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Kurds Beg Obama for Military Help
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
August 6, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Defined not by isolationism but inaction, 52-year-old
President Barack Obama risks a historical record of retreat in the face of
today’s biggest threat to U.S. national security. While he and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney debated about the biggest threats of
the 21st Century in 2012, it’s clear that things haven’t changed much from Sept.
11. Romney insisted that Russia was
still the biggest threat to U.S. national security. While his concerns about Russian
President Vladimir Putin look valid, most still agree that radical Islam poses
the biggest threat to the U.S. With
Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi’s Islamic State seizing land in Syria and Iraq, Obama must
fish-or-cut-bait when it comes to radical Islam’s assault on the Kurds. Kurdish President Massoud Barzani
has asked Obama for military help to stop al-Baghdadi’s relentless assault that
could eventually topple Baghdad.
Whatever problems exist with the unpopular government of Iraq’s Shiite
President Nouri al-Maliki, Barzani needs urgent U.S. help to reinforce his
Peshmerga fighters currently running on fumes defending Kurdistan against the
world’s most lethal Sunni militia carving up the Middle East. Getting fighter jets from the
Russian Federation, Iraq has seen only lip service from the White House. Obama has sat on his hands watching
a Fourth Century Monastery blown up by al-Baghdadi, telling Christian monks to
pack up or face death. Now the ancient Kurdish Yazidis have been driven out of Sinjar by al-Baghdadi, massacring
over 500 Yazidis whose religion has close ties to Zoroastrianism, the ancient
religion preceding Islam in Iran.
Capitalizing on Syria’s civil war, the Mideast hasn’t seen this kind of
blitzkrieg since the heyday of the Ottoman Empire.
Watching Christians and Zoroastrians massacred, the White House can’t
continue to sit on its hands, citing the American public’s aversion for foreign
wars. While mistakes were made in
Iraq, the U.S. has a moral duty to defend its interests and those of other
populations that support U.S. national security.
Letting al-Baghdadi topple Iraq directly threatens U.S. national security
and erases the blood and treasure spent in Iraq.
“We have changed our tactics from being defensive to being offensive. Now we are clashing with the Islamic
State in Makhmur,” said Jabbar Yawar, secretary-general of the ministry in
charge of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.
Begging for military reinforcements, the Kurd’s line of defense has grown
thin with little backing for the Peshmerga militia. Already seizing the oil-rich
Kurdish-controlled city of Mosul June 11, the Kurds defenses have fizzled out.
When al-Baghdadi carved up Mosul like a Paschal Lamb, Obama should have
leaped into action, consulting with al-Maliki and the Kurd’s Barazani to evict
the Islamic State from Mosul and beat back the Islamic State. Seizing unprecedented territory in Syria and Iraq, there’s no stopping al-Baghdadi’s
maniacal pursuit of a new Ottoman-like caliphate. Declaring himself the caliph of all
Muslims July 1, al-Baghdadi, while not seen in public, takes a far more
aggressive stance than the late Osama bin Laden who preferred to stay in the
background. Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda
terror organization scored a big one on Sept. 11 but never seized land in
sovereign states like Syrian and Iraq.
Al-Baghdadi believes that all religious groups are infidels and heretics,
deserving ostracism and death.
Before the Islamic State performs a genocide on what remains of Iraq’s Yazidi
population, Obama must step up.
Ordering his air force to help the Kurds
confront al-Baghdadi, al-Maliki has finally done something to protect the
Kurds—but it may be too late.
Having pushed Obama to pull the plug on the Iraq War Dec. 15, 2011, al-Maliki
needs to make an urgent request for U.S. military help to defend the Kurds. Al-Baghdadi can’t be allowed to swallow up large swaths of Kurdish territory. “The Peshmerga ministry sent a
message to the Iraqi defense ministry requesting the convening of an urgent
meeting on military cooperation.
The joint committees have bee reactivated,” said Yawar, though not knowing
whether al-Maliki’s squabbles could be put aside. Al-Maliki doesn’t have the military
resources to defend the Kurds when the ultimate aim of al-Baghdadi is to topple
the U.S.-backed Baghdad government.
Al-Maliki must step up and ask Obama for urgent help to save the Yazidi
minority.
Obama faces some tough choices before he’ll have the blood of the Kurd’s
Yazadi population on his hands.
Over one month out from al-Baghdadi’s conquest of Mosul, the White House had
plenty of time to call in reinforcements to help rid Mosul of the Islamic State. Faced with the extermination of some
50,000 Yazidis now hiding in the mountains, they lack the resources to survive
much longer. “Urgent international
actions is needed to save them.
Many of them, mainly the elderly, children and pregnant women have [already]
died,” said Yawar. With time
running out, the White House must confer with Congress and decide whether it’s
time to defend the Kurds. Whatever
happens to al-Maliki’s regime, the Kurds are a natural ally to the U.S., worthy
of military backing. Lacking the
resources to defend the Kurds, al-Maliki needs urgent U.S. help to hold onto
Baghdad.
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