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Will the West Betray Its Kurdish Ally?
(Wall Street Journal) Bernard-Henri Levy - The Iraqi Kurds held a dignified, orderly referendum Sept. 25 that conformed with all the rules of a democratic vote. Afterward, they refrained from declaring the independence that is their right and that a century of treaties promised them. Yet all the region's dictatorships immediately unleashed their ire on the Kurds, a small population whose only crime is to express the desire to be free, to flourish as an island of democracy and peace. Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria are threatening an air blockade, a land blockade, an oil embargo, and military intervention. Are we facing Munich-grade appeasement? Are we agreeing that might makes right? Will we give in to the world's consummate blackmailers? Is the West - and the U.S. in particular - making a colossal error of judgment in not grasping that there is something suicidal about abandoning a brave and loyal ally in favor of its adversaries? Or perhaps the Kurdish people - who are not Arabs, are secular, believe in pluralist democracy, practice equal rights for women, and have consistently protected, rescued and taken in minorities - are one more of the world's expendable peoples. There is something absurd about allowing authoritarian regimes to preach constitutional law to a people who only yesterday were under their boot. Iraqi authorities should respond, without delay or precondition, to the offer of dialogue the Kurds have extended to them.