A Global Orchestra Fiddles While Kurdistan Burns

By Robert Sklaroff and Sherkoh Abbas

President Trumps foreign policy doctrine of Principled Realism is failing its first bona fide test in the
Middle East, as his goal to maintain neutrality in the Iraq-Kurd civil war is permitting Irans hegemony to
pave the rest of its Shiite Crescent highway to the Mediterranean Sea.

After hostilities broke-out on October 16th, the State Departments clumsy serial-rationales evolved last
week from seeking to rectify a misunderstanding to denying Iranians had any role in the invasion to
advocating calm to all parties to asking all parties to refrain from violence to offering to mediate a
cease-fire to asking Baghdad to stop invading Kurdistan.

Iran donned an Iraqi mask while invading Kirkuka week prior to Halloweenprompting the Islamic State
to resurface near Kirkuk, one day after Shiite militias attacked Kurds.

Jennifer Griffin of Fox News framed the basis for these Deep State rationalizations, reporting: The U.S.
military must figure out how to keep Iraq from breaking apart while also preventing neighboring Iran from
turning Iraq into a proxy state. Alas, after recognizing fears [that] Iran is behind tensions between Iraqi
troops [and] Kurds], she immediately visually undermined the misinformation disseminated by Americas
military that Iran wasnt involved. [Special Report, 10/18/2017 @ 2:23].

Amazingly, the issue of Kurdistan was not raised during the Sunday talk-shows, reflecting global silence.

If America intends to keep punishing the Kurds for holding their September 25th referendum by adopting
a passive-aggressive posturehere, denying awareness ahead-of-time of the invasion planthe U.S. will
lose her only reliable and potent ally among the parties funding proxies that squabble to remake the
former-Syria/Iraq: Iran, Turkey and Russia.

Indeed, it is foolhardy for Western countries to forsake Kurds by hoping, respectively, [1]to delink Iraq
from Iran via the Saudis, [2]to placate NATO faux-ally Turkey by reawakening Ottoman aspirations, and
[3]to sate the Russian Bear by sacrificing Syria.

Therefore, Americas paradigm of the regional facets of the world-order must be fundamentally
reoriented, reflecting what led Israel to endorse Kurdistan, for [1]on the micro level, Jews welcome
re-establishment of Kurdistan (just as Eretz Yisrael was re-established in 1948), and [2]on the macro
level, even leftist Israelis honor Kurds.

In short, the fate of the Kurds presents Israelis a wake-up call, as their canaries in the coal mines, just as
Israelis have played that role for Americans while Sunni [Islamic State] and Shiite [Iranian] Islamists have
targeted America and Israel.

Israelis recognize the grave threat to Erbil following the hasty opening of the headquarters for the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards in Kirkuk, even as the New York Timesamnesic that it had acknowledged Irans
domination of Iraq After U.S. Handed the Country Overagain demonstrated its inability to admit the
Islamo-fascist threat flourishes, now claiming that Irans mullahs are sapping the IRGs strength.

Thus, America should share Israels recognition of the underreported legal underpinnings of the
September 25th Referendum that yielded overwhelming endorsement of Kurdistan.

Consulting the Iraqi Constitution predictably yielded an end to an impasse a decade ago, when a new Iraqi
Prime Minister had to be elected, as per a letter-to-the-editor published in the (defunct) Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin.

Similarly, this document (notwithstanding the explicably abbreviated version thereof published by the
Washington Post) mandates that Iraq conduct a referendum in Kirkuk and other disputed territories to
determine the will of their citizens), by a date not to exceed the 31st of December, 2007 (Article 140,
Section 2).

This has yet to transpire, so the Kurds took it upon themselves to satisfy this constitutional duty, noting
that 92.73% of the voters endorsed independence.

This has apparently been lost on controversial former Presidential-Antiterrorism Advisor, Sebastian Lukcs
Gorka, Ph.D., who proffered lame excuses for not promoting a muscular foreign policy; pivotal when
placing the Kurds fate within a larger context is the fact that the Kurds dont need America to nation-
build and, therefore, implementing a muscular foreign policy would be an unabashed manifestation of
efforts to Make America Great Again.

Thats why Kurds seek recognition of their enormous military sacrifice and their unique political feat,
noting their carefully-constructed federal system in Rojava, Kurdistan of Syria.

And this would serve as the culmination of battle-plans we have proposed for almost a decade: in 2008,
we IDed Kurds as invisible people and advocated confronting the major source of global terrorism
[The Road To Iran Runs Through Kurdistan - And Starts In Syria]; in 2015, we showed why the United States
cannot evade this trouble-spot [The Pathway to Defeating ISIS Runs Though Kurdistan And Starts in
America]; in 2013, we simply concluded The Kurds can lead a reborn Syria, at peace with all of her
neighbors; and, in 2014, we suggested NATO Must Help the Kurds Now.

Thus, as we have continually argued, The Road to Defeating the Islamic State Runs through Kurdistan and
American recognition of Kurdistan could become a key component of a Middle East Grand-Bargain.

Just as remaining in Germany and Korea has kept the peace for decades, U.S. troops will not be
withdrawn after the Islamic State has been defeated; nevertheless, until the region has been stabilized,
Trumps desire to confront Iranian disruption will be satisfied by continuing to supply armaments to Kurds
and their non-Islamist allies.

In the process, Trump would counter two leftist allegations: he has no idea how to fight Tehran and,
thus, cannot mediate the current crisis (which French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to do).

In fact, as much as its necessary to oppose the Iran-Nuke Capitulation-Pact, efforts to do so are tangential
when contrasted with impending capitulation of the Kurds.

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In any case, this formulation of what occurred during the past weekpresaged by Reagans sudden
withdrawal of America from Lebanon provoked by Irans Hezbollahis sobering: Iran also looks stronger.
Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Irans Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps, shuttled between Sulaymaniyah and Baghdad mediating Kurdish capitulation and advising
Iraqi commanders on their assault. Remarkably, given that it arms and trains both Iraqs army and Kurdish
forces, America kept silent. For all his grandiose promises to roll back Iran, Donald Trump looked like a
bystander. In Kirkuk, Iran called the shots.

Sherkoh Abbas is President of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria and has discussed recent events in-
depth (video, at minute #25). Robert Sklaroff is a physician-activist and supporter of Kurdish self-
determination. This article constitutes the policy of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria.