In this post from my travelogue in Iraqi Kurdistan, I recounted one Kurd’s rueful mention of the Algiers Accord of 1975. This was a watershed in contemporary Kurdish history — a historic betrayal by the U.S. that presaged the post-Gulf War betrayal of 1991. Christopher Hitchens, much maligned these days as a right-wing hack, makes the best of left-wing cases against the deceased ex-president Gerald Ford, reminding us that the 1975 abandonment of the Kurds was the work of Ford and Henry Kissinger. Hitch’s conclusion should help to dam the flood of platitudes unleashed by Ford’s death:
To have been soft on Republican crime, soft on Baathism, soft on the shah [of Iran], soft on Indonesian fascism, and soft on Communism, all in one brief and transient presidency, argues for the sort of sportsmanlike Midwestern geniality that we do not ever need to see again.
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