By: Dr. Sabah A. Salih

21 February 2004

A little over three years ago, George W. Bush, in a self-deprecating mood at a dinner party, said the differences between him and his democratic rival Al Gore was that the former senator from Tennessee had written several books while he himself had only read one.

Bush’s outgoing secretary of Treasury, Paul O’Neill, has now written not only to confirm that there is some truth behind this self-deprecating remark but also to point out that the President quite often comes to national security meetings completely unprepared, leaving matters essentially in the hands of his advisors. Who are they?

According to the authors of a recent book, pointedly titled Bush’s Brain, since his days as governor of Texas no one has had more influence on Mr. Bush than his current presidential aid Karl Rove. But getting to know Rove is nearly impossible. The man operates behind the scenes and carries out his activities in secrecy. We do know, however, that domestic, not foreign, politics is his chief concern. In coaching Bush for the 2000 election, Rove made sure his candidate stayed clear of international politics. When the democrats charged that the republican was being isolationist, Bush gleefully accepted the label, saying that it was about time for America to wash its hands off the world and pay more attention to its own problems at home. Bush even joked that, beyond the visits he had already made to Mexico and Saudi Arabia, he would have no intention of going abroad again. His soon-to-be National Security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, elaborated further, stressing in an article in Foreign Affairs in 2000 that the United Sates Army was not "a civilian police force" and ought not to be used in peacekeeping or nation building.

But then, as the phrase goes, 9/11 changed all that. The Nixon-Kissinger wing of the Republican Party’s belief in a balance of power and distrust of global democratic revolution was now to be abandoned. The world was not just closing in on Bush: it was exactly in Bush’s face, forcing an inward-looking president into an outward-looking president almost overnight. Afghanistan satisfied a nation’s hunger for revenge, and Rove worked energetically to translate the mammoth loss and destruction in New York and Washington into strategic gains for the president domestically. The message to large voting blocks, like the Southern Baptist Coalition, was that America was now locked in mortal battle against evil. The message got through, and the president soared in the polls. In order to increase Bush’s share of Jewish votes in 2004 election, Rove also persuaded Bush, against the wishes of the State Department, not to deal with Arafat. By temperament, Rove and Bush are alike. As Elizabeth Drew writes in the New York Review of Books for 1 May 2003, "each man is capable of deep and lasting resentments."

As far as the Kurdish question is concerned, Rove can be considered neither friend nor foe. The Kurds are of little interest to him simply because their numbers in the U.S. are too small to have much of an impact on elections; there is also no Kurdish lobby in the country that one can speak of.

As for Bush himself, the little he has said so far in favor of the Kurds seems to be more a projection of his lingering resentment towards the Turks than of a genuine affection for the Kurds. In other words, Bush’s tilting toward the Kurds—if it can be described as such—came about only after the Turks denied his military the use of their territory in preparations for the Iraq war.

To what extend that resentment could translate into further strategic gain for the Kurds is anybody’s guess. But one thing is clear: Bush, unlike his father, is more a creature of impulse than of realpolitik, of the heart than of the mind--traits of an often-misunderstood cowboy culture that also includes loyalty to friends and commitment to one’s words and promises but also holding grudges. This is probably the reason why Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed during a recent visit to persuade Bush to let bygones be bygones. Despite some news stories to the contrary, Erdogan didn’t exactly get to hear what he was hoping to hear from the White House. It is inconceivable for either Bush or Rove to have much trust in the Turks again.

I maybe wrong, but I also believe it inconceivable for either man to forget all about Kurdish contribution to the campaign against Saddam and turn their backs on an ally in an election year. You see, now that weapons of mass destruction have not been found, Bush is finding himself increasingly under pressure to justify the war on humanitarian grounds, and that means first and foremost Kurdish mass graves, the systematic destruction of the Kurdish countryside, and the hard-to-forget Halabja images.

Because of the war, the Kurdish narrative is no longer a distant narrative to the Americans, unknown or irrelevant. Halabja has become a household name, widely recognized as one of the most graphic representations of what evil can do. No politician would be foolish enough to try to benefit politically from the moral implication of a narrative like that while at the same time trying to undercut its people. In an election where each side is growing increasingly desperate for something that can make the other side look bad, being able to expose your opponent as a shameless hypocrite, or a backstabber, or an exploiter of a small nation—a nation that stood by your side in your hour of need—can make all the difference. In 1975, secrecy, Kurdish isolation, and an entirely different political reality made it possible for Henry Kissinger to double cross Barzani and get away with it. Without the slightest hesitation, Kissinger was even able to tell the world—and with a straight face—not to mistake "covert action" for"missionary work." Today, thanks in part to globalization, hiding behind secrecy is no longer an option.

Among Bush’s other advisors for whom foreign policy is the chief concern there is the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz camp, which also includes Under Secretary of State John Bolton, Colin Powell’s nemesis. Then there are Powell and his many associates at the State Department.

The two sides have been at loggerheads over Iraq from day one. The Cheney side is a group of neo-conservative intellectuals, who, according to Paul Krugman of the New York Times, see Iraq as "a pilot project," part of a long-term plan to remake the Middle East. Their vision, spelled out by Bush himself in soaring language last November, is an ambitious one: exporting democratic capitalism to the entire region, beginning with Iraq. How this is going to be brought about is not entirely clear. The hope is that democracy in Iraq would eventually have a domino effect in the region.

What role the Kurds would have in this is not clear either. But after the Turkish rebuff to Washington last March, this group intentionally raised the Kurdish profile, and not entirely out of resentment of the Turks but also out of some strategic though vague calculations. The mostly secular character of Kurdish society and its decidedly pro-American bent were seen as a great asset in an otherwise hostile region. A few bold voices in Congress and the media even envisioned an independent Kurdistan working side by side with the U.S. in its war against Islamic fundamentalism.

The Cheney group, however, still seems to be wide eyed about exactly what kind of Iraq they have in mind, and what role they would like to see the Kurds play in it. In fact, up until very recently, as the New York Times reported on January 8, the Bush administration had not even begun thinking about the Kurdish factor in some serious ways.

Judged by what pundits close to the White House have written recently, it appears that one possible reason for the administration’s lack of planning has had to do with a general perception that the Kurds, being America’s friends, would be too grateful to the U.S. to disagree with its wishes. This explains why Kurdish outright rejection on January 7 of Paul Bremer’s suggestion for a watered down autonomy came somewhat as a shock to the likes of William Safire of the New York Times and Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post, pundits generally not unsympathetic to Kurdish demands. Here we may be in for the now all-too-familiar colonial impulse, taking the native for granted, making decisions in his name, and seeing no need to giving his story a hearing.

Complicating the situation further is the rivalry between the Cheney and the Powell camps. Now, while the Cheney camp has been toying with a radical new approach to the Middle East, in which the Kurds would have some but yet-to-be determined role to play, the Powell group has been moving in the opposite direction, trying to preserve and augment America’s traditional policy in the region: iron-clad support for Israel, strong support for the Turks, a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and a decidedly subordinate statutes for the Kurds.

This explains why Powell and his State Department did all they could to persuade Bush to scrap the war option early on. The day after September 11, as Bob Woodward writes in Bush at War, the idea of attacking Iraq was brought up at a National Security Council meeting. Donald Rumsfeld raised it. Colin Powell spoke forcefully against it. He repeated his opposition on several other occasions, and at one point hinted that he might resign in protest. He only came on board after a lengthy private meeting with Bush, during which apparently the President promised to give the State Department a big say in shaping post-war Iraq.

The first indication that the President had indeed tilted somewhat toward Powell came with the sudden replacement of Jay Gardner, a Rumsfeld appointee, with Paul Bremer, a Kissinger and Powell associate, as Iraq’s top civilian administrator. Powell pushed for Bremer, or Jerry as he called by his friends, because, aside from having worked together for several Republican administrations, the two men were by temperament and ideology almost identical. Also, this was Powell’s way of reminding Rumsfield and company that foreign policy was Powell’s, not Rumsfield’s, domain. Bush offered Rumsfeld a small caveat: he, not Powell, would be Bremer’s boss. But this turned out to be just a small administrative matter.

Meanwhile, Bush—true to his nature—decided to stay on the sidelines, thus paving the way for further meddling by Powell in the Iraq affair. By mid July, when it became apparent that Powell and Rumsfeld were each trying to veer Bremer in a direction of his liking, the White House decided it was time to step in. Now Bremer was to coordinate his work with Condoleezza Rice. Judged by Paul Bremer’s recent remarks regarding federalism, it is obvious that Powell has had some success in asserting his authority as foreign policy czar.

When on January 7, some senior Pentagon officials told the New York Times that there was a growing recognition in the Bush administration that the Kurds would most likely get what they want and would also get to keep their peshmerga, Powell was not amused. The following day, at Powell’s urging, Bremer went and told the Kurds to forget all about autonomy. To further placate the Arab world, which quickly but not surprisingly interpreted the Times story as further proof of a so-called Zionist-American conspiracy to dismember Iraq, the following week Bremer told the Arab press that he and the Bush administration were committed to a unitary Iraq and that he would not allow the country to be divided along racial lines. This was Bremer doing Powell’s bidding. But the Pentagon, as David Ignatius writes in the Washington Post of 13 February, pointedly but indirectly reminded Powell that he was out of touch with reality and that his words would soon come back to haunt him.

What seems to be clear here is that Powell and his State Department, having been bypassed by the Pentagon and the White House in preparation for the war, are now trying to stage a comeback—and they are trying to do that at Kurdish expense. But the good news is that, given the new geopolitical realities in Kurdistan, they don’t have the slightest chance of succeeding. The Kurds now are in a position to say to Powell—or others, for that matter—whatever watered down plans you have for Kurdish statehood stick it in your ears!

Of all the people around Bush it would be fair to conclude that Powell is no friend of the Kurdish people. Powell was a close aid to Ronald Reagan in 1988 when Saddam gassed Halabja. He said absolutely nothing at the time. During his September 15, 2003, visit to Halabja he did say a few comforting words, but even then his words were carefully calculated not to include any references to Kurdistan, Kurdish nationalism, or Kurdish history. This passage is worth quoting, not because of what it says but because of what it refuses to say: "By your actions here at this spot and by the construction of this museum, you have made sure that you will never forget but, above all, the world will never forget." What exactly is this spot? Does it connect to a name, to a history, to a nationalism, to a land stretching beyond what meets the eye? Who are these people? In what language did they scream out their pain, their sense of loss, their utter hopelessness? Who broke their nationalism and why? Was this the first time someone did something horrible to them? Powell’s words do not just embargo a nation: they refuse even to name it.

As Alan Friedman writes in his meticulously researched book, Spider’s Web: the Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq, Colin Powell was one of the architects of the senior George Bush policy that favored building economic and diplomatic ties with Saddam. Even after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs did what he could to talk the President out of the war option. Later, it was also Powell who persuaded the president to end the war prematurely, arguing that a cut-down-to-size Saddam was preferable to an Iraq dominated by the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. And it was also Powell who persuaded the President to let Saddam do as he pleased with the Kurds and the Shiites in February and March 1991. Powell adamantly opposed the creation of a safe haven for the Kurds. It was only after repeated pleas from the former British Prime Minister John Major that Bush finally gave the go-ahead.

Two possible conclusions can be drawn from this history. One is that the Bush administration has yet to come up with a well-formulated Kurd policy. The policy is still a work in progress—prompted more by impromptu reactions than strategic thinking. How eventually it evolves depends on several factors: the facts the Kurds themselves create on the ground—especially the development of democratic capital at grass-roots level; the facts the Shiites and others create in their own turfs; which side, the Pentagon or the State Department, will have a bigger say in shaping post-war Iraq; and what unforeseeable circumstances may arise.

The Kurds so far have shied away from making noise, and for that, ironically, have paid a hefty price. They are no longer considered newsworthy. As one American observer recently put it on television, "the Kurds are a success story. They have a functioning democracy. Their economy is booming. And it’s mostly peaceful over there." The Kurds, in other words, are victims of their own success. If you do not make noise, you do not get noticed—a point certainly not lost on Shiite leader Al-Sistani. These days, while Kurdish leaders recede into the margins and while the Kurdish narrative receives only scant attention, Al-Sistani dominates all the headlines. He knows all too well that noise pays off: it has brought him fame, respectability, and international recognition.

Another point is that, regardless of what Powell and Bremer say, Iraq as a unitary state is finished. They can talk all they want about Iraq’s territorial integrity, a single currency, one national army, and what have you. That may be music to Arab, Turkish, and Iranian ears, but the realities on the ground point to very different possibilities. Even the architect of America’s realpolitik—Kissinger—has now come to realize that. In a February 8 op-ed piece in the New York Times, he writes that the break up of Iraq into three states, like the break up of Yugoslavia, may not be desirable to everyone, but it "is preferable to an open-ended civil war." Leslie Gelb, a former New York Times contributor and past president of influential New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, warned loudly in 1991 against what he called "the Lebanonization" of Iraq; now, however, he, too, has come to believe—much to the horrors of a great many Arab pundits—that a three-state solution is unavoidable, considering that Iraq’s creation has been in the first place an artificial one. This is the time for the Kurds to think in that direction as well.

Dr. Sabah Salih is Professor of English at Bloomsburg University, USA. <ssalih@bloomu.edu>