The Great Betrayal

How America Abandoned the Kurds and Lost the Middle East

David L. Phillips

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781788313971
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786725769
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The twentieth century saw dramatic changes in the once Kurd-dominated Kirkuk region of Iraq. Despite having repeatedly relied on the Kurdish population of Iraq for military support, on three occasions the United States have abandoned their supposed allies in Kirkuk. The Great Betrayal provides a political and diplomatic history of the Kirkuk region and its international relations from the 1920s to the present day. Based on first-hand interviews and previously unseen sources, it provides an accessible account of a region at the very heart of America's foreign policy priorities in the Middle East. In September 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan held an independence referendum, intended to be a starting point on negotiations with the Iraqi Government in Baghdad on the terms of a friendly divorce. Though the US, Turkey, and Iran opposed it, the referendum passed with 93% of the vote. Rather than negotiate, Iraq's Prime Minister Heider al-Abadi issued an ultimatum and then attacked the region. Iraq's Kurdish population have been abandoned, once again, by their supposed allies in the US. In this book, David L. Phillips reveals the failings of America's policies towards Kirkuk and the devastating effects of betraying an ally.

‌Part I

Tragic History

‌1 Sovereignty Denied

“People and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited.”

US President Woodrow Wilson1

Sykes–Picot

The Kurds aligned with the Allies against the Axis Powers in World War I. As countries gathered in Versailles to redraw the map of Europe and the Middle East, Kurds fought alongside the British to liberate Kirkuk from Ottoman control. Kurds wanted a state of their own. After World War I, the map of Europe and the Middle East was changing, with the demise of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Ethno-national movements demanded legal status, claiming their right to self-determination rather than majoritarian rule.

Opposing worldviews sharpened at the Paris Peace Conference, where international representatives discussed the fate of vanquished empires. US President Woodrow Wilson emerged as the voice of small captive nations. The first salvo in this debate occurred with World War I still raging. Mark Sykes, a British officer, and François Georges-Picot, a French diplomat, held a series of meetings to determine the status of peoples who would be liberated in the Great War. The fate of the Kurds hung in the balance.

The Sykes–Picot Agreement—also known as “The Asia Minor Agreement”—was finalized on 16 May 1916. It drew a figurative line in the sand from the Persian border in the northeast to Mosul and Kirkuk, across the desert towards the Mediterranean, skirting the top of Palestine.2 Sykes and Picot envisioned that lands north of the line would be a French zone and lands to the south would be controlled by the British. Sykes–Picot notionally assigned the Basra and Baghdad districts (vilayets) to Britain, and the Mosul vilayet to France. Sykes told Britain’s Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, “I should like to draw a line from the ‘E’ in Acre to the last ‘K’ in Kirkuk.”3

The Sykes–Picot Agreement sanctioned a process to carve up territories, but the borders of new states in the Middle East ultimately bore little resemblance to the original Sykes–Picot map. The Sykes–Picot Agreement was not a formal treaty. It did, however, set the stage for establishing new nation states through a series of conferences and treaties over the next nine years. The root of conflict in the modern Middle East lies in the arbitrary way states were established during this period. As the primary protagonists, Britain and France pursued a policy of “divide and rule,” installing local leaders as clients to do their bidding. Britain’s assurances were especially duplicitous.

British officials offered Sharif Hussein bin Ali of Mecca an independent Arab state in greater Syria and Mesopotamia in exchange for help fighting the Ottoman army. Hussein and the Arab tribes joined the battle in June 1916. The Arab revolt was decisive, helping British forces capture Damascus, Mecca and Medina after a two-year siege. Kurdish fighters fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the British against the Ottomans. The Kirkuk garrison fell in May 1918, leading to the Ottoman surrender and the Mudros Armistice on 30 October 1918.

Both Arab and Kurdish leaders expected payback for their roles in the war. However, the Foreign Office made more promises that it could keep. Britain offered Hussein an Arab state spanning territories from Aleppo (modern-day Syria) to Yemen (on the Persian Gulf). British officials told the Kurds they could govern themselves and have a state of their own on lands in Mesopotamia and Anatolia (modern Iraq and Syria). Britain’s Middle East policy raised unrealistic expectations, laying the ground for decades of distrust and conflict.

The Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson presented progressive ideas about democracy and self-determination for the subjugated peoples of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. His egalitarian worldview was a road map for peace-building in the waning months of World War I. Wilson enlisted a team of 150 advisors led by Edward M. House, who helped write his “Fourteen Points” speech, delivered on 8 January 1918. Wilson addressed a global audience, including the German government and the German people. The speech was broadcast on radio and printed copies of the speech were air-dropped behind German lines. The Kurds were also listening closely. Point 5 called for

A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial judgment of all colonial claims, based on strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty and interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of government whose title is to be determined.4

For the Kurds, point 5 assured them that their national aspirations would be considered.

Point 12 indicated that “The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity for autonomous development.”5 Point 12 spoke directly to the Kurds, seeking separation from Ottoman rule.

Point 14 proposed the creation of a League of Nations to ensure “Political independence and territorial integrity [of] great and small states alike.”6 Point 14 provided an assurance that the Kurds would have a forum to petition for statehood.

Wilson believed that the enactment of his Fourteen Points would form the basis for a just and lasting peace. He expanded on his Fourteen Points speech in an address to a joint session of the US Congress on 11 February 1918.

First, that each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent;

Second, people and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited.

Third, every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival states; and

Fourth, that all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.7

Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. In bestowing its honor, the Nobel Committee heralded Wilson’s commitment to “the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be weak or strong.”8

World leaders met at Versailles to finalize details of the postwar world order. The Fourteen Points became the basis of the German armistice surrender. The Paris Peace Conference, which was actually held at Versailles, lasted six months from January to July 1919, with the discussions dominated by Britain, France and Italy. France’s Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau hosted the conference. Britain and Italy were represented by their prime ministers, David Lloyd George and Vittorio Orlando. Russia had just gone through its revolution and the new Bolshevik government declined to attend. The defeated Central Powers—Germany, Austria–Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria—were not invited.

The United States was the other member of the “Big Four.” Through its contribution to the war effort and growing economy, the US had emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Wilson staked out a theme for the Paris Peace Conference: the right to self-determination. He viewed the Conference as a forum for dialogue between ethnic-national groups and the Great Powers of Old Europe. Allies were surprised by Wilson’s Fourteen Points, but lent their support. France formally endorsed the Fourteen Points on 1 November 1918. UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour pledged support in exchange for America’s endorsement of reparations in the text of the final armistice. German Chancellor Count von Hertling welcomed Wilson’s Fourteen Points in conciliatory remarks to the Reichstag, but conditioned his support with a demand that the Paris Peace Conference consider the status of Alsace-Lorraine. Balfour scoffed at the notion of Alsace-Lorraine as a disputed territory between France and Germany.

Wilson headed the US delegation, but became ill with influenza soon after arriving in France. With Wilson’s health waning, David Lloyd George shifted the focus of discussions from freedom and rights to accountability and reparations. Clemenceau focused on security guarantees and territories. Clemenceau also insisted on a guilt clause assigning full responsibility to Germany for the war and enshrining the principle of reparations by Germany to the Allies. The Treaty of Versailles was finalized on 28 June and published on 21 October 1919. Article 231 of Versailles, the “War Guilt Clause,” established Germany’s responsibility for the War an...

Table of contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Glossary of Personalities
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I • Tragic History
• 1 Sovereignty Denied
• 2 Victims of the Cold War
• 3 Crackdown
• Part II • Struggle
• 4 Self-rule
• 5 Dysfunctional Iraq
• 6 A Perfect Storm
• 7 Countdown
• Part III • Treachery
• 8 The Referendum
• 9 Kirkuk Crisis
• 10 Elections
• Part IV • The Region
• 11 Syria Struggles
• 12 Iran Wins
• 13 Russia Rises
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Further Reading
• Image Section