Kurd sellout - latest addition

"Iraq is slowly gaining the ability to fight this war with its own soldiers, evidenced recently by the relinquishing of complete control of coalition forces to the Iraqi Government. The coalition now employs more soldiers from Iraq than any other nation.

"Slowly but surely, Iraq will be able to protect itself on its own.

"The stakes of Iraq are enormous, world-shifting even. This is why our country should be a point of concern for every democratic country of the world.”

On his US visit, Salih addressed the Saban Centre at the Brookings Institution about Iraq’s grave difficulties and prospects. He gave a masterful press conference at the Pentagon - you can see it on C-Span.  Watch it and decide whether Salih and the forces which he represents deserve the support of western social democrats.  Decide whether he represents the future of the Middle East or whether Iraq should be left to sink into the swamp of ignorance and political and economic stagnation and corruption represented by the jihadists and government by the mullahs.  If ever there was an Islamic political force (the Kurds are Sunni muslims) which "gets" the separation of church and state, it is Talabani’s and Salih’s. 

Talabani’s and Salih’s pleas are worthy of the commitment of any social democrat with pretensions to internationalism and a concern for human rights.  They deserve more than embarassed silence.

Or will the "progressive" Left become a party to the shameful abandonment of these Iraqi democrats – a dishonourable groundhog day, harking back to Kissinger and Ford (the Kurds in 1975) to Bush Snr abandoning the Shi’ites, and briefly the Kurds (again), in 1991 to present demands that Bush Jnr, Blair and Howard abandon all the anti-Saddam and anti-fascist Iraqis in 2006?

Is the struggle against the forces attempting to restore to power what no less a figure than Trotsky, described as the "darkest and most reactionary elements imbued with the worst prejudices of pan-Islamism, the Caliphate" - not worthy of support?  Or will it just become Kurd Sellout - latest edition?