Foreign Policy in Focus Special Report: Continuing Storm: The U.S. Role in the Middle East

The U.S. also usurped UN Security Council authority with a series of air strikes against Iraq in September 1996, justifying them on the grounds that Iraqi forces had illegally moved into Kurdish-populated areas of the country that had been under UN protection since Saddam’s brutal repression of the Kurds at the end of the Gulf War. There is reason to believe, however, that these air strikes were not so much for the defense of the Kurds as simply another futile attempt by a frustrated administration to strike back at an upstart dictator who continues to challenge the United States.

Figure 2
Kurdistan
	The shaded part of the map indicates an area in which Kurds are the dominant ethnic group, making it a possible “natural” area for the establishment of the Kurdish nation-state, Kurdistan.

The Kurds are a nation of more than 20 million people divided among six countries and containing nationalist movements rife with factionalism. The worst repression against the Kurds in recent years has come from Turkey, a NATO ally, which the U.S. considers part of Europe. Turkey receives large-scale military, economic, and diplomatic support from the United States; during the 1990s, U.S. military aid and arms sales totaled about $10.5 billion. On several occasions in recent years, thousands of Turkish troops have crossed into Iraqi territory to attack the Kurds. Though these incursions also took place in the UN safe zone and have been far greater in scope than Saddam’s 1996 forays, President Clinton supported the Turkish attacks, making his harsh response to Iraq’s incursion appear to be motivated by other than humanitarian or legal concerns.

Although the United States clearly wants Saddam Hussein removed from power, the U.S. and other countries may not want to risk Iraq’s total disintegration. Washington wants neither a victory by a radical Kurdish movement in the north nor a successful rebellion in the south of the country, where an Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim movement has challenged the authority of the Sunni Muslim-dominated government in Baghdad. At the same time, the totalitarian nature of the Iraqi regime renders prospects for internal change unlikely, at least as long as the population is suffering so much economic hardship from the sanctions.

In 1998, the United States successfully pressured Syria to expel Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a radical Kurdish nationalist guerrilla group fighting Turkey for greater autonomy. In February 1999, the United States assisted Turkish intelligence agents in locating Ocalan in Kenya, where he was kidnapped and brought to Turkey to face what virtually all outside observers (the Clinton State Department being an exception) see as unfair judicial treatment.

The U.S.-backed Turkish regime has used the PKK’s sometimes brutal tactics as an excuse to crush even nonviolent expressions of Kurdish nationalism; for example, speaking the Kurdish language or celebrating Kurdish cultural life has been severely repressed. Kurdish civilians have been the primary targets of Turkey’s counterinsurgency campaign. The United States has been largely silent against the Turkish government’s repression but active in condemning what is sees as Kurdish terrorism.

Figure 2a
Kurdish Population Estimates: 1997
Country	Total population (in millions)	Kurd Population (in millions)	% Kurds

Iran	65.0	6.5	10
Iraq	19.3	4.4	23
Syria	13.4	1.1	8
Turkey	65.0	14.3	22
Elsewhere	-	2.3	-
Total	-	28.5	-

Source: David McDowall, "The Kurds," Minority Rights Group Report, Washington Kurdish Institute, 1996. Excerpts available on the Internet at: http://www.clark.net/kurd/kurdname.html.

Washington’s military and diplomatic support of Turkey’s repression of the Kurds is quite consistent with U.S. acquiescence to other controversial policies by this NATO ally. The U.S. has blocked enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions 353 and 354 calling for Turkey to withdraw its occupation forces from northern Cyprus. The U.S. has also failed to condemn the Turkish government for widespread human rights violations against its own population. And Washington has refused to even acknowledge the Turkish genocide against the Armenians earlier this century, in which well over one million people were slaughtered. This double standard, which rejects adherence to international law or basic standards of human rights, further undermines U.S. credibility in the region.