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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.
When Iraq became an official state in 1932 under British mandate, the Kurds were again used as pawns in regional politics. The British deliberately maintained a complex stance: on one hand, acknowledging Kurdish concerns, but on the other, consistently favoring Iraq’s territorial integrity under British influence. This position continues on. In the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, Britain refused to support full Kurdish independence, reaffirming its commitment to a federal Iraq.
Historically, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) even bombed Kurdish regions to suppress uprisings on Christmas Day December 25, 1920, when the Kurds were being led by Sheikh Mahmoud who opposed British colonial rule in Kurdistan. The British who divided Kurdistan have a moral obligation to ensure the protection and survival of the Kurdish people whose struggle against oppression and state violence continues at the hands of the states the British annexed their homeland into.
Citations:
• Randal, Jonathan. After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? My Encounters with Kurdistan. New York.1989
• Kissinger, Henry. World Order. (“Extraordinary, truly staggering…an unambiguous masterpiece.” — Tom Rogan, Washington Post, p. 326)
• Luqman Radpey. The Sèvres Centennial: Self-Determination and the Kurds, Volume 24, Issue 20, August 10, 2020.
