The appalling fate of the people of Kurdistan is a direct, and predictable, outcome of the US attack on Iraq. Now the Kurds face an awful dilemma -either they stay in the 'safé havens' which would become Palestinian-style refugee camps, or to face the danger of being massacred by Saddam's forces.
Saddam's promiseof limited 'autonomy' for the Kurds is absolutely worthless. It is a stunt aimed at ending the limited allied occupation of the north, and rapidly ending UN sanctions the Ba'ath regime.
Saddam has promised it before - in 1970,and again in 1975. But it meant nothing but permanent war against the Kurdish people The Kurds have every right to feel betrayed by the West. Bush did call on the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam. With the regime weakened at the end of the war, both the Kurds and the rebels in the south took their opportunity. It is clear now that Saddam kept back most of his elite Republican Guard away from the Kuwait front. They were to be kept in reserve to crush internal rebellion.
It is also clear that the rebels in the south were not just Shi' ahs - many Sunni Muslims joined the revolt to bring down the Saddam regime. But Bush and the reactionary regimes which border Iraq did Rebelling against Saddam: Kurdish guerlllas want Saddam brought down by a popular rebellion. Most of all they did not want an inde pendent Kurdistan established through popular revolt.
The 25 million Kurds are split between five countries -Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and the Soviet Union. Each one of these states has a record of repression against the Kurds. And for the US, and inde pendent Kurdistan brought about by nationalist revolution would have destabilised the whole region.
The performance of Turkey and the West towards the refugees has been a shameful episode. Turkey has kept hundreds of thousands on freezing cold mountains, Kurdish women In Halabjah hundreds dying, because the Ozal regime fears the conse quences of enlarging its own Kurdish population. No one could fail to see the contrast between the paltry Western aid effort for the Kurds and the immense and efficient mobilisation of resources for the war.
And no one could fail to see the hypocrisy of the US allowing Saddam's helicopter gunships to rain death on the flee ing Kurds.
Hypocrisy has not been confined to the West. The USSR and China have been more vociferously opposed to giving any aid to the Kurds than have some western states. Insisting Big brother In Baghdad turn the Kurds into a refugee people. The fate of the Palestinians is eloquent testimony to what this will mean. The Kurds will be easier to repress, to hem in and demoralise, if they are corralled into camps.
Second, the US commitment to this solution is skin deep. Bush's intervention was determined by the pressure of public opinion. The United States can abandon defence of the 'havens' at any time, leaving the Kurds to Saddam's mercies.
The only solution which will defend the Kurds is self-determination - the right to their own state. And the only thing which will gain it is the revolutionary national struggle of the Kurdish people. Insofar as demands are put on Western governments, they should be on the need for massive humanitarian aid, and the need to give the Kurdish people the means to defend themselves -arms.
The debate on the left about the 'safe havens' has parallels with the dispute in 1969 over the sending of British troops to Ireland. The anti-imperialist left opposed sending troops. British troops were sent be cause of Loyalist pogroms against Nationalist areas. The pogroms real. At that time the nationalist communities lacked the military means to defend themselves adequately. And the troops did provide a buffer for a while.
But many socialists pointed out that despite the short-term breathing space, the imposition of imperialist troops would mean, in the end, they would be turned against the nationalist community. Over time, the consequences would be a bitter war. So it has turned be.
It is a shame to see some people who took the right line on the Gulf war, people who understood that although Saddam was an oppressive dictator, imperialism would serve no progressive purpose in attacking his regime, have deserted this logic over the Kurds.