The Obama administration has reportedly taken the momentous step of funneling weapons to Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, even if it doesn’t want to admit it — yet.
And why not? If the U.S. can sell arms to the Baghdad government, whose troops have been reluctant to fight warriors of the Islamic State, then it should be willing to provide arms to the Kurds, who are chomping at the bit to fight.
Unfortunately, the Kurds had to fall back from some towns because they were outgunned by the extremists. If the Islamic State is going to be stopped in the north, the Kurds will have to do it.
Opponents of supplying the Kurds fear that it will promote the further disintegration of Iraq, and that is a risk. But the alternative is almost unthinkable: that the U.S. allow the most stable, peaceful, pro-Western territory in Iraq, which is controlled by the Kurds, to be overrun by jihadists.
