Big powers, as with the greatest
of gangsters, have always had a certain, indulgent luxury; their
prerogative is to make promises they can choose to abide by or ignore. A
vision is assured, guarantees made. Then comes the betrayal. The
small powers, often pimped in the process, can only deal with the
violent consequences.
The United States has gone the way of
other powers in this regard. On Monday, the White House announced that
US troops would be withdrawn from the Syrian-Turkish border. At a press
conference, President Donald Trump explained
that the US had been in Syria “for a long time”. The stint was
intended to be short; and besides, the US had, by and large, “defeated
ISIS. One hundred percent of the caliphate.” (This point is confuted
by the US Defence Department Inspector General.) Distinctly
un-imperial sentiments were expressed. “We want to bring our soldiers
home. These are the endless wars.”
Ankara, having been beating at the
door impatiently for some for action to be taken against the Kurdish
fighters who form the bulk of the Syrian Democratic Forces, has now been
given what is tantamount to an encouragement: when we leave, do your
worst. Trump, for his part, has made less than convincing overtures
that any violent action on the part of Turkish forces against the
Kurdish fighters will lead
to an economic retaliation from Washington. In operational terms,
Turkey has also been scratched from the roster of coalition air
operations over Syria and limited in terms of receiving US intelligence.
Critics of the decision see the matter
less in pro-Kurdish terms than in those benefitting US adversaries in
the region. Russia, Iran and Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, warned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), would be delighted as this “precipitous withdrawal”. Islamic State forces would also receive a boost of encouragement. For Senator Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) Trump had made “an impulsive decision that has long-term ramifications” cutting “against sound military and geopolitical advice.”
The United States has, like a
deep-pocketed sugar-daddy, funded, watered and encouraged agents,
allies, entities and states in various global theatres, only to withdraw
support at vital moments. The Kurds and Marsh Arabs, or the Ma’dan,
were offered promises of support in 1991 in taking up arms against the
Saddam regime. The more than heavy hint given was that Washington would
put boots and vehicles on the road to Baghdad once the Iraqis were
banished from Kuwait. Rebellions were started in anticipation.
The mission never went much beyond the issue of restoring Kuwait’s sovereign status. President George W. H. Bush
felt that tic of restraint, the cold hand of geopolitical reason: to go
further would inspire doom and possible quagmire, the US having
previously received a most telling bruising in Indochina. The result of
this cruel calculus was simple: Best abandon the promised. The result
was massacre, with Iraqi forces mopping up with an efficiency unseen in
its confrontation with Coalition forces.
The Kurdish story of abandonment and
betrayal is historical staple. No mention was made of the Kurdish
nation in the Treaty of Lausanne, which saw Britain and France deal with
Syria and Iraq in artificial, jigsaw terms. Sects and tribes were
jumbled. The ingredients for future conflict were mixed. Britain’s own
great power contribution during the 1920s was to quash Kurdistan within
the borders of Iraq. But it saw little trouble, at least initially, in
recognising the Kurdish Republic of Ararat, as it was set up within the
boundaries of a severely weakened post-Ottoman Turkish state. The
Foreign Office, however, saw much value in Turkey as a geopolitical
player. Britain duly repudiated its position, permitting Turkey to wipe
that fledgling experiment from the map.
In time, the United States replaced
European powers as the Kurds’ serial betrayers, and seemed to relish
leading projects of autonomy down the garden path. Washington did not
shy away from providing assistance to Iraqi Kurds during the rule of Abd
al-Karim Qasim in the late 1950s. With Kassem’s overthrow in a 1963
military coup, support dried up. The US objective of having Kassem
removed had been achieved, allowing the new order to liquidate Kurdish
resistance.
In February 1975, the Village Voice
published details of a covert action program supplying Iraqi Kurds with
weapons and material that had run for three years costing $16 million.
The aim was to turn the Kurds into a harassing force rather than a full
blown autonomous unit. This took place despite strenuous objections
from those within the Central Intelligence Agency, a body not always
known for its cautious take on such matters, warning that thousands of
Kurds would perish. As ever, the man behind the effort – President
Richard Nixon – made sure that the State Department was left in the dark
for a good time after the program had commenced.
Despite US approval of an Iran-Iraq
agreement over the Shatt-al-Arab in 1975, the Kurds were purposely not
informed about the political shift and encouraged to keep fighting. For
the border dispute, Saddam got what he wanted: Iranian-US cessation of
support for the Kurdish cause, resulting in the deaths of 35,000 and the
creation of 200,000 refugees. Before the House Select Committee on
Intelligence (also known as the Pike Committee), Nixon’s Iago, Henry
Kissinger, was untroubled: “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.” The final report of the Pike Committee would not let this one pass. “Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise.”
The pattern of cold indifference, fed
by hardened cynicism, continues through the 1980s. Few tears were shed
in the White House over the use of nerve and mustard gas against the
Kurdish populace of Halabja in March 1988. In fact, President Ronald
Reagan, in the great US tradition of he’s-our-sonofabitch, made a point
of ensuring that Iraq was not penalised by sanctions. In the 1990s, the
Clinton administration separated its favourite, noble Kurds from their
destabilising counterparts, the former a celebrated nuisance to Saddam;
the latter a terrorist threat to Turkey, a US ally. In 2007, just to
recapitulate the point, Turkey was allowed free rein to target Iraqi
Kurds within a post-Saddam country.
The rise of Islamic State with its
daft and dangerous caliphate pretensions had a seedling effect in
northern Syria and Iraq: an incipient Kurdish independence movement
throbbed in resistance. Turkey looked on, worried. But US support for
the Kurdish resistance was premised on the continuing presence of
Islamic State, and its eventual neutralisation. The defeat of its
fighters, many of whom have found themselves in Kurdish custody, with
their families in camps, gave Trump the signal to move US personnel
out. While his sentiment on not feeding eternal wars is eminently
sensible, the consequences of this decision make it just another
betrayal, and another bloodbath in waiting. To the Kurds go the
sorrows.
*
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark
was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures
at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global
Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Dr. Binoy Kampmark, Global Research, 2019
