Furthermore, as recent news reports indicate, the US plans to leave many Kurdish and Iraqi dissidents, formerly working with the CIA, to fend for themselves without protection. For the last twelve years, the Turkish military has waged a brutal civil war against its Kurdish minority, bombing and depopulating over 3,000 Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey, and creating an estimated two million internal refugees. Using Turkey's reliance on US military assistance as leverage, the US should pressure Turkey to stop its ethnic war against the Kurds, and prevent northern Iraq from becoming the next staging ground for Turkey's civil war. It would be cynical and foolish for the US to turn its back against the Kurds. Ignoring northern Iraq now will only leave a volatile region open to violent exploitation and dangerous instability.
Time is short.
A Turkish bombing campaign has already sent Kurdish villagers into flight, forcing them to abandon their fruit crops before the harvest. There may still be time for the US to negotiate a lasting peace between Iraq's two warring Kurdish parties. If we don't try now, the chance won't come again.