there was a window of opportunity there to turn our former enemies into our friends, and we refused to take advantage of it.
Attempts were made. I'm old enough to remember some of the first foreign policy ideas floated in the Bush presidency to be incorporating Russia into NATO and putting the Cold War and the mess in the Balkans behind both sides, but it got push back from the Europeans and then Putin when the Iraq shitshow swung into being.
Saddened by this--because it very much is a third or fourth betrayal of the Kurds by the US in the interest of securing larger 'strategic concerns' in the region...Concerns which, themselves, have been overly and unduly influenced by Saudi Arabia and Turkey (who aren't good actors themselves), and Erdogan is actively an ass doing his best to undermine Turkey's secular dtate, so anything good for him is disheartening.
That said, a sovereign Kurdistan isn't functional even if it were formed. The divides in their clans and leadership between Barzani and his KDP and the PKK really only stopped because first Saddam, then post-war Iraq's cluster, then ISIS created larger, existential threats that took priority over anything else.
I suppose that Iraq, Syria and Turkey might take the place of those in the event of a new state...But with those three regional enemies it's kind of unlikely they'd hold off anything, and those divides have already shown themselves with some parties willing to work with Iraq more-so to secure lower-level benefits than nationhood.
So I know why we did it and not dumping more lives into the ME in another endless deployment that rnrages Islamists and 'secular' Turkey both appeals to me...But it's pretty far away from being the Kennedy-esque ally of freedom-loving peoples the US would rather present itself as, and that doesn't.