The forgotten ally

Abandon all hope for simple solutions when it comes to the Middle East, where simplistic solutions are on offer instead. Our allies the Kurds are being menaced by Turkey, which proclaims itself an American ally only when it suits that country’s nefarious purposes.

It’s a wise nation that can tell friend from foe, and for the moment Turkey’s dictatorship has taken on a distinctly anti-American tone. For their part, the Kurds have turned to the United Nations for help, and we all know how futile an appeal to that quarter can be. So the Kurds are stuck between a rock—Turkey’s determination to attack them—and a harder place, reliance on the ever unreliable United Nations.

The Kurds came through for American interests when they joined the Western alliance against ISIS, that brutal terrorist threat, and now this country is coming through for them by supporting a Kurdish-led border patrol that numbers some 30,000 fighters—a formidable force the Turks seem determined to crush.

What to do now? It’s clear what this country should not do: Abandon the Kurds again. That’s happened all too often in their sad history. Now is the time to champion their cause, not sell them out once again in some Kissingeresque power play. For these are proud people with a long memory. Let’s give them something to remember gratefully: our support.

It has been said that nations have no friends or enemies, only interests. And it would befit America’s to stand by our Kurdish friends now, just as they have stood by us.