The Kurdistan Observer
Oct-Nov 2000
Editorial

The coming American elections are shaping up as the closest contest for the White House in
forty years. The people of the United States will decide if Vice President Gore or Governor
Bush of Texas will head the American government for the next four and possibly eight years.
Since the President of the United States exerts enormous influence throughout the world and
in particular in the Middle East, the coming elections should be of major concern to the
Kurds. The stakes are high and it is important that we consider carefully who will be more
likely to lend the support of the United States to the cause of the Kurds.

Examination of the policies of the United States over the past decades makes it clear that
successive American administrations have at best manipulated the Kurds for their own
interests in maintaining a balance of power between the rogue states of the Middle East so
that the flow of oil continues to the West and to keep in check the influence of Communism
in years gone by and the influence of Islam over the past two decades. The American policies
in the Middle East have often resulted in much of the anguish and suffering of the Kurdish
people. In the eighties, by turning a blind eye to the actions of their erstwhile ally in
Baghdad, the American government supported the genocide that Iraq perpetrated against
the Kurds in Southern Kurdistan. In the nineties, the current administration has acted in a
duplicitous manner to support their allies in Ankara in a dirty war to severely repress the
Kurds in Northern Kurdistan.

So will there be a difference in the stance of the American government toward the Kurds
following the coming US elections? If history is any guide, of course, there will be a big
difference! History tells us that over the past three decades, Republican administrations have
treated the Kurds with disdain and absolute lack of respect for human life whereas
Democratic administrations have at least wrestled with the idea of lending some support to
the Kurdish cause. In the seventies, it was the Nixon administration with its chief
architect of foreign policy Henry Kissinger who contributed directly to the collapse of the
Kurdish movement in Southern Kurdistan that had been going strong for nearly fifteen years.
In the eighties, it was the policies of Ronald Reagan the conservative Republican that
encouraged Saddam to carry out the genocide in Halabja and elsewhere in Southern
Kurdistan without fear of retribution or even condemnation from the leader of the free world.
Indeed, when Saddam came under criticism by a few in the media in the United States, a
team of Republicans headed by former Senators Robert Dole, the Republican nominee for
the White House in 1996, and Alan Simpson, a frequent histrionic critic of the current
administration, took a special trip in the late eighties to Saddam's den that by all accounts
represented an effort to appease and placate Saddam. Apparently, the Republicans did not
mind nor did they object to his attempt to annihilate the Kurds in the Anfal campaign.

The attitude of the Reagan-Bush administration carried over to the Bush years when the
father of the current Republican Presidential nominee took over the reigns of the United
States government. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, Bush and his team of advisors
composed of Cheney, the current Republican Vice Presidential nominee, and Colin Powell,
slated to be the Secretary of State in a potential George W Bush administration, decided to
leave Saddam with enough force and power to crush any Kurdish aspirations for freedom
and self-determination in Southern Kurdistan. And when the Kurds took to the mountains in
a disaster of biblical proportions pursued by the chemical weapon-carrying Republican
Guard of Saddam, Bush and his advisors including Powell did not act until heart-rending
and unbearable images were televised in the United States and turned their battle victory in
Kuwait into a moral defeat for the United States in the war against Saddam.

It was Senator Al Gore who was one of the first politicians in Washington, D.C. to urge
action in support of the Kurds following the Gulf War. And as a member of the Clinton
administration, Al Gore has continued his support of the Kurds in Southern Kurdistan.
While the record of the current administration toward the Kurds is far from what is desired,
we believe that the Clinton-Gore administration does have an understanding that the Kurds
do constitute a nation with aspirations for freedom and liberty even if they are not willing to
support these aspirations. Their record in Northern Kurdistan is deplorable. However, even
in this area President Clinton has urged the undemocratic Turkish regime to ease its
repression. We believe that a President Gore will continue to build on the current meager
support of the United States to the Kurds in all of Kurdistan.

What about Governor Bush? What will his policies toward the Kurds be? Based on his pick
of Powell for the State Department and Rice as National Security Advisor and based on his
utterances in the second Presidential debate with Al Gore, George W. Bush will be loathe to
support the Kurds. He is against nation-building at the core. He is an isolationist and aims to
have America engaged only in matters that involve the most vital national security interests
of the United States such as the supply of oil. On the other hand, Al Gore has clearly shown
that he would exert the leadership of the United States in accordance with the moral values
of the United States of freedom and liberty.

It is therefore clear that the choice for the President of the United States will likely have a
dramatic influence on the future of the Kurds in the coming decade. Al Gore will clearly be a
much better choice. Kurds in the United States are obviously no where near representing a
significant group of the US electorate. However, there are small aggregates of Kurds in a few
states including battleground states in which the election will be decided. The battleground
states include Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Michigan. In all the states where the
election is too close to call, a few votes could make the difference. We urge all Kurds and
friends of Kurds in the battleground states to make their voice heard in the coming American
election and help elect Al Gore as the next President of the United States.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com

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