Khaddam, who also served as vice president to Assad’s father and predecessor, was present in the meeting between Assad and the Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and a subsequent meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as they discussed possible outcomes of an American attack on the regime of Saddam Hussein and what position they should take if US troops invaded their mutual neighbour.
How the Kurds would fare was a concern raised by both sides, Khaddam recounted in his memoirs published by Sharq al-Awsat.
“We must be wary of the establishment of a Kurdish state, and keep in mind the idea that the Kurds of Iran are Iranians, the Iraqi Kurds are Iraqi, and the Turkish Kurds are Turkish,” Khaddam recalled Khatami as saying.
“In this regard, the Turks must be reassured and their fears dispelled. There has to be cooperation between us, you, and the Iraqi opposition on this matter,” he added.
Though Turkish representation was not present in the meeting, it appeared that both the Iranian and Syrian leaders wanted Ankara to join their efforts to establish spheres of influence on a post-Saddam Iraq. The common ground for all three sides was the Kurds.
“The main ground for cooperation between Syria and Turkey now is the issue of the Kurdish state, and this brings together all the different components in Turkey, the military and others, because this worries Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, and we must coordinate on this issue,” Assad had said in the meeting, according to Khaddam.
Assad’s objective appears to have been to use the Kurds in Iraq as a tool to achieve control, for he had lost faith in the Iraqi opposition. However he wanted to do so in a way that would not grant the Kurds the goal they had sought for years – statehood.
“If they [Iraqi opposition] come to power, they will not work with Syria and Iran, but will be on the American side,” Khaddam quoted Assad saying. “Therefore, it is important to expand relations and create other elements of coordination. The biggest component is the Kurds. They have fear and they are thinking of establishing a homeland.”
Khaddam said both Iran and Syria at the time wanted a lengthy war, hoping that would prevent Washington from turning its gaze on them after Saddam.
“We said at the beginning that we do not want the war to happen because it is harmful to everyone, but it is unreasonable for us to sit and wait for it to come to us later,” Assad said, according to Khaddam. “I think that the most important thing that can happen in the event of a war is its extension until America gets tired.”
The Kurds of Iraq had already gained some autonomy in the 1990s, after the international community imposed a no-fly zone over Kurdish areas to protect them from the air force of Saddam Hussein. That autonomy was cemented in the new Iraqi constitution drafted after the 2003 invasion. In 2017, the Kurdistan Region held a referendum that saw 93 percent vote for independence.
In Syria, Kurds in the northeast have carved out an autonomous region known as Rojava during that country’s decade of civil conflict.
