Rep. Dana Rohrabacher supports independent Kurdish state

US Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a longtime Republican Congressman, recently told Kurdistan24 of his unqualified support for Kurdish independence. 

The Representative from Southern California’s scenic 48th district said, “I personally think that it would be a good idea for the Kurds to be given what every other people in the world long for and many people have achieved.”

“That is a country that reflects their own people,” he stated.

Rohrabacher further elaborated, “The Kurds [having] demonstrated their loyalty to open and honest government and to being friendly with the West, I think they deserve a chance [at independence], and we should give it to them.”

Many US officials hold sacrosanct the existing borders between states, irrespective of who drew those lines and when they were drawn. 

That applies less to Western countries: the Obama administration did not oppose Scotland’s referendum on independence. But the Middle East is, somehow, different. 

But Rohrabacher sees this issue quite differently. “Just because some fat old British colonialist drew the lines this way doesn’t mean that we have to stick with them forever,” he said.

The Congressman has a long history of sympathy for, and support to, oppressed peoples. Some forty years ago, Rohrabacher was a White House adviser and speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. 

The Reagan Doctrine called for the US to back popular movements fighting communism. A compelling argument can be made that the US support to the Afghan and Arab guerrillas in Afghanistan helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Back then, Rohrabacher was a staunch supporter of the Reagan Doctrine. In 1988, shortly after being elected to Congress, he went to Afghanistan to see for himself what the Reagan Doctrine had achieved. 

The Afghan Mujahideen were in the final stage of their decade-long struggle against the Soviet invasion, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops was well underway. By all accounts, Rohrabacher truly enjoyed that trip.

He maintained life-long friendships with the Afghan Mujahideen leaders. When Ahmed Shah Massoud, head of the anti-Soviet, and later the anti-Taliban, Northern Alliance was assassinated, Rohrabacher wept openly. 

Rohrabacher also believed that a major terrorist assault would follow Massoud's murder. He proved uncannily correct. The 9/11 attacks followed two days later.  

It is easy to see how the empathy that Rohrabacher felt for an oppressed people, fighting for their rights forty years ago, inclines him to sympathy for the Kurds.

“At the very least,” Kurds deserve, “in whatever country” in which they live, “their own self-governing state—whether it’s in Iraq or it would be in Syria or whether it would be in Iran,” Rohrabacher said.

“At the very least,” they should have some form of self-government, with “rights to their own schools, their own language, and their own culture.”

Rohrabacher’s strongest support—backing independence—is, however, reserved for the Kurdistan Region, even as he understands the difficulties. 

As Rohrabacher admits, “That’s just me speaking. It’s not my government.”

That was certainly true of the Obama administration. However, many people, Americans, as well as Kurds and others, hope the attitude of the new US president will be different.

Editing by Delovan Barwari 

(Rahim Rashidi conducted the interview in Washington, DC)