It would be more honest, if no less obscene, to admit that helping the Kurds to carve their own state out of an imploding Iraq, while preserving ancient minorities and their historical heritage from annihilation, may be a distraction that stands in the way of Western chimeras — salvaging the Iraqi Arab state and propping up Palestinian self-determination. Yet these are by now both self-evidently lost causes. 

Seven years of Hamas self-rule in Gaza are abundant proof of how futile it is to preach inclusiveness to those who wish their neighbours dead. The Western nations should not chastise Israel for doing what they themselves would do with much more callousness in the same circumstances. They should prop up Israel instead — and make it clear to the divided Palestinian leadership that their rejection of the basics of coexistence will never win them anything but more grief. As for Iraq, tenaciously defending artificial borders that most people in the region never saw as legitimate to begin with is a fool's errand, especially now that the regional state system is imploding. Instead, the West, with America in the lead, should tenaciously defend the national rights of those groups in the region that are constantly threatened with extinction. 

Obama should not send more arms to Baghdad, but to Irbil, Kurdistan's capital. America should help the Kurds repel the barbarians' advance, provide shelter to those who flee, and in the process consolidate Kurdistan's remarkable achievements over the past 20 years. 

When Roosevelt refused to order the bombing of Auschwitz, he at least had already committed the greatest military force in history to defeat the Nazi barbarians responsible for genocide in Europe. What has Obama committed in Mesopotamia to make good his high-sounding words about preventing future genocide?