Nixon and the Kurdish Intervention: August 1972–October 1973

Abstract

Between President Nixon’s approval of the Kurdish intervention in August 1972 and the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the US policy toward Iraq proceeded along two separate, conflicting tracks. On the one side, Nixon’s approval of the Kurdish intervention meant that the CIA was busy funneling money and arms to the Kurds, while the State Department was sending US diplomats to Baghdad charged with setting up an interests section and seeking to improve relations with the ruling Ba’th Party. At the same time, Nixon’s massive electoral victory in the 1972 election led to important changes in the US foreign policy establishment. Frustrated, Nixon swept out the top leadership and replaced them with individuals whom he felt were more responsive to him.¹ The most significant change was that Nixon fired Richard Helms, who was then banished to Iran as the new US ambassador. It turns out that Helms was perfect for the role. He came from the highest level of the US government, had close connections with Kissinger, was an experienced intelligence officer, and an old friend of the Shah, having attended the same college as him as a teenager in Switzerland.² Due to his very senior position in the US government, Nixon asked Helms to operate as a “super ambassador,” charged with coordinating the US policy across the region.³ Although Helms’s new job was technically with the State Department, his personal connections to both Kissinger and the Shah meant that he was able to keep the State Department out of the decision-making process on the question of Iraq and limit its knowledge of the Kurdish intervention, which he had helped set up in the first place. In light of the dual tracks of the US policy toward Iraq at the time and the differing perspectives of American diplomats in Baghdad and Tehran, conflict between the State Department’s policy of cultivating friendly relations and the White House’s policy of undermining the Ba’thist regime was inevitable.