The U.S. Senate did not approve the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations or the partition of the Ottoman Empire.
According to the principles expressed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, government is to be based on the consent of the governed. Practical considerations limit the application of the principle of consent of the government. But, an identifiable people in an identifiable place would seem to qualify, especially in the face of a failure of the established government to safeguard to those people their peace and human rights.
The U.S. should be willing to consider the formation of a democratic Kurdish Republic spanning the northern tier of present day Iraq and Syria. As for Sunni-eastern Syria and Sunni-western Iraq, a new democratic Sunni Arab Republic might be recognized if the Sunni Arabs could get their act together and, with our support in terms of air power and such, kick the sh*t out of ISIS. But, they, not us, have to do the job.
Syria and Iraq have failed to defend the people of those places. In the case of Iraq, the corrupt Shia have betrayed us as well as the Sunnis of western Iraq. In the case of Syria, Assad is more than corrupt, but is evil.
“The U.S. should be willing to consider the formation of a democratic Kurdish Republic spanning the northern tier of present day Iraq and Syria.”
Agree; but I think it’s important to get the Russians on the same page and dicker out some economic/energy benefits for them, they’ll have a stake in helping maintain stability. Barely informed opinion, open to correction ;)
It’s also only right and fair to demand that Iran and Turkey permit their Kurdish enclaves to transfer their loyalty and land to the Kurdish homeland. They both have oppressed and waged war against their Kurds off and on over the past century at least.