in the Middle East in terms of both strategic importance and geopolitical influence. The Kurdish fight for independence, which has been going on for over a century, seems to be reaching a climax.