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Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Safire Gets Something Right Stop the presses! William Safire has written a thoughtful, reasoned column on the Kurdish problem in Iraq, that gets most of it right, and offers the framework of a potentially workable solution. Now Americans and Kurds need each other's understanding. The U.S. is committed to helping to build a unified Iraq, with no path to secession, and with representation based on geography, not ethnicity. The Kurds, a 20 percent minority in Iraq, are committed only to autonomy within a federal Iraq: they refrain from declaring independence, but require constitutional and security guarantees that they will not be tyrannized again.This is evidence of the capablility of rational thought on the subject of a repressed and dislocated minority. Safire seems to understand the defiance of those determined to resist tyranny, and the justice of reparations for forced relocations and brutality. Given the sympathetic tone of his column, it seems he has even found room in his heart to forgive Kurdish terrorism. Where, then, does his utter contempt for Palestinian aspirations come from? |