Arm Kurdistan to Defeat the Islamic StateASAP!

By Sherkoh Abbas and Robert Sklaroff

You can lead them to water, but you cant make them drink. After having its head dunked into the
truth of Islamism, the Obama Administration seems to prefer to drown in its failed anti-Bush pacifism.

Everyone knows the most reliably pro-American military in the Syria/Iraq-region is the Peshmerga, yet
American arms have not been provided to these Kurds, nor has their justified nationalist aspiration been
acknowledged, let alone endorsed.

Instead, America is handing the region to Iran (enhancing its nuclear ambitions), accommodating
resurrected Turkish dreams of a worldwide-caliphate (transcending its sultanate), and failing to enlist
necessary support from Wahhabist Saudi Arabia (reinforcing its ideological outreach). Indeed, America
cant find anyone to provide the boots on the ground that can begin to match the burgeoning Islamic
Army, threatening to conquer the American Homelandand everything in-between.

Lame excuses for inaction advanced by Obamas spokespeople are easily punctured; for example, they
failed to ensure that the Continuing (Funding) Resolution passed last week allowed direct support for
Erbil without first transiting through Baghdad. Again, ideology [here, We must not undermine the new
unity government] shrouds intent to pay lip-service to the legitimate, urgent needs of one of the
diminishing number of unabashedly pro-American fighting-forces.

The vacuum displacing a relatively tranquil Pax Americana is predictably and rapidly being filled by
both Sunni and Shiite Islamists, and Kurdistan finds itself in a triple cross-fire; it is necessary to define
the moving-parts to deduce the optimal American strategy, for all have been transparent regarding
alliances and goals (except for Qatar, which funds Libyan Islamists while hosting the U.S. Combat Air
Operations Center for the Middle East at its Al Udeid Air Base). It is no longer possible to sit-back and
let you and him fight because innocents are being slaughtered, as human rights violations burgeon.

Tehran wants to immortalize a Shiite Crescent (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon), Ankara wants to sever it with
Sunnis (multi-national Arabs and non-Arab Ottomans), and Riyadh wants to stir-the-pot just enough to
foment insurrection, but not enough to allow the Kingdom to be threatened. Geopolitical lines are
thereby crossed as these aspirations are being fulfilled, while Kurdistan (joining Israel, to a degree)
serves as an irritant, a piata, a stubborn target for those harboring far greater aspirations.

Each of these countries has attempted to manipulate Kurdistan via political alliances that serve only to
undermine the legitimate aspirations of the populaceself-determination, either as an independent
state or as a quasi-independent federated-regionnotwithstanding distinctive cultural and historical
roots that others besmirch. In the process, 30-40 million Kurds struggle for survival.

[For details regarding how Kurdish groups have been co-opted, consult our essay America Must
Recognize Kurdistan at http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/5213/kurdistan-us-recognition.]

Instead of helping Kurds, who are already shovel-ready to do Americas bidding, Obama aspires to vet
the Free Syrian Army to decide which surviving moderates should receive armaments and year-long
training in Saudi Arabia (costing American taxpayers $1 billion). Is Obama enamored of Saudi oil?

Instead of helping Kurds, who desperately need American support, Obama is acceding to Turkeys
rapprochement with the Islamic State, most recently having absented itself from Americas nascent
alliance of the unwilling in return for release of 49 Turkish hostages. Is Obama pro-Brotherhood?

Instead of helping Kurds, after more than 60 villages and towns in Syrian Kurdistan have fallen to the
Islamic State, Obama is receding from opposing Assad (propped-up by Rouhani and Putin), hoping that
Syrian air-defenses (yet to be degraded) wont block Allied bombers. Is Obama a genocide-appeaser?

Kurds eagerly and valiantly defend Western Civilization against Muslims who continue fighting the
Crusades; they may be a millennium remote chronologically, but they remain fresh-in-mind to zealots
hungry to avenge the 1683 defeat of Islam outside the gates of Vienna.

Demography is rapidly changing, as Kurds are increasingly subject to ethnic cleansing; if defeated, Kurds
would be forcibly resettled out of Syria and thereby lose their distinctive identity for, already, a million
refugees have relocated, replaced by pro-Assad Shiite/Alawite Arabs. Sporadic air-support (recalling the
Azidis plight) is grossly insufficient against the Islamic State. Yet, inexplicably, Obama has even failed to
ensure other Arab nations (plus his Turkish pal, Erdoan) and opposition-groups (plus other countries,
worldwide) condemn specifically the Islamists anti-Kurd acts.

Political groups petitioning for support must have clean hands, indubitably and uniquely sported by
staunchly pro-American Kurdistan, steeped in Democracy and reveling in freedom; Kurds have
historically rejected multiple adverse entreaties. Thus, elements of the Free Syrian Army seeking Allied
arms must pass the litmus-test of supporting Kurds, for most are allied with the Muslim Brotherhood or
al-Qaida. Unlike stateless-Kurdistan, pro- and anti-Assad entities are merely struggling for power for,
sadly, they share too much culture and mentality.

Therefore, America must provide military, political and humanitarian assistance to Kurdistan urgently,
empowering it to lead a coalition of ignored-minorities (Christians, etc.).


Dr. Sherkoh Abbas (President of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria) and Dr. Robert Sklaroff (a
physician-activist) have co-written essays during the past half-decade advocating an independent
Kurdistan.