America Must Support Kurdistan Now

America Must Support Kurdistan Now

08/12/14

Dov S. Zakheim

Military Strategy, Security, Kurdistan, Iraq, United States

It took the Obama administration far too long to recognize the importance of Kurdistan to American interests. It's time for Washington to step up.

After years of stiff-arming urgent Kurdish requests for arms, President Obama—confronting the loss of the Mosul Dam to the forces of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) and the possible collapse of Erbil, the Kurdish capital—finally agreed to provide military support to the Peshmerga, the Kurdish defense forces. The Kurds certainly need the help. Tough fighters they might be, but in order to continue to hold off the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham—or ISIS, as IS is commonly called—they urgently need to upgrade almost all of their vintage 1990 equipment.

The Peshmerga has made the most both with the equipment they have and the pittance of support they have received from Washington over the past two decades. It is remarkable that eight Kurdish brigades, who received only $92 million worth of equipment from the United States, were able to remain intact in the face of the ISIS onslaught. The American-trained and -equipped Iraqi army, which benefitted from $25 billion in total American support, quickly disintegrated before the oncoming ISIS forces.

The Kurds have made it clear that they do not want American boots on the ground. The Obama administration's decision to provide the Kurds with tactical air support has enabled the Peshmerga to mount a counterattack against ISIS and retake several of the towns that the Islamists had previously overrun. They intend to recover the Mosul Dam as well. What the government in Erbil is requesting is ongoing air support, a commitment to the modernization of its forces over the longer term, including American military training, and, finally, political and economic support, should a post-Maliki government in Baghdad continue to pursue Maliki's sectarian policies.

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