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Obama Gets the Message About Helping the Kurds
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
August 7, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Reluctant to put
a toe back in another Mideast conflict, 52-year-old President Barack Obama
finally got the message about a potential genocide by the Islamic State against
the Kurds. Faced with infiltration and defections from the Iraq military, U.S.-backed Shiite Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki no longer has control of Iraq’s Northern territories
with Iraq’s oil-rich Kurdish-dominated city Mosul falling to Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State. Mired his a civil war with Sunni insurgents, al-Maliki lacks the military resources to
defend the Kurds in Iraq’s Northern territories.
Watching Mosul fall to al-Baghdadi June 11, al-Maliki won’t admit that
he’s lost control of Iraq. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have blamed al-Maliki for not including more
Sunnis and Kurds in the upper eschelons of his Shiite-dominated administration,
causing the current civil war.
Regardless of who rules Iraq, al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of the Iraq and
Levant, known now only as Islamic State, had a strategy of capitalizing on
Syria’s civil war and Iraq’s military incompetence. When Obama ended U.S. involvement in
Iraq Dec. 15, 2011, he did so with al-Maliki’s blessings, believing, at the
time, that the Iraq military was capable after eight years of U.S. training of
defending the country. With all the
U.S. emphasis on including Iraq’s minorities in the military, al-Maliki found
his security services infiltrated by Islamic militants committed to toppling the
U.S.-backed Baghdad government.
Since ending the war, Obama has tried his best to stay out of Iraq, Syria, Libya
and other Mideast hotspots.
Watching al-Baghdadi massacre Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and now the Yazidis,
the last of the Zoroastrian tribes in Northern Iraq, prompted Obama to finally
take action.
Al-Maliki’s attempt to give the Kurds air-support against al-Baghdadi
hasn’t been enough to stop Islamic State’s blizkrieg that captured large swaths
of Iraq and Syria. With the U.N.
Security Council poised to take up the issue of al-Baghdadi’s takeover of Iraq
and Syria, Obama has found France more than willing to help out. Sending Yazidis fleeing for the lives from Sinjar, al-Baghdadi delivered the Kurd’s
Peshmerga fighters a humiliating defeat.
Stretched to the breaking point, the Peshmergas are fighting on multiple
fronts to stop the Islamic State’s advance on the 1.5 million Kurdish capital of
Kirkuk. Capturing Iraq’s biggest
Christian town of Qaraqosh, the Islamic State drove out residents fearing
torture and mass executions. “The
humanitarian tragedy now underway,” Vatican’s Pope Francis appealed to the U.N.
Security Council to “counter the terrorist threat in Iraq,”
Seizing the Mosul dam and military base capable of flooding Baghdad and
other Iraqi cities, the Islamic State showed no signs of letting up on their
plan to capture as much territory as possible before the final assault on
Baghdad. Pope Francis’s appeal for
help speaks volumes of why the U.S. is the only country with the global reach
needed to beat back the Ottoman-like Islamic insurgency. Given al-Maliki’s incompetence to
protect the Kurds, Obama finally got the message that the U.S. military must be
deployed to stop the ongoing genocide by al-Baghdadi’s fanatical gang of
outlaws. Fleeing for their lives into the mountains above Sinjar, the Yazidis don’t have much time
left before they’re wiped out.
“This is a tragedy of immense proportions, impacting the lives of hundreds of
thousands of people,” said David Swanson from the U.N. Office for Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs.
U.N. officials are helpless in confronting insurgencies, civil war and
genocide, relying heavily on the U.S. to prevent such tragedies. Obama’s retreat from a more
interventionist approach of the former Bush administration has let several
hotspots burn out of control. If
Washington weren’t so bogged down on domestic squabbles like Obamacare, the U.S.
could fulfill its duty as the last remaining superpower. Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t
understand his role to provide more stability around the globe not undermining
the U.S. wherever possible.
Annexing Crimea has turned out a bad move for the once KGB agent hell-bent on
restoring the glory days of the defunct Soviet Union. Instead to working cooperatively
with the U.S., European Union and former Soviet republics, Putin has decided to
go it alone, lashing out at the West for opposing his actions in Ukraine.
Considering air strikes, Obama must do more for the Kurds, including
re-supplying them with the weapons and personnel needed to beat back
al-Baghdadi’s insanity. Drawing a
line in the sand in Northern Iraq, Obama can create a real legacy to protect
endangered populations and promote stability in the region. Whatever happens to Iraq’s Nouri
al-Maliki, helping the Kurds should pay rich dividends for U.S. national
security. It’s possible Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite populations are so far gone that
Iraq can never come back as a sovereign state, no matter what government exists
in Baghdad. Forcing a multi-ethnic
society on Iraq looks unrealistic, unfeasible and counterproductive at this
point. Saving the Kurds from
al-Baghdadi, Obama preserves whatever gains are important in the war on terror. Letting al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State
flourish, glorifies what happened on Sept. 11.
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