Kurds, winners of war against Saddam

Coming back here after five months is like re-starting a paused video. When I was in April last, during the war, Kurdistan was silent, nervous and waiting. Now it is thriving: the traffic noisy and snarled up, the shops full, the pavements crowded. The Kurds are the greatest winners after this war. So far, they are the only real winners.

For a start, they did well out of the carve-up of the new Iraqi government. They have four ministries, including two of the biggest: foreign affairs and the new constitution. They have skillfully managed to remind everyone that they are part of the new Iraq because they want to be, rather than because they have no alternative, yet they have done this with considerable tact.

And because they were separate from Saddam Hussain's Iraq for the 12 years after the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurdish economy was relatively free of the savage UN sanctions and is now in good shape.

Major's gamble

It is worth remembering that the reason Iraqi Kurdistan has been a success is that it was created, not by the US alone, but by the UN. It wasn't even an American idea: it grew out of a brave gamble by John Major. In those days, back in 1991, the US believed that listening to its allies and obtaining international support was something worth doing. The Kurds have been grateful ever since.

Now, their greatest fear is that the violence and instability which seems to be growing in the rest of Iraq will spread northwards. The other day, a car bomb exploded in the centre of Arbil. It was probably planted by Saddam loyalists, but there are those who believe it was an attempt by the militant Kurdish communists, the PKK, to remind everyone that they are still around.

The Kurds' success has been based on a policy of unswerving support for whatever the US did in Iraq. During the war the Kurdish forces, with the support of a few hundred American special forces soldiers, defeated 11 Iraqi divisions. Even when an American "friendly fire" attack killed 18 Kurdish soldiers and injured the KDP president's brother and son, there was no complaint, no pressure for an inquiry. The Kurds kept their eyes on the prize – a big share in governing the new Iraq.

But this new Iraq is slow in coming. Nearly four months after US President George W. Bush declared the war over, you still can't fly into Baghdad. Driving there from the Jordanian border in the west is regarded by most people as much too dangerous. You can go in from Kuwait, but if you are sensible you will travel in convoy. The violence is becoming greater month by month.

The immediate response of some American commentators to the surrender of Saddam's defence minister, Gen Sultan Hashim Ahmed, was to suggest that the resistance would now drop; as though an isolated, nervous figure stuck out in the desert somewhere west of Mosul could possibly command the bombers and snipers throughout Iraq.

The uncomfortable fact is that the violence here is self-generating. It arises from the basic strategic error made by the Pentagon before the start of this war.

Since I made the error too, I can understand it better. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the rest believed that Iraq was longing to be free of Saddam and would welcome the Americans as liberators.

People were indeed longing to be free of him; but after 12 years of savage sanctions they didn't regard the Americans or the British – the instigators of those sanctions – as their friends. And even now the Americans often behave more like conquerors than liberators.

Looking wider than Iraq, it is hard to see much advantage from this Gulf War. The US has rarely been more divided from its closest friends in Europe and Asia. Many Arabs, and increasing numbers of Muslims in general, regard America as an out-and-out enemy. In fact, the wider fall-out is even worse than the immediate problems of violence inside Iraq itself.

Fear of invasion

Last week it was credibly reported that Saudi Arabia is considering obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran is already suspected of wanting to become a nuclear power. The US invaded Iraq partly to demonstrate how strong it was; but the unexpected result is that countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, which feel they might also be on America's list, now want to have the means to defend themselves.

From the viewpoint of northern Iraq, the entire enterprise does not exactly look like much of a success. Except for what has happened to the Kurds; for them, it has been remarkable. But it seems like a lot of trouble to go to, just to make the Kurds happy.

The writer is World Affairs Editor for the BBC