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The last time Baghdad sent troops into Kirkuk to kick out Kurdish forces, I was in the first group of journalists taken to see the aftermath. Bloated bodies and blown-up trucks littered the road as we arrived. Fresh on the heels of the allied liberation of Kuwait in 1991, swaths of Iraq's downtrodden rose up against Saddam Hussein. The Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north were both brutally crushed. Around Kirkuk we witnessed the ugly aftermath of more killings. Kurds who had been gunned down, their bodies untouched where they fell. It was, as my wife -- then a CNN correspondent -- reported, "an object lesson in brutality." Although Baghdad's offensive in Kirkuk this week is tame by comparison, it is nevertheless an object lesson not just for the Kurds, but for the US -- and President Trump in particular. The Iraqi government forces arrived in US-made Humvees and Abrams tanks backed by Shia militias who are supported by Iran. Both the US and Iran are vying for influence in Iraq.
Iran's claim is historic, rooted in religious ideology. By contrast, America appears as the Johnny-come-lately. So when Trump refused to recertify Iran's compliance of the Iran nuclear deal last week and threatened to designate Iran's top military force, the revolutionary guard -- the IRGC -- a terrorist organization, he wasn't just slapping down the theocracy -- he was also upping the stakes in Iraq. In part drawing a line in the sand; in part throwing sand in the faces of Iran's leaders. Iran's Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is throwing sand back, pledging to undermine US interests in Iraq and by implication its Kurdish region. Not long after my visit to Kirkuk in 1991, the US designated Kurdish areas a safe zone, denying Saddam access.
Since then, the Kurds -- under their leader Masoud Barzani -- have cemented autonomy and grown claims for independence, wooing America as a protector by granting oil rights and offering strategic airbases for them -- some close to Iran's border. But last month, Barzani pushed the relationship to the brink by forcing through a Kurdish referendum on independence against the express wishes of America, Iraq, and Iran. Only Israel accepted the Kurds' overwhelming call for independence. On the eve of Iraq's Kurdish offensive this week, an IRGC general slipped into Kirkuk with two Iraqi generals and told the Kurds to get out or be crushed.
Both the President and the Iranians have put their cards on the table: Trump can't abide them; they want American influence in the region gone. The days of cooperating over ISIS are likely not long for this world.
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