Kurdistan Observer

Amidst the ongoing efforts about building an alliance under the leadership of United states to effect a regime change in Iraq by all means, and as an Iraqi Kurd, somehow I have unease about the way the representatives of the American administration are trying to depict the post-Saddam build in Iraq, one hears repeatedly the assertions of the territorial integrity of Iraq after any regime change without mentioning the legitimate solution of a federated Kurdistan with the rest of Arab Iraq, the American foreign secretary did not mention any thing about the Kurds in his testimony to the Senate, and the vague condemnations of the Iraqi Dictator who gassed his (own) people without mentioning the Kurds by name and the mixed signals of deputy defense minister during his visit to Turkey lately about the American commitment to the territorial integrity of Iraq without mentioning the Iraqi Kurds with a single word, although its the atrocities that Saddam committed against Kurds which constitute the backbone of the arguments for regime change by the American administration, the silence of the American administration towards the provocative threats of Turkey to intervene in In Iraqi Kurdistan and occupy parts of Kurdistan to prevent any Kurdish entity whether its independency, federation or autonomy as if the Iraqi Kurds belong to the long buried ottoman Dynasty, all these among many other attitudes and statements raises a genuine suspicion that the Americans are probably ready to betray the Kurds again as they have done repeatedly without any remorse in 1975, 1988 und 1991, this time to appease its ally Turkey, a country with shameful history of treating Kurds in north Kurdistan within the boundaries of present Turkey or to comfort Arab nationalists within the Iraqi opposition.

The American administration must learn from its previous mistakes in dealing with legitimate issue of Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan and other parts of Kurdistan, the refusal of the successive Iraqi regimes to recognize the Kurdish aspirations and their resort to military force, assimilation and genocide to suppress the Kurdish uprisings did actually push Iraq into three bloody wars during the reign of Saddam Hussein alone, the internal war against Kurds and Shiites,the Iraq-Iran war and the first Gulf war, the Kurds in Iraq are, really without any exaggeration the key to stability in Iraq, they will continue to be a key to the stability in the post-Saddam Iraq, because they are the only force that have taken real steps to build democracy and a civil society which can serve as a model for future federated Iraq with its ethnic and religious diversities.

The American administration must restrain the Turks and forbid them from threatening and intervening in the affairs of Iraqi Kurdistan, because the Kurds are a democratic force which is grateful for the American protection in Kurdish safe heaven and are looking forwards to cooperate with Americans, as long as they guarantee their legitimate rights of self-determination in post-Saddam Iraq.

The Kurdish political leaders must abandon their good heartedness or naivety and ask the American administration for unequivocal written commitments, which they don't shy to mention to the entire international community and especially to the uneasy neighbors of Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey. In the Western world spoken words are forgotten quickly, only written and signed statements can withstand the test of time. Without such commitments and clarity the Future of Kurds and other Iraqis in the Post-Saddam Iraq looks gloomy.

Dr.Nazad Hawramany
Switzerland