FOR KURDS TRUMP’S ERA WAS A COMPLETE BETRAYAL
The great human sacrifices that the Kurds have given in the battle against ISIS were not enough for Trump to side with them in many fundamental issues
Photo: Reuters/File
By TAMR HUSSEIN
Two years ago, when Trump took office, Kurds wondered, like the rest of the world who will be the new president of the United States. The Kurds, who have given great human sacrifices in their fight against Islamic State (ISIS), were observing anxiously the positions and new policies of the new administration.
The Kurdish issue at that time was in a critical stage in light of the huge changes that hit the Middle East region because of the fight against ISIS and the Arab spring. The Kurds always remember how the super powers were unfair to them in the 1920s, when Kurdistan was divided and Kurdish demands were abandoned to satisfy Turkey’s desire. And since then, with almost a century of oppression and injustice, the Kurdish uprisings did not stop, in order to try and achieve the aspirations of the Kurdish nation in all parts of Kurdistan.
Kurdish hopes
In the early months of Trump presidency, there were Kurdish hopes, and a sense of optimism in the Kurdish street with the arrival of the new administration. The Kurdish people hoped that President Trump will correct the historical mistake made by the West which prevented the formation of a Kurdish state in the twentieth century and to recognize the map of the Kurdish state. They hoped that the Trump administration will put an end to a chapter of abandonments and disappointments in the history of relations between the Kurds and Americans, wishing that these bitter memories will be vanished forever, so eventually they will be able to determine their future.
As a sign of their love to the new president, new Kurdish babies and restaurants were named Trump .
I was among those people who were optimistic about Trump and argued that he might be the godfather of the Kurdish state in an article I wrote two years ago.
Kurdish disappointments
After Two years of the Trump presidency, the Kurds are disappointed again and facing a complete betrayal in all parts of Kurdistan. The great human sacrifices that the Kurds have given in the battle against ISIS were not enough for Trump to side with them in many fundamental issues. Most recently, the Kurdish areas in Syria are under attacks of the forces of darkness, where there is a war of ethnic cleansing and demographic changes by the Turkish army and its proxies. The Syrian Kurds have been sidelined in any plans for Syria’s future.
Under Trump administration, the Kurds lost control of two key Kurdish cities in Kirkuk and Afrin Civilians suffer from demographic changes and displacement after they living in stability and peacefulness under the Kurdish administration.
Trump did not support the biggest Kurdish dream of independence, the referendum of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which was very successful with a very high percentage of Kurdish votes.
In Kurdish regions of Turkey, Kurdish leaders, politicians and parliamentarians are in the jails of the tyrant Erdogan.
Kurdish citizens in Iran are still subject to executions and arrests and do not have any national and cultural rights .
It worth mentioning that despite of all these disappointments, there have been no single cases of retaliation and assault on the U.S forces not even by throwing a stone on American soldiers, and the American flag has not been burned anywhere in the Kurdish areas.
The Kurdish people are peaceful and respect the honor of friendship, but they are victims of geography which put them among wolves and bloody thirst vampires, and the broken American promises.
To the Kurdish civilians who are the target of Turkish invasion due to president Trump wrong decisions and policies, they will remember Trump as a man who left them to be slaughtered, and his era was a complete betrayal; for them Trump is a traitor.
The best Kurdish message that he can receive are the words of the Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani “The blood of the Kurds is far more valuable than money and weapons”
(The author is a Syrian Kurd journalist and Kurdish affairs analyst based in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.)
