This is me, LondonYank, with Massoud Barzani in 2003. (I'm the one with the bow.) I was in Erbil, Kurdistan, northern Iraq. We were treated regally, with amazing hospitality, as is consistent with the character of the Kurdish people.
At the time the Kurds loved America and welcomed Americans.
I wonder how I would be greeted today. Today my nation stamped on the people of Kurdistan, ignored their laws, shamed their hospitality, and abused their leaders.
Today US troops in helicopter gunships landed in Erbil, disarmed the Kurdish militia guarding the Iranian consulate there under sanction of the government of Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government, stormed the building with stun grenades, broke furniture and tore down the Iranian flag, seized computers and documents, and abducted six Iranian diplomats functioning under diplomatic immunity.
Today I fear we have lost one of the few friends remaining to us in Iraq.
Today Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party and President of Iraqi Kurdistan, tried to stop the Americans from taking the diplomats from Erbil. He failed. It isn't known where the Americans are holding them now or the conditions of their captivity.
IRNA - The office of the Iraqi Kurdish party leader Massoud Barzani in northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Thursday condemned the US military raid on Iranian consulate building in the city in the morning and called for immediate release of Iranians detained during the operation.
A report from the city says the office announced in a statement that the attack has been made on a place under diplomatic immunity and against any efforts made to realize stability and security in the country.
The statement said the Kurdish citizens will never accept such behaviours which jeoperdize security in their province. The statement calls for immediate release of 5 employees of the Iranian representative office.
This was such a stupid thing to do. The 60,000 Peshmerga militia is the only truly disciplined and capable military force in Iraq. It has fought alongside the United States military since the invasion in 2003 and supported the occupation throughout Iraq ever since. But if Barzani were to call them all home tonight they would be home by morning.
Iran and Kurdistan have extremely close relations. There is a huge amount of trade across the border. Some of it may indeed have been weapons, but that is only to be expected in a region where every car I ever rode in had at least one Kalishnakov laid across the back seat. Under an agreement between Baghdad and Tehran, Iran set up its consulate in Erbil in 2006 to facilitate cross-border visits of their citizens. There can be no question that those operating from the consulate were entitled to the protection of diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (PDF).
Hospitality is central to morality in the Middle East. The proper regard for and protection of guests is a moral obligation. Barzani and Kurdistan will be shamed deeply by what has occured today. While bloodshed and violence might be tolerated, disrespect and abuse of guest protocol must not.
People's Daily Online - The Iranian Embassy in Baghdad sent a letter to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry Thursday morning to protest against "the U.S. illegal move" and call on the Iraqi government to help secure immediate release of the five people, IRNA said.
According to Iran's state television, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said that U.S. forces in Iraq " bear full responsibility for the fate of the abducted diplomats."
Top envoys of the Iraqi Embassy as well as the Swiss Embassy, which takes care of the U.S. interests in Iran, were summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry for explanations, the television said.
Quoting its reporter in Arbil, the television said that forces under the control of Iraq's Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani had tried to prevent U.S. troops from taking away the diplomats, deeming the U.S. move as an affront to the authority of the self- rule regional government.
Besides being friendly with Iran, the Kurds have been friendly to US and Israel, allowing Israelis to live and operate quite freely from bases in Iraq for their clandestine operations in Iraq and Iran. Without such cooperation, many things which have been possible would not be possible (though I'm not so sure this would be a bad thing).
Why did we do such a stupid thing? I can only assume that some forged, incriminating documents will be "found" among the papers seized from the consulate and brandished by Bush to reinforce his tissue thin assertions that Iran backs Iraq's insurgents (as if they needed more encouragement than our troops provide daily). Ahmad Chalabi's CIA-build forgery operation is probably still up and running somewhere not far from Erbil, churning out the propaganda needed for the next war of choice. Or maybe one of those poor, unfortunate diplomats will be tortured into providing some information which the US can point to as "evidence" of Iran's complicity in Iraqi resistence to military occupation by a foreign power. Whatever.
I fear we have lost one more friend today. A friend we can ill afford to lose.
If the Peshmerga and the Kurds withdraw from supporting the American military - with their amazing fighting and intelligence capabilities - there is very little hope indeed for any outcome but disaster.
This one incident may not be enough to turn the Kurds from being our staunch allies, but it strikes so close to the heart of what is valued by the Kurds and colours their sense of honour that it will be enough to make them think very carefully about their future alliance prospects.
Update [2007-1-11 19:7:46 by LondonYank]:: Steve Clemons at The Washington Note is spreading Beltway Buzz that Bush may have issued a secret Executive Order authorising military operations against Iran and Syria to provoke the next war.
Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.
The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.
As Steve says, "Worrisome".