Op-Ed: McGurk’s Kurdish Policy

Normally one would write a column such as this about “America’s Kurdish Policy,” or “President Trump’s Kurdish strategy,” or “Washington’s approach towards the Kurds.” Based on this columnist’s recent discussions with officials in Washington, however, it seems much for fitting to write about “McGurk’s Kurdish Policy.” 

Since coming into office last year, President Trump has left the previous Obama administration’s Iraq and Kurdish strategy on auto-pilot. Although there was a brief policy brainstorming session last year regarding anti-ISIS efforts in Syria and the possibility of dropping the Kurdish-centric strategy there (presumably due in part to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s desire to help his Turkish paymasters), the Trump administration ended up coming right back to the Obama administration’s strategy. A similar policy review about “containing Iran” ended similarly, settling on the hope of cultivating “moderates” and “Iraqi nationalists” in Baghdad to stymie Tehran.

In the case of the Kurds, however, even this brief review of policy never occurred.  Normally the announcement in the Spring of 2017 of intentions to hold a referendum on Kurdistan’s independence would have garnered a reaction from the U.S. presidency to review policy and various options.  But Mr. Trump was possibly too occupied with the various pressing matters he tweets about incessantly to give much thought to the issue.

As a result, the U.S. attitude towards the referendum appeared indifferent until the very last moment.  When U.S. diplomats from June until September 2017 did no more than blandly repeat the old mantra that they support both Kurdish rights and a unified, democratic and federal Iraq, the Kurds took this as an indicator that the Americans understood that politics in Baghdad lay beyond redemption and would, when the moment came, support the Iraqi Kurds’ justifiable aspirations.

Kurdistan’s leadership in Erbil could not imagine that the Americans would stand by passively as Iranian-controlled Shiite militias and the Iraqi army turned their American-supplied weaponry against America’s most faithful ally in the Muslim world. In cultures that value honor, courage and strength, one does not let an enemy throttle an ally. Especially given President Trump’s bellicose rhetoric about “containing Iran” and putting a stop to its nefarious activities, Kurds in Iraq believed they could at least count on the Americans to try and block Iranian-orchestrated military moves against them.

Trump’s rhetoric against Iran appears to have been little more than words, however.  As his administration moves to let Iran out of the nuclear deal – even without a viable means of re-imposing international sanctions on them – it does little else to constrain the mullahs. Rather, hardliners in Tehran appear emboldened by the apparent lack of an American plan to contain Iran, confront them or even support American allies against Iran (something the Saudis have also felt).

The indifference and even inattention coming from the White House instead left America’s Iraq and Kurdish policies on auto-pilot. In practice this means that Brett McGurk, the Obama administration’s “Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL” and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran, is largely left to his own devices.

Only two weeks before the September 25^th referendum, Mr. McGurk and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began a concerted campaign to oppose it and convince the Kurds to postpone it. The first serious offer from McGurk and Tillerson to provide an alternative to the referendum came on September 23^rd – just two days before the referendum and considerably too late. After September 25^th, McGurk was apparently displeased that the Kurds dared to doubt and refuse American promises.

This was in stark contrast to 2003 when the Peshmerga vacated Kirkuk in return for a promise to hold a referendum there, or in 2010 when Masoud Barzani agreed to support a new Maliki government in return for more American and Baghdadi promises, or in 2014 when the Kurds agreed to postpone a referendum on independence until after ISIS was defeated and in order to give the Abadi government a chance at power sharing.

He vented his pique at the Kurds for daring to hold a referendum by staying silent as his much more competent rival, Qassem Soleimani, unraveled the Kurdish front and engineered Baghdad’s forceful takeover of Kirkuk and other disputed territories. McGurk even helpfully sent out a series of tweets at the time that nothing was wrong, and that the Iraqi and Shiite militia troop movements were just normal redeployments to other anti-ISIL theaters.

McGurk’s “Kurdish policy,” in short, goes no further than using the Kurds to further an American policy of supporting strong leaders in Baghdad. One needs only recall that until 1990 Washington had no problem with Saddam Hussein. During Nuri al-Maliki’s nine years as prime minister, Mr. McGurk remained one of his most ardent backers right until the end. Now Mr. Abadi is McGurk’s man in Baghdad (as well as America’s, at least until a sensible policy review occurs). Will Prime Minister Abadi turn out to be the unicorn that Mr. McGurk and the U.S. State Department have been looking for? Will he prove himself a pro-American Shiite Iraqi nationalist moderate who will block Iranian aspirations in the region?

Somehow this columnist does not think so. As Peter Galbraith recently explained in the New York Review of Books,

Dawa, the party of Maliki and Abadi, was supported by Iran for decades. One of its coalition partners, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, was founded in Tehran in 1982. Neither Iraq nor Iran has hidden Iran’s involvement in the country. Abadi’s spokesman confirmed Qassem Soleimani’s presence in Iraq, explaining that Iraq had both American and Iranian military advisers. Iran’s army chief of staff, Mohamadi Gulpaigani, was even more direct. According to the Fars news agency, he told a Tehran gathering that “the instructions of the Supreme Leader and the sacrifices of General Soleimani spoiled their plots [US and Israel to divide Iraq], and Kirkuk was liberated.

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.