During the recent Senate hearings to confirm Anthony John Blinken as U.S. deputy secretary of state, the onetime reporter for The New Republic gave a full-throttle defense of President Barack Obama's foreign policy, ranging from China to Ukraine, and from ISIL to Ebola.

Just as I thought nothing would ever surprise me in American politics, Mr. Blinken did — by comparing America's role in the world to that of George Bailey, a character in the 1946 movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."

The film highlights the friendly and upright Mr. Bailey, forced to fight the heartless and selfish Henry Potter to save his hometown of Bedford Falls from Mr. Potter's merciless greed.

In the movie, Mr. Bailey finally wins out.

In real life, the good guys don't always win — just look at the Kurds in Kobane who are still mired in an existential war against ISIS terrorists.

It the movie, Mr. Bailey, facing ruinous bankruptcy, wishes he had never been born and starts to jump into an icy river to end it all.

Before he leaps, his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody, jumps in, pretending he can't swim, prompting Mr. Bailey to forget his troubles and rescue Clarence.

Clarence shows Mr. Bailey the good he has done by letting him see what his town would be like if he had never been born — renamed "Pottersville" because of Mr. Potter's greed.

Is America really guided by the "upright" and "friendly" principles that steered George Bailey?

I can't speak for others, since Kurds are my preoccupation, but I would like to set the record straight on Uncle Sam's interactions with us.

George Bailey's guardian angel told him: "No man is a failure who has friends."

To me, truth is the foundational block of trust and trust is the quintessential ingredient of friendship.

The Kurds have generously offered both, often gratis, to Americans — but what have they gotten in return?

In Iraq, we are urged to "work out" our differences with those in Baghdad, with the "help" of those in Mosul whom President Obama has compared to a "wolf at the door!"

Heaven and angels have very little to do with such "help" — and those who think so have their directions confused.

In Mr. Bailey's good-guys-eventually-win world, Kurds and Kurdistan would naturally oppose Arab Iraq, just as Bedford Falls resisted Pottersville.

In neighboring Syria, in a "good-guys" world, the Americans would have immediately aided the Kurds in besieged Kobane — instead of "respecting" the Pottersville prejudices of Turks for 34 days.

The objective, Mr. Blinken has said, "is to disrupt, degrade, and ultimately defeat ISIL so that it no longer poses a threat to Iraq or to Syria ..."

Iraq and Syria? Is it his job to keep them intact? Does he know what the disenfranchised Sunni Arabs in both countries want? Has he checked on the abused Kurdish population there?

Someone should whisper into Mr. Blinken's ear that balkanized Yugoslavia is written all over Iraq and Syria, and it looks like the latter will disintegrate before the first, notwithstanding his wishes and projections.

Perhaps George Bailey's guardian angel, Clarence, could drop Mr. Blinken into Washington's icy Potomac River, and reorient his thinking while rescuing him.

In the movie, Clarence gave Mr. Bailey a copy of the book "Tom Sawyer."

If he gave Mr. Blinken one, what would it be?

I would suggest the biography of "Bismarck" by A. J. P. Taylor.

One perfect passage for Mr. Blinken is the first chancellor's already-tested observation that Europe will "never" know peace till she finds a way to "sort out its nationalities."

This pithy observation from the Old Man of Prussia definitely applies to the Middle East, where in addition to the managed Kurdish-Arab "sorting-out," one could add the separation of Sunni Arabs from the Shiite ones for the sake of Mr. Bailey.

Will Mr. Blinken get on the right side of history and do its bidding?

He can — and I hope will — become a beloved "Clarence of Kurdistan," and add to the incomplete work of Lawrence of Arabia, the liberator of Arabs a century ago.

Kani Xulam is director of the Washington-based American Kurdish Information Network, which says it seeks to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship.

By Guest Columnist/cleveland.com