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The Kurds: Between Iraq and A Hard Place
31.1.2007
By Lt. Col. Rick Francona
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January 31, 2007
Earlier this month, American forces in Iraq raided
an Iranian facility in the Kurdish city of Erbil.
Documents and computer files seized in that raid
indicate that the facility was being used by members
of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in
an operation to provide money and weapons to various
Shia militia groups in Iraq.
The weapons include advanced improvised explosive
devices, mortars, newer generation rocket propelled
grenades and shoulder-fired surface to air missiles.
The advanced IED’s have already killed American
troops, and mortars allegedly traceable to Iran have
been used in attacks on Sunni areas of Baghdad.
Is the IRGC operating in Kurdish northern Iraq? Of
course they are - they’ve been there since at least
1991. Soon after the Iraqi defeat in Kuwait, IRGC
officers conducted clandestine and covert operations
in the southern Shia area and the northern Kurdish
area, and have been active there ever since.
The raid earlier this month on the Iranian facility
causes problems for the Kurdish Regional Government
and its autonomous region in northern Iraq. Since
the Iranians claim that the facility was an Iranian
consulate that had been in operation in the Kurdish
enclave for years, it created a diplomatic incident.
Having served in northern Iraq, including Erbil, and
observing Iranian operations, I am skeptical that
the facility was, in fact, a consulate. Since the
raid, Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself
a Kurd, has demanded that the United States release
the five “consular officials.”
The incident highlights the conflict the Kurds face.
They are part of Iraq, but are not Arabs like 80
percent of the population.
For almost the entire period that the Baath Party
ruled Iraq, they were the target of a genocidal
campaign aimed at eradicating their separate
identity. During that time, the Kurds – at times out
of necessity – developed a close relationship with
the Iranians.
When Saddam Hussein’s forces attacked the Kurdish
village of Halabja with chemical weapons, when the
Iraqi army killed thousands of Kurds in the Anfal
campaign, the Iranians became the Kurds’ only ally.
Iran provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of
Kurds, creating a bond that is hard to break and
hard to ignore. When no one else seemed to care
about their plight, Iran opened its borders to them.
Now that Saddam is gone and the Kurds have
established an autonomous region in the north, the
Iranians are exploiting that past relationship.
After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, the Iranians
greatly expanded their presence in the Kurdish north
as well as with their fellow Shia Muslims in the
south.
The Iranian presence is not a good thing for the
American efforts in Iraq. It also presents problems
for the Kurds, easily America’s best allies among
the Iraqis. The Kurds are balancing their close
relationship with America against their close
relationship with the Iranians. When more raids like
the one in Erbil occur in the future – and they
will, given new orders to U.S. forces to no longer
“catch and release” Iranian operatives, but to
capture and kill them – the Kurds will have to
decide which relationship means more.
You can’t have it both ways. Just like the Iraqi
government of Nuri al-Maliki, they have to decide if
they are with us or with the Iranians.
hardblogger msnbc msn.com
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