New York Times Editorial, "Kurdistan’s Dangerous Vote on Independence": Dangerous for Whom?

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In an editorial entitled “Kurdistan’s Dangerous Vote on Independence,” The New York Times expresses its empathy for Kurdish yearnings for independence in Iraq, but fails to note the horrifying oppression of Kurdish minorities living in Turkey, Syria and Iran over the course of many decades. The editorial also forgets to mention that the Middle East's 30 million Kurds comprise the world's largest stateless people, whose identity and rights were not accounted for when Britain and France carved out new Middle East nations with artificial borders after World War I.

The Times editorial tells us:

"Only Israel, with a history of close ties to Kurds and hopes for an ally against Iran, has declared support for a Kurdish state."

However, while Israel would certainly welcome an ally in the region, Israeli sympathy for Kurdish statehood has a historical basis. In the years immediately prior to Israeli independence, the US State Department and Department of Defense opposed granting the Jews their own country for the very same reason: Giving the Jews a homeland could endanger American strategic interests in the region.

Whereas the US has welcomed Kurdish friendship and support while battling ISIS and Saddam Hussein, it is now time for the US to reciprocate by recognizing the right of the Kurds to live in dignity and freedom. Dangerous? Sure, an independent Kurdish state carved out of Iraq is upsetting for the Turks (Kurds amount to some 20 percent of Turkey's population), but all change comes with uncertainty, and the Kurds deserve to live without fear of persecution and oppression.

Maureen Dowd, "W., Borne Back Ceaselessly": No Undoing What's Been Done

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In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "W., Borne Back Ceaselessly," Maureen Dowd says of the 28 pages of a 2002 congressional report on the 9/11 attacks that have just been released:

"If the 28 pages had been released back in 2002, the revelations might have helped stop the Iraq invasion by refocusing attention where it belonged: on possible real links between Al Qaeda and Saudi royals, rather than the fantasy links between Al Qaeda and Saddam pushed by Dick Cheney."

Back when, I opposed the Second Gulf War because it was apt to destroy the delicate equilibrium between a Sunni-dominated Iraq and a Shiite Iran, both monstrous in their own right.

Saudi Arabia, which whips and incarcerates women who have been gang raped and decapitates persons convicted of witchcraft and sorcery, was and is no better. All of which did not prevent Maureen from hobnobbing with Saudi royalty back in March 2010.

If only George W. Bush had not been goaded into going to war with Saddam? If only ...

But that was 13 years ago. No point in kicking a dead horse. The US must look to the future.

Syria and Iraq have disintegrated, Turkey is shaky, and it's time to ensure that the Middle East's 30 million pro-Western Kurds (also living in Iran) be granted their independence and freedom.

Paul Krugman, "Errors and Lies": Saddam's Genocidal War Against the Kurds Was Also a Crime

Last Monday, Megyn Kelly asked Jeb Bush whether he would have invaded Iraq in 2003 "knowing what we know now." Jeb Bush responded in the affirmative, setting off a media firestorm and subsequent claims by Jeb that he misunderstood the question. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Errors and Lies," Paul Krugman also seizes upon this controversy and concludes:

"But truth matters, and not just because those who refuse to learn from history are doomed in some general sense to repeat it. The campaign of lies that took us into Iraq was recent enough that it’s still important to hold the guilty individuals accountable. Never mind Jeb Bush’s verbal stumbles. Think, instead, about his foreign-policy team, led by people who were directly involved in concocting a false case for war.

So let’s get the Iraq story right. Yes, from a national point of view the invasion was a mistake. But (with apologies to Talleyrand) it was worse than a mistake, it was a crime."

Again, to set the record straight: I opposed the 2003 Iraq War, inasmuch as I anticipated that it would destroy the Sunni/Shiite equilibrium in the Middle East, i.e. without Saddam in Iraq, the mullahs in Iran would run amuck. Also, even then, I was more concerned with Iran's nascent nuclear weapons development program than I was with Saddam's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

On the other hand, there is something missing from Krugman's opinion piece. As reported almost a decade ago by ABC News in an article entitled "List of Saddam's Crimes Is Long":

"Saddam Hussein was hanged for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite men and boys in the village of Dujail after an assassination attempt there in 1982. But by the standards of his brutal rule, the Dujail killings were a relatively minor crime.

The exact number of deaths attributable to Saddam Hussein may never be known, but estimates range as high as half a million. There is evidence of more than 250 mass graves dating to his rule."

The ABC News article proceeds to list the genocidal crimes committed by Saddam against Iraq's Kurds and Shiites, including the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians during the 1988 Al-Anfal Campaign.

Or stated otherwise, Saddam was a monster, who deserved to die. However, as proven by subsequent events, e.g., the rise of ISIL, and the inability of Sunni and Shiite Muslims to live together in peace, Saddam's execution did nothing to end the never ending cycle of savagery in a monstrous Muslim Middle East.

Yes, George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq was a grotesque mistake. However, if Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds could have thereafter lived together in a model of democracy and tolerance - something that I did not believe was possible and still do not believe is possible - maybe, just maybe, the war might today be viewed differently.

Thomas Friedman, "I.S. = Invasive Species ": What About Halabja and Hama?

Would-be Middle East expert Thomas Friedman has a penchant for word games. Do you remember his less than memorable New York Times opinion piece entitled "ISIS and SISI"? Perhaps not. In any event, Friedman is back with another humdinger of a title for his latest Times op-ed, "I.S. = Invasive Species," in which Tom claims that "ISIS operates just like an 'invasive species' in the world of plants and animals." Friedman writes:

"Today, ISIS — the foreigners and locals together — is putting pressure on all of Iraq’s and Syria’s native species with the avowed goal of reducing the diversity of these once polycultural societies and turning them into bleak, dark, jihadist, Sunni fundamentalist monocultures."

Ah yes, the good old days in Iraq and Syria, when tolerance permeated their respective ecosystems!

But heck, didn't Saddam Hussein murder 50,000 Kurds during the genocidal al-Anfal Campaign from 1986 to 1989? Surely you remember how some 5,000 Kurds died in the 1988 poison gas on the Kurdish city of Halabja in 1988.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Kurdish and Shiite civilians died when Saddam Hussein brutally suppressed the 1991 uprisings in northern and southern Iraq.

Syria? In 1982, Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar al-Assad, put down a rebellion of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, killing somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 innocent people.

The violence of ISIS is foreign to the "polycultural societies" of Iraq and Syria? Cut the bullshit, Tom! Violence is endemic to the Muslim Middle East.

David Brooks, "The Big Burn": A Kurdish State on the Rise

Remarkably, it has taken almost a century to redraw the artificial borders imposed upon the Middle East by France and Britain following the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of World War I . Moreover, from the looks of it, some 30 million Kurds, who have suffered endlessly at the hands of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, might finally be on their way to long-deserved statehood.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Big Burn" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/opinion/david-brooks-the-sunni-shiite-conflict-explodes-in-iraq.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), David Brooks at long last comes down to earth and writes in real terms concerning the destruction of Iraq by ISIS. Chastising Obama for his overly cautious foreign policy and warning of a massive Sunni-Shiite conflict that could engulf the Muslim world, Brooks declares:

"President Obama adopted a cautious posture, arguing that the biggest harm to the nation comes when the U.S. overreaches. American power retrenched. The American people, on both left and right, decided they could hide from the world.

And now the fears of one really big war seem to be coming true. The ISIS serves as a de facto government in growing areas of Syria and Iraq. Extremist armies are routing the official Iraqi Army, even though they are outmanned by as many as 15 to 1. Iraq is in danger of becoming a non-nation."

In fact, Iraq has long been a non-nation, held together by band aids. With the departure of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds in the north of Iraq established a semi-autonomous zone, largely independent of the central government.

Hinting at Kurdish regional self-government in Iraq, Brooks concludes:

"It is not too late to help Syrian moderates. In Iraq, the answer is not to send troops back in. It is to provide Maliki help in exchange for concrete measures to reduce sectarian tensions. The Iraqi government could empower regional governments, acknowledging the nation’s diversity. Maliki could re-professionalize the Army. The Constitution could impose term limits on prime ministers.

But these provisions would require a more forward-leaning American posture around the world, an awareness that sometimes a U.S.-created vacuum can be ruinous. The president says his doctrine is don’t do stupid stuff. Sometimes withdrawal is the stupidest thing of all."

I am not calling for boots on the ground; however, I agree with Brooks that Obama's complacency and neo-isolationist policies have created a vacuum which Russia, China and Iran are exploring.

With regard to the pandemonium in Iraq, opportunities also are presenting themselves. The Kurds have long been friendly to American interests in the region, and more important, they deserve their own state. An independent Kurdistan, countering Sunni and Shiite militancy, should be embraced by the United States, notwithstanding opposition from Turkey.

Maureen Dowd, "Shadow of a Doubt": Shadow of a President

Where does Maureen Dowd stand regarding Obama's proposed "shot across the bow" against Syria's Assad regime? Her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Shadow of a Doubt" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/opinion/dowd-shadow-of-a-doubt.html?_r=0) does not provide an answer; however, it does provide many references to America's mistaken and tragic involvement in Iraq. Dowd writes in this regard:

"In many ways, Syria is an eerie replay of Iraq, but with many of the players scrambled and on opposite sides.

. . . .

Once more, we see the magnitude of the tragedy of Iraq because the decision on Syria is so colored by the fact that an American president and vice president took us to war in the Middle East on false pretenses and juiced up intelligence, dragging the country into an emotionally and financially exhausting decade of war and an identity crisis about our role in the world.

. . . .

But the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday dramatically showed how our misjudgment on Iraq infects our judgment on Syria."

Sorry, Maureen, but Syria is not "an eerie replay of Iraq." Sadly, the United States did absolutely nothing when Saddam Hussein gassed to death some 5,000 of his country's Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

A telegraphed "shot across the bow" lasting 48 hours and aimed at Syrian army bases that were evacuated prior to the strike is in any way the equivalent of America's massive involvement in Iraq? No way.

Dowd further observes:

"Many around the president are making the case that if he doesn’t stand firm on his line in the sand, having gotten so far out on a limb, he’ll look weak and America will lose face and embolden its foes."

Will look weak? The president already does look weak both to friends and foes. Russian President Putin has become openly contemptuous of Obama (recall Putin's recent grant of asylum to Snowden). Syrians  are mocking President Obama as a "coward" (see: http://news.yahoo.com/relief-damascus-syrians-mock-obama-coward-201855652.html). Israelis, even on the left, are openly wondering whether Obama's vacillation regarding his  impromptu, sans teleprompter, "red line" declaration vis-a-vis Syria, means that Israel should not place any creedence whatsoever in Obama's warning to Iran not to develop a nuclear weapon (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iran-and-israel-as-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/) and will ultimately need to "go it alone."

America is not losing face. Rather, Obama has already lost face, and an impotent "strike across the bow" is not going to repair his standing.

Dowd concludes:

"It’s up to President Obama to show Americans that he knows what he’s doing, unlike his predecessor."

Well, I've got news for you, Maureen: This administration doesn't know what it's doing, as evidenced by John Kerry and his wife dining in Damascus with his "dear friend" Assad, and as evidenced by the inane declarations of Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton, describing Assad as a "reformer."

Obama's smiling overtures over the past 5 years, aimed at Russia's Putin, Iran's Khamenei and Syria's Assad have only provoked disdain among America's enemies and distrust among its friends.

Mind you, I am not advocating American "boots on the ground" in Syria. God forbid! But you can't change the nature of the "bad guys," and you can't go around telegraphing your punches. The product of elite private schooling, Obama apparently never had to contend with bullies on the playground.

In an August 27 blog entry (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/08/maureen-dowd-less-bully-more-pulpit.html), I observed how a touchy-feely Obama, who is guided by the proverb "Speak softly and carry a tiny twig," passed assurances, in an open microphone gaffe, to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin that he would be more "flexible" after the 2012 election.

Today, Putin continues to provide Assad with advanced weaponry and opposes any effort to bring the Syrian tyrant under control.

Have Obama and friends learned anything over the past five years? I don't think so.

"Show Americans that he knows what he’s doing"? Unfortunately, the president has already demonstrated that he is clueless.

Seth Anziska, "A Preventable Massacre": More Israel Bashing From The New York Times

The Middle East is indeed a savage region. In 1982, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar al-Assad, killed some 25,000 Sunni civilians (there are higher and lower estimates) in the town of Hama. In 1988, Saddam Hussein killed some 5,000 civilians when he attacked the Kurdish town of Halabja with poison gas. Over 1,200 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian terrorists since September 2000. And more recently, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has killed some 30,000 civilians while attempting to quell the current uprising of his country's Sunni majority.

Further afield in Central Asia, some 1,300 Afghan civilians have accidentally been killed by US-led military forces since Obama became president in 2009.

But never mind any of the above. Today, The New York Times would only have us focus on the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre. Over the course of this abomination, Lebanese Christian militiamen murdered some 800 Palestinian civilians in Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, after the Israeli Army allowed the Christians, hungry for revenge, access to the camps.

In his guest New York Times op-ed entitled "A Preventable Massacre" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/a-preventable-massacre.html?pagewanted=all), Seth Anziska, a doctoral candidate in international history at Columbia University, informs us:

"Israel’s involvement in the Lebanese civil war began in June 1982, when it invaded its northern neighbor. Its goal was to root out the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had set up a state within a state, and to transform Lebanon into a Christian-ruled ally."

Oh really? The 1982 Israeli operation had nothing to do with rooting out terror?

Seth fails to mention the "Coastal Road Massacre" of 1978, when Palestinians from Lebanon landed on Israel's coast, hijacked a bus, and killed 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children.

Seth also forgets to tell us about the massive 1981 rocketing of civilian targets in Northern Israel by the PLO.

And then there was also the June 1982 attack in London on Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, by the Iraqi-backed Abu Nidal terrorist organization. But why should Seth be troubled with such minor details?

Alleging deception and "browbeating" of US officials on the part of Ariel Sharon leading up to the Sabra and Shatila massacre, our darling doctoral candidate goes on to say:

"The Sabra and Shatila massacre severely undercut America’s influence in the Middle East, and its moral authority plummeted. In the aftermath of the massacre, the United States felt compelled by 'guilt' to redeploy the Marines, who ended up without a clear mission, in the midst of a brutal civil war.

On Oct. 23, 1983, the Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed and 241 Marines were killed. The attack led to open warfare with Syrian-backed forces and, soon after, the rapid withdrawal of the Marines to their ships. As Mr. Lewis told me, America left Lebanon 'with our tail between our legs.'"

Regrettably, Seth again forgets to inform us that the barracks bombing was perpetrated by Lebanese Shiites, who, like the Lebanese Christians, also hated their Palestinian overlords. In addition, the attack was almost certainly undertaken pursuant to instructions from Iran, possibly owing to US support for Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. Or in other words, there was little connection between the barracks bombing and Israel, unless you also wish to blame Israel for US combat deaths in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

Seth concludes:

"The lesson of the Sabra and Shatila tragedy is clear. Sometimes close allies act contrary to American interests and values. Failing to exert American power to uphold those interests and values can have disastrous consequences: for our allies, for our moral standing and most important, for the innocent people who pay the highest price of all."

"Most important, for the innocent people"? Oh really. Why isn't Seth telling us of the price being paid by civilians in Afghanistan, owing to Obama's inane escalation of that meaningless war? And why doesn't Seth bother to mention the ongoing civil war in Syria, ignored by Obama, which has claimed thousands of civilians lives?

In fact, publication by the Times of this guest op-ed by a doctoral student is all about telling us that the US shouldn't allow Netanyahu to "browbeat" the US into setting "red lines" for the Iranian nuclear weapons development program. Not by coincidence, this guest op-ed was published immediately after Netanyahu informed "Meet the Press" that Iran will be on the brink of a nuclear bomb in six to seven months (see: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=285287).

As observed in prior blog entries, the crux of the current crisis involving Iran and Israel involves lack of faith in Obama. After witnessing his foreign policy procrastination over the past three years, neither of these countries believes that Obama means what he says. In fact, this perception of Obama as irresolute and wishy-washy, i.e. "leading from behind," is what could well lead to a disastrous war, costing thousands of civilian lives.

If the US truly believes that nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran's maniacal mullahs do not pose a threat to American interests, taking into account hostility and proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia and also Iran's patronage of international terror, perhaps the US should not promulgate red lines. On the other hand, if, as stated today by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Iran poses a threat not only to Israel but to the entire world (see: http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/17/238533.html), then it is indeed time for tough talk.

[Columbia University lists Anziska's "Advisor" as Rashid Khalidi (see: http://history.columbia.edu/graduate/Anziska.html), a Columbia professor once linked to the PLO (see: http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2008/10/khalidi-of-the-plo/). A tape of Obama's 2003 tribute to Khalidi at a farewell party in Chicago is locked away in the offices of The Los Angeles Times (see: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226104/i-l-times-i-suppresses-obamas-khalidi-bash-tape/andrew-c-mccarthy).]

Thomas Friedman, "A Long List of Suckers": Or Opening the Floodgates of Hell

All who read this blog know that I have long opposed US ground involvement in Afghanistan, and I regarded Obama's decision to escalate American involvement in Afghanistan, i.e. Obama's attempt to mimic Bush's surge in Iraq, as a tragic mistake. As such, I welcomed Thomas Friedman's call in his latest New York Times op-ed, "A Long List of Suckers" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/opinion/friedman-a-long-list-of-suckers.html?ref=opinion), to curtail the US military presence in Afghanistan.

However, in this op-ed, Friedman also endorses Obama's precipitous decision to yank American troops from Iraq, and here I would observe that Friedman is mistaken in a number of his assumptions. Moreover, this determination by Obama could well open a Pandora's box, whose ultimate repercussions cannot possibly be known.

I opposed the Second Gulf War, given that the toppling of Saddam Hussein was certain to destroy the equilibrium of power between Iraq and Iran. In addition, I believed that Iran was a greater threat to US interests than Saddam. Bush nevertheless waged this war, and unlike Friedman, I fear that sudden removal of American forces will indeed leave Iranian regional ambitions unchecked, particularly at a time when Tehran is threatening to send warships off America's East Coast (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/10356471/iran-says-could-deploy-navy-near-u-s-coast-report/) and to sink US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf (http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/07/ap-iran-to-target-us-carriers-if-attacked-070911/).

Although the Iranian threats are toothless, timing is all important, and Obama, who never learned to play the game, is currently sending the wrong obsequious message to Tehran.

Friedman is not afraid of Iranian designs in Iraq, believing that Arab/Persian enmity will trump Sunni/Shiite hatred:

"Iraqis are a proud people. Once our troops are gone, Iraqi Arabs will surely focus entirely on their own government’s performance and on any Iranian or other attempts to try to be the puppeteer of Iraqi politics. Any Iraqi leader seen as Tehran’s lackey will have problems.

I actually think the dominant flow of influence will be from Iraq toward Iran — if (and it is still a big if) — Iraq’s democracy holds. If it does, Iranians will have to look across the border every day at Iraqis, with their dozens of free newspapers and freedom to form any party and vote for any leader, and wonder why these 'inferior' Iraqi Arab Shiites enjoy such freedoms and “superior” Iranian Persian Shiites do not."

"Iraqis are a proud people"? Remarkably, Friedman does not once mention the semi-autonomous Kurdish minority in Iraq's north, comprising over 15% of Iraq's population. Other than Israel, the US has no better friend in the Middle East than Iraq's Kurds, who are now suddenly hedging their bets.

On Saturday, the president of Iraq's Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, arrived in Tehran in order to meet with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei and Iranian president Ahmadinejad (see: http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/10/irankurd809.htm). Barzani declared:

"We will not forget the assistance of the Iranian people and government during the hard times passed by Iraq.

To preserve our victory, we need Iranian assistance and guidance in this sphere."

I view the Kurds as a weathervane in this area, and Barazani's meetings signal stormy weather ahead. Friedman questions whether Iraq's democracy will hold. Answer: Not a chance at this time.

The Kurds are not the only ones getting nervous about Obama's decision to precipitously evacuate American troops from Iraq. As reported by Yaakov Lappin of The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=243954):

"Over the past several days, Hebrew media reports have been engaged in intense speculation regarding a possible imminent Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites."

In short, Obama may have just opened the floodgates of hell in the Middle East.