Kissinger, Henry

(1923- )

   Henry Kissinger was U.S. president Richard Nixon's national security advisor and later secretary of state when the United States abandoned its support for Mulla Mustafa Barzani and the Iraqi Kurds in 1975. The support of Iran and the United States had become crucial for the Iraqi Kurds, and when it was lifted, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government were able quickly to crush the Kurds. Thus, the Kurds see Kissinger and the United States as having cynically betrayed them. This attitude continues to influence the Iraqi Kurds — especially Barzani's son Massoud Barzani—to this day.

   Kissinger justified his actions at the time by arguing that the initial support the United States and Iran had given the Kurds had enabled the Kurds to tie down several Iraqi divisions that otherwise might have been used against Israel during the October 1973 Middle East War. When further support for the Kurds was no longer feasible, Kissinger cynically justified its termination by declaring that "covert action should not be confused with missionary work." Many years later he elaborated on how there would have been no practical way for Washington to have continued to support the Kurds in such "inhospitable mountains" and that "the Shah had made the decision." Kissinger did grant, however, that for the Kurdish people, perennial victims of history, this is, of course, no consolation.

   See also Pike Committee Report.