MESOP : Radical Michael criticizes his conservative role models Reagan and even Kissinger / FACING KOBANI

U.S. resident Obama abandons Syrian Kurds to slaughter

By Michael Rubin – AEI Ideas – September 20, 2014 – Mention Henry Kissinger to most Kurds and the reaction will range from a grimace to a colorful string of expletives. The reason is that in 1975, Kissinger effectively pulled the rug out from the Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein and left the exposed to slaughter. Mention Ronald Reagan and the reactions are hardly better. It was Reagan, after all, who turned a blind eye to Saddam Hussein’s use chemical weapons against the Kurds.

Well, it seems that Obama wants to share the Kissinger and Reagan’s legacy of throwing Kurds under the bus. It has been just over a week since President Obama spoke about the need to confront the Islamic State (ISIL), wherever it might be. He declared that in Syria “we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.”

Kurds live and govern their territory autonomously not only in Iraq, but also in Syria. I visited Syrian Kurdistan—called “Rojava” by locals—earlier this year. It busted the myth that Syria is split only between a terrorist-supporting regime and radical Islamist opposition. Rojava—which occupied much of the Hasakah province and areas along the Turkish-Syrian border, was a place where Christians, Sunni Muslims, and even some Alawites took refuge; where girls walked to school unescorted and unmolested; and where local government was organized enough that municipal trash pickup occurred on a weekly basis. All of this was defended by the Syrian Peshmerga, the so-called YPG, who have the best track record of any force inside Syria against the ISIL, although their victories have come at tremendous cost, as the fresh graveyards I saw in every town attested.

Well, over the last couple days, Kobane (or Ain al-Arab)—the third largest town in Syrian Kurdistan—has been under unrelenting assault by ISIL. First ISIL kidnapped more than 150 Kurdish children. Now ISIL has captured a string of villages enabling it to surround Kobane and its tens of thousands of civilians. The Syrian Peshmerga have been asking repeatedly for US airstrikes to relieve the siege. The answer has been crickets. It seems, his speech delivered, Obama is prepared to allow ISIL a major victory and to turn his back on the inevitable slaughter of men and boys and enslavement and rape of women and girls. So, too, of course is Obama’s UN ambassador Samantha Power for whom it is increasingly clear that talk of preventing genocide was more a step on the career ladder than a sincerely-held belief. It is not too late to relieve the assault on Kobane and the betrayal of the only region of Syria embracing a secular, democratic vision for the future. Nor is it simply a humanitarian choice: Kobane’s fall would be a strategic disaster, giving ISIL even more control over the Turkish border from which it could draw more recruits or perhaps receive greater Turkish assistance.

Given that Obama must approve every military strike in Syria, it is hard simply to conclude that Obama neither wants to help nor wants to win.

Michael Rubin is author of “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter, 2014). He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute AEI. His major research area is the Middle East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdish society.  Tweet Michael Rubin @mrubin1971