The Kurds Can't Win Alone

During the early days of the current Iraq administration, the Kurds were not getting the money they were promised, were cut out of oil revenue sharing that they were supposed to get, and still fought without supplies that were routed through the central government and never seemed to get to where they were needed.  The United States was partially responsible for that mess, though it didn't seem to have much influence over the guys in Baghdad.

That problem has not gone away, as a story in the Wall Street Journal reminds us [ Stingy Baghdad Harms the ISIS Fight, 20 December ]. The story says " Through no fault of its own, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) is unable to pay the salaries of its employees, including the famed Peshmerga fighting force."  You would think that an army of fighters who have done pretty well against ISIS, the same enemy of the central government has, could put aside their differences long enough to fight them together, but that doesn't seem to have happened.  More important, the Allied forces in Iraq haven't done a lot to get this show on the road by funding the Kurds directly, if necessary.  The Iraq government seems to have adopted the view, held by Iran, that the Kurds are dangerous and should not be encouraged.  That might be, as Pew Research points out, that only about 2% of them are Shia Muslims like our Iranian buddies.  

I'm not sure we fought the Iraq war to make a religious statement to the world about the benefits of one Muslim group or another.  Iraq seems to be making that distinction, not the people supporting this government. It follows Iran.  We seem to have spent billions of dollars establishing a group of leaders who are not very good allies.  This is what passes for democracy in the Middle East.  

The Kurds cannot fight without resources.  Turkey is in a quandary over this because trying to keep tabs on the various groups of Kurds, some fighting Turkey and some not, has not proven to be easy.  Iran is not happy with the Kurds being strong in an area they are weak in and they certainly don't trust any of the Sunnis.  When governments make decisions more on religious grounds than common sense, we get a tangled mess that benefits nobody.   No wonder we have such a difficult time getting rid of these terrorists who live there..