Sauce For the Gander

The Turkish legislature has authorized military incursions into Iraq in order to suppress Kurdish raids across the border. This requires almost no comment. The only thing that needs to be said is that any American who complains, who also supported the invasion of Iraq, is a hypocrite. If anything, the Turks have more cause to enter that particular country than the Americans ever did.

It does make you wonder, though: if the Americans are such special friends of the Kurds, why don't they force the issue and give them a nation and tells the Turks and the rest of the Iraqis and anyone else who complains to shove it? If every "nation" of people needs to have a nation-state of their own, why does the Bush administration even hesitate to create a Kurdistan? Do the Kurdish people somehow have less right to national sovereignty than the Jewish people, for instance? And if the supposed national rights of the Kurdish people can be sacrificed to geopolitical realities, but never those of the Jewish people, what does that tell us? No, this isn't about the Jews or any lobby in Washington. It's about American double standards, and it's a reminder that when American politicians tell you that this country is up to something abroad in the name of principle, you had better think at least twice about it before accepting their word without question.