By Jacqueline Klimas- The Washington Times – Sunday, June 7, 2015
Most Republican 2016 presidential contenders say they support arming Kurdish fighters in the campaign against the Islamic State, marking a clear departure from President Obama’s current foreign strategy and a welcome game plan among military analysts, who say arming the Kurds is a must-do to defeat the terror organization.
The Kurdish peshmerga is already a competent fighting force ready and willing to fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, but often lacking the arms to do so, said Richard Brennan, a senior political scientist at RAND Corp.
Arming the Kurds would not only give Iraqi Security Forces more help in the fight against the Islamic State, but also avoid sectarian conflicts that arise when the majority-Shiite Iraqi forces must fight in Sunni areas like Anbar province, where troops are preparing to retake Ramadi, he said.
“It definitely would be a positive step,” Mr. Brennan said. “Many of them want to fight against ISIS, but they don’t have arms and equipment.”
But the Obama administration has said it will only provide assistance to the Shiite Iraqi central government. The Iraqi central government then doles out the weapons as it sees fit. After pursuing this strategy for more than a decade, some analysts say that if President Obama starts unilaterally arming the Kurds, it would undermine his message that he has faith in the leadership abilities of the Iraqis.
Indeed, even after the fall of Ramadi, where Iraqi forces were run out of the city by Islamic militants after an unexpected routing last month, the White House reaffirmed its strategy of supporting the Iraqi government through airstrikes and military training — but no U.S. boots on the ground or directly arming additional soldiers like the Kurds.
“We believe this policy remains the most effective way to support the Counter-ISIL Coalition efforts to combat ISIL and maintain a unified, federal, pluralistic and democratic state of Iraq, as envisioned in the Iraqi constitution,” said Cmdr. Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman, in a statement.
But Republican 2016 presidential contenders are ready to break with that strategy.
Even Sen. Rand Paul, a dove among GOP hawks, said he supports helping the Kurds.
“I think the only way this battle is won, ultimately, is with troops on the ground, but they need to be Arab troops,” the Kentucky Republican said during a February interview on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom.” “The Kurds are the best fighters over there, [and] I think we really need to incorporate them.”
Other 2016 candidates who have formally announced they are running for the high office — such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former New York Gov. George Pataki and business executive Carly Fiorina — have stressed the need to work more collaboratively with allies in the region such as the Kurds, as well as the Jordanians, Turks and Egyptians.
“There are a whole set of things we’ve been asked to do by our allies who know this is their fight. And we’re not doing any of them,” Ms. Fiorina told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell last week. “So I would hold summit and talk with them about that.”
Arming the Kurds does pose some risks, like giving rise to another sectarian conflict, but pressure does need to be put on the central Iraqi government to incorporate both the Kurdish peshmerga and the Sunni militias in their fight against the Islamic State and to not treat them as inferiors.
“There are legitimate concerns of how you do this, but at the head of it is the fact that the U.S. needs to be willing to put serious pressure on the central government to provide arms and munitions to both the peshmerga and the Sunnis,” Mr. Brennan said. “At the end of the day, the Shia-led government of Iraq is unwilling to let the peshmerga and Sunni tribes fight as equals against ISIS.”
Some Republican presidential hopefuls, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who announced his candidacy on Monday, former Sen. Rick Santorum, Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, Mr. Pataki and Mr. Rubio have also supported the U.S. putting some boots on the ground in Iraq, even if the position is politically unpopular.
Recent polling has shown Americans are growing less supportive of sending U.S. troops to the fight against the Islamic State. Just 35 percent of likely voters support sending troops back to Iraq as part of an international coalition, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released May 22. That’s down from a 52 percent support rate in early February.
However, Mr. Graham said that he would put an additional 10,000 U.S. service members on the ground in Iraq to combat radical Islamic terrorists. Mr. Santorum of Pennsylvania also supported an influx of that number during a speech in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference before he declared his candidacy.
“I’m afraid some Americans have grown tired of fighting them. I have some bad news to share with you,” Mr. Graham said in South Carolina when he announced he would run for president. “The radical Islamists are not tired of fighting you. In partnership with others, we must take the fight to them, building lines of defenses over there, so they can’t come here.”
Long overdue. may never happen under this Adm. BHO may not be willing to displease his friends in Turkey & Iran. The Kurds deserve their own land far more than the so called Palestinians.
@ ppksky:
Each sentence is incorrect.
We must back those who support America…and Israel…consistently and profoundly.
The Kurds took no land from Armenians; their claim dates back millennia, and they had nothing to do with the [Turkish/Muslim] Armenian/Christian genocide.
The Kurds would relinquish claims in Turkey [and Iran, probably], if they were to be able to establish themselves in Iraq/Syria; they want/merit a homeland.
Turkey’s Islamist government has been vacillating, but note the following:
“Turkey Would Support Iraqi Kurds’ Bid For Self-Rule, Spokesman Says In Historic Remark.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/turkey-kurdistan_n_5504309.html
There is never any side to back when the combatants are Muslim. We need to stay out of conflicts between Muslims.
The Kurds claim land that they took from murdered Orthodox Armenians. The Kurds were instrumental in the Armenian Genocide.
To further complicate the Kurdish situation, the Kurds want land from Turkey. That territory was also Armenian and it was territory that the Kurds and the Turks together commited mass murder against the Orthodox Armenians.
What is Turkey’s stance about backing the Kurds? Does that include ceding Turkish territory to Kurdis nationalists? Turkey is a NATO member. If Turkey as a NATO member will not back the Kurds, what does that mean?
Obama supported jihadists in Libya and Egypt and Syria, and is enthralled with the Islamic Nazi regime in Tehran. Such a miscreant is highly unlikely to support the Kurds in any meaningful way. I am still bracing for the possibility that Obama will manufacture a Gulf of Tonkin-style incident which he will use as a pretext to attack Israel.
As much as I concur with the need for enhanced American military leadership “on the ground,” I have helped sherkoh Abbas compose op-ed pieces for more than a half-decade that advocate direct support for the Kurds (plus implicit recognition of Kurdistan); what some people forget is the fluidity of what is occurring when they resign themselves, for example, to a trisected Iraq for nothing would stop multiple enemies surrounding the Kurds to keep invading.