That there are so many more Arabs (and Turks) than Kurds has determined attitudes toward the Kurdish people. The issue is, obviously, not only numbers. It is also a matter of the power of Arab — and Muslim — states. It entails concern for oil and Turkey’s strategic location. And finally, it concerns the fact that the Kurds are not only a small people, they also do not have powerful friends. They are a nation without many cousins abroad or fraternal allies.

One can understand why governments and chancellors respond to these dilemmas with realpolitik, but it is a scandal that liberal, left-wing opinion, supposedly motivated by humanistic and universal values, has traditionally ignored the case of the Kurds. How often have left-wing intellectuals and protesters who condemn Israeli policies — sometimes rightly, sometimes less so — mobilized on behalf of the Kurds and against their oppressors — Saddam’s Iraq, but also Turkey?

This is a stain on the record of the European and American left. The only consolation may be that the present geopolitical situation, brought about by the toppling of Saddam, may perhaps give the Kurds in Iraq, for the first time in history, a place in the sun, either in a federal, democratic Iraq or, ultimately, in a state of their own.

Should this happen, Kurdish self-determination would not be due to the support of the left, but to the questionable politics of the Bush administration. Perhaps some people on the left ought to examine their consciences. Those of us who share a belief in Hegel’s “cunning of reason” — that is, the idea that great historical consequences don’t always come from the intentions of historical actors — may, once again, and against our moral preference, be vindicated.

This is the flag of Kurdistan in my lapel; but my Kurdish comrades say that …their main responsibility is for the new Iraq now. And they who would have every right to say we want to get out of this prison house of the state are willing to still cooperate to help to emancipate the rest of it. I think that's an extraordinary sacrifice on their part. Deserves more recognition than it's had.