Source – Wikipedia

By Arian Mufid:

When Allied forces expelled Iraq from Kuwait in January 1991, President George H. W. Bush called for regime change and encouraged the Iraqi people from the North and South of the country to rise up against Saddam Hussein. In response, uprisings erupted in the south and north of Iraq. However, these uprisings were brutally suppressed by Saddam’s regime. The United States abandoned the Iraqi people in their moment of need, leaving them at the mercy of dictator Saddam Hussein. This betrayal resulted in a mass exodus from Iraqi Kurdistan to the mountains. Over a million Kurdish people fled to the mountains in the cold spring to flee the violence.

In response, the U.S. administration sent Secretary of State James Baker to assess the situation. Observing the suffering from a helicopter, Baker concluded that the United States had a moral obligation to assist. Eventually, the U.S. provided humanitarian aid by airlifting food and blankets through Turkey, dropping large supply boxes from military aircraft. This wasn’t the first time the United States had betrayed the Kurds. In 1974 a similar betrayal took place when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger withdrew support for the Kurdish rebellion led by Barzani against Saddam. This took place after Iran and Iraq reached an agreement whereby Iran agreed to stop arming the Kurdish resistance in 1975.

The betrayal of the Kurds goes back even further, the Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916, in which Britain and France redrew the map of the Middle East. As part of this imperialist scheme to divide the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish homeland was carved into parts of what would become Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The Kurds were left stateless divided among British, French, and Russian spheres of influence. The agreement ignored Kurdish national aspirations entirely. Fearing Allied retribution for their perceived role in the Armenian genocide, and with no political allies, the Kurds found themselves isolated and vulnerable. For Britain, the Kurdish cause was not a priority especially in the face of appeasing central governments like those of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.

Despite this, the Kurdish struggle for self-determination continued. On August 10, 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres acknowledged the desirability of a Kurdish homeland. Britain and France promised the full and final liberation of peoples oppressed by the Ottoman Empire, including the Kurds. Article 62 of Section III on Kurdistan empowered a commission composed of British, French, Italian, Persian, and Kurdish representatives to determine changes to Ottoman boundaries. However, this promise was never fulfilled. The Allied powers, especially Britain, abandoned Kurdish self-determination after World War I, prioritizing their colonial interests and the strategic value of the region.