Iraq Press Roundup

The Kurdish Al Ahali Newspaper carried an editorial today titled "The U.S. policy toward the Kurds: Between yesterday and today."

It detailed President Nixon's visit to Tehran in 1972, when the Shah of Iran succeeded in convincing him of the necessity of supporting the Kurdish cause so it can take on the strong Iraqi military.

"The Kurds then received $9 million to $19 million from the U.S. and that allowed them to fight the Iraqi army campaigns in 1974," the paper said.

The editorial said Iraqi forces then faced tough fights from the Kurds who freed vast areas of their lands, leading the Iraqi government to give up, to the United States and Iran, the Kurdish case.

"The 1975 agreement was the result of this international conspiracy when the U.S. achieved their goals of demolishing the Iraqi military and economic capacity and forced Iraq to give up Iraqi land to the Shah of Iran, who was the U.S. ally, but after that the latter completely withdrew their support and promises to the Kurds," the paper said.

On current events, the editorial said that after the fall of Saddam in 2003, a representative for Massoud Barzani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan "accused the U.S. administration of trying to divide Iraq and force the Kurds to either split or get embroiled in an unending civil war."

It said a PUK statement said it hoped the United States wouldn't put the Kurds in a situation making them U.S. "enemies."

The paper said that before the war on Iraq in 2003, the United States made deals with the Kurds to support the war, but later the relationship between the two sides became worse when the Bush administration refused to approve a Kurdish demand for a transitional law securing Kurdish rights.

"Kurdish leaders accused Washington of betraying it, saying the Kurds weren't only betrayed by the U.S. but Washington also changed its attitude without focusing on implementing a real strategy in Iraq," the editorial said.

"The bottom line," the editorial said, "is we have to think of what the Kurds can do if Iraq goes through the same experience as the one in Iran in terms of the U.S. role? In other words, what are the Kurds hoping to gain from the U.S. policy; a policy that doesn't take into account either eternal friends or eternal enemies; a policy that considers only eternal interests."

The Kurdish Al Taakhi newspaper published an editorial titled "America sees the Middle East as its national security focus."

The editorial said the Middle East issue has "taken a big portion" of the U.S. administration's plans with regards to setting up a U.S. strategy that secures linking the Middle East to its policy in a way that makes it difficult for other countries to step in it without gaining U.S. approval.

It said World War II gave the United States a chance to "force its will" in setting up the essentials to apply a "solutions strategy" all over the world, replacing Britain, France, Germany and others.

"To ensure its policy, the U.S. issued many plans," the paper said.

The paper said that in the 1960s, the United States announced support projects to countries under the condition they be linked to U.S. policy, a continuation, the paper said, of U.S. policy after World War II.

The paper said these projects were based on conditions that would ensure U.S. primacy.

"Then comes the strategic partnership to link more Middle Eastern countries to the U.S. domination; yet that wasn't satisfying to U.S. policy ambitions so they granted $1 billion to each country as 'an economic support' after those countries had to announce their complete loyalty to the U.S., which is what we call now 'U.S. globalization,'" the paper said.

The paper said some Middle Eastern countries refused to take that "economic support" because they were self-dependent. It said the United States accused these countries of lacking freedoms.

"The Middle Eastern countries don't believe that the U.S. is 'reforming' these systems because of their 'defense of human rights' but because the Middle East is one of the most important components of U.S. long- and short-term policy," it said.