As Erbil and Baghdad remain locked in a dispute over hydrocarbons, it seems hard to understand why the United States remains supportive of the Maliki government's positions. On any number of issues, in fact, it seems that the Kurds get judged more harshly than anyone else by the Americans. Before President Talabani's illness, American officials were complaining incessantly in Washington about Mam Jalal's closeness to the Iranians, and saying the U.S. should distance itself from him if this continued. Yet Maliki remains much closer to the Iranians than any Iraqi Kurdish group ever was, and that doesn't seem to be a problem when it comes to Washington supporting Mr. Maliki. On disputed territories, on federalism, on the peshmerga and any number of other issues, it likewise seems that Washington speaks Baghdad's language and not Erbil's.

Understanding the American position towards the Iraqi Kurds requires one to remember the grand foreign policies of Washington. The United States has always prioritized stability in an international system that it leads and benefits greatly from. As a result, the American perspective towards secessionist conflicts has generally been to support states against sub-state groups struggling for self-determination. As Canadian professor Jonathan Paquin argues in his 2010 book, A Stability-Seeking Power: U.S. Foreign Policy and Secessionist Conflicts, this American preference for central government authorities only erodes under very specific circumstances:

...the United States supports central states facing secessionist crises as long as they can guarantee the stability of their international borders. When these states are unable or unwilling to maintain the stability of their borders and refuse to negotiate with secessionist leaders, the United States will shift its policy and consent to recognize the respective secessionist states if, and only if, the secessionists can demonstrate their ability to maintain stability.

It is in this context that American-Kurdish relations must be understood. The Americans suspect that the Iraqi Kurds' ultimate ambition is to secede from Iraq, and they worry about the instability and regional repercussions (in a vitally important region) such a move might cause. As a result, the United States often appears less supportive of even limited Kurdish autonomy than many other actors in the region. That's why 19 other states, including Iran, the United Kingdom and Turkey, opened consulates in Iraqi Kurdistan before the United States deigned to finally do so in 2010. This is also why, despite the Americans' dislike of the Assad regime and the ayatollahs in Iran, they never provide support to Kurdish rebels in those countries either.

The U.S. support to states facing dissent from sub-state groups even goes so far that the United States put the PUK and KDP on its “black-list” of armed groups. This is why the President of the Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani, turned down an invitation from the White House to visit Washington recently: the U.S. failed to remove both the KDP and PUK from the list, something Washington previously promised to do. In an interview with The Guardian, Falah Mustafa, head of KRG Department of Foreign Relations, stated that "America did not receive a single casualty here in this region dominated by the PUK and KDP, which they consider terrorists. The question that needs to be asked of the American government and Congress is how can you allow this to continue? It is wrong, it is unfair and it has to be remedied" (Crowcroft, 2014). Indeed, it seems the Americans have trouble understanding who their natural, real friends and allies in the region are.

The only way the American perspective towards the Kurds will likely shift to any significant degree is if Washington comes to the conclusion that continuing to stifle and contain Kurdish self-determination will lead to more instability than other policies. A similar logic probably explains Washington's acceptance of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: American policy makers concluded that refusing to redraw borders in a way that allows Palestinians their own state would cause more instability in the region than anything else. If correct, the irony of such an observation comes with the logical course of action for the Kurds -- they may conclude that they need to pursue more militaristic activities in order to secure American support for their independence.

In the case of Iraq and a looming collapse of the state, which seems to be where things are headed these days, things will hopefully not be any more bloody than necessary. The bloodier the breakdown, however, the more likely the Americans will finally understand their error in supporting Maliki and his preference for strong centralism in the country.