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• Position: Clinton administration policy on Iraqi air strikes - Editorial

President Clinton's decision to launch missile strikes against Iraq in early September was both hypocritical and immoral.

Yes, Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. Yes, he has persecuted the Kurds.

But the U.S. government cries only crocodile tears over the Kurds. It is a linchpin of U.S. policy in the region that the Kurds should not establish a state of their own. A Kurdish state would threaten one of our major regional allies, Turkey, which itself has a large Kurdish minority that has been seeking independence. Turkey views the Kurds, whether in Iraq or in its own country, as a threat.

Here is the prime hypocrisy of U.S. policy: In March of 1995, Turkey invaded northern Iraq with 35,000 troops to wage war against the Kurds. Turkey used the U.S.-imposed no-fly zone as protection for its own jet fighters, which scorched Kurdish villages. Turkey also used weaponry provided by the Pentagon to conduct this war against the Kurds. (You would have searched in vain for the facts about Turkey's invasion if you were examining the recent history of the Kurds that The New York Times published on September 4. It had only one entry for 1995; Turkey was not mentioned. The Washington Post's chronology, "An Embattled People," which ran on September 1, also conveniently omitted Turkey's assault.)

So what was the U.S. reaction to Turkey's invasion against the Kurds in Iraq last March? The United States approved of it.

Then, on September 5 of this year, within a week of Saddam Hussein's assault, Turkey once again sent jet fighters to strike Kurds in northern Iraq, once more with U.S. approval.

We didn't hear calls to bomb Ankara or assassinate Turkey's leader. If it's not OK for Saddam Hussein to kill Kurds in his own country, then why is it OK for Turkey to invade Iraq to kill Kurds?

The persecution of the Kurdish people is tragic and wrong, no matter who is the aggressor. But it is grossly hypocritical for the United States to pretend it is a friend of the Kurds. The U.S. government wasn't their friend when Turkey killed 20,000 Kurds in the last twelve years. And the U.S. government wasn't their friend back when Saddam Hussein was a trusted ally and was brutalizing Kurds right up to the day he invaded Kuwait.

Today, the Kurds in northern Iraq are split. One group allies with Saddam Hussein, one with Iran, and one with the Kurdistan Workers Party. There appears to be no single Kurdish side for the United States to be on. For U.S. imperial strategists, this...