Iraq is imploding. Should we lend air support or wash our hands?

[georgephillip]

Turkey does not share your opinion. Free Kurdistan would be at war with Turkey within hours of becoming an independent state.

That is true. Turkey would invade immediately. But i think it's time for the Kurds to have their Homeland. They've suffered enough. The Arabs, Turks, and Persians have tormented them for Centuries. I'd like to see em finally prosper.

I agree with your perspective on the Kurds.

It's just that such nation-erecting commentary takes me by surprise, coming from a Paulite.

I've always operated under the (mistaken?) impression that ya'll are fairly insistent isolationist types, except on the highest macro level(s).

But, an independent Kurdish State may be an idea whose time has come.

It would mean some existing country(ies) or another (Turkey, mostly, I seem to recall) giving-up some land, and it would probably involve some population-transfers from and to various regions, and could probably only be done peaceably via the UN, but it would be an interesting exercise in political creativity.

But nations (Turkey, or anyone else) don't give-up large tracts of land without a whole lot of convincing, and getting them (and others?) to agree might prove... well, let's say... problematic.

The incentives I've read about that are being offered to Turkey and Israel to provide cover for oil and gas pipelines originating in the Caspian basin include EU membership for the Turks and NATO for Israel. I'm guessing we won't have to wait too long to find out.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

They aren't terrorists guys. The MANY headless bodies found along the path of ISIS is just a coincidence.

 

[georgephillip]

Try to draw that map...

Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters already has

"The map of the 'New Middle East' was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was released to the public on July 10, 2006.

"This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5

"It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.

"It has been written that Ralph Peters’ 'four previous books on strategy have been highly influential in government and military circles,' but one can be pardoned for asking if in fact quite the opposite could be taking place.

"Could it be Lieutenant-Colonel Peters is revealing and putting forward what Washington D.C. and its strategic planners have anticipated for the Middle East?

"The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a 'humanitarian' and 'righteous' arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter’s:

"'International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.'"

Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a ?New Middle East? | Global Research

When I say try to draw that map, I obviously mean one that would hold up. that map would have an immediate war with Turkey invading the Kurds and the Shiites attacking the Sunnis over all the Shiite areas it puts under Sunni control. Draw a map that would hold up.

Iran will stabilize the Sunni/Shia killing, and oil will solve the Turkish feud with Kurdistan.

From 2013

"(Reuters) - Rising oil trade between Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey threatens to split Iraq in two, a senior Iraqi official said, as the autonomous region ignores Baghdad's threats of tough action against what it terms illegal exports.

"Oil lies at the heart of a long-running feud between the central government and the autonomous Kurdistan region. Baghdad says it alone has the authority to control exports and sign contracts, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution.

"If oil from Kurdistan goes through Turkey directly, that will be like dividing Iraq. This is our big concern," Iraq's Deputy National Security Adviser Safa al-Sheikh Hussein said on the sidelines of an Iraq conference."

Iraq official fears split as Kurdish-Turkey oil trade grows | Reuters

 

[Katzndogz]

That is true. Turkey would invade immediately. But i think it's time for the Kurds to have their Homeland. They've suffered enough. The Arabs, Turks, and Persians have tormented them for Centuries. I'd like to see em finally prosper.

I have Turkish friends who would gleefully see every Kurd wiped out. To them, the Kurds are just murderous thugs who kill women and children with as much joy as they kill male fighters.

I'm about as ignorant of the Turkish-Kurdish history and present situation as one can be without falling off the intellectual map.

I've always thought of the Kurds as another Turkey-Armenians kind of situation, wherein the Turks have been heavily (sometimes, violently) repressing the Kurds for generations, stretching back far into Ottoman times, with the Kurds having a sufficient binding identity and persistence to continue to remain a thorn in the Turkish side for a very long time.

Many Westerners sympathize with the Armenians while still thinking of the Turks as friends and allies.

It's my perception that many Westerners sympathize with the Kurds, too, while still thinking of the Turks as friends and allies.

Albeit with the caveat that the Kurds have taken to terror tactics as a component of their continuing struggle against the Turks, and that Westerners, as a rule, do not approve of terror tactics.

Did I get it right?

Most Americans are so ignorant of Kurds that they thing Kurd is something that goes along with whey. Maybe not even that much. They don't care. They (like you) have feelings and the feeling is that everyone could get along. They can't.

 

[Synthaholic]

I'm a bit confused. It's being reported that 3 battalions from IRAN are going in to fight FOR the government of Iraq.

Why is that confusing, Lib Pwner? Iran is Shiite, and the new Iraqi government that Bush installed is also Shiite, trying to run a country full of Sunnis. Saddam was a Sunni, and every previous leader was a Sunni.

al Qaeda is also Sunni, but was not allied with Saddam, and wanted him dead because he wasn't a religious nut like them. He ran a secular government, didn't require head covering for women, and allowed women to drive. It was very Western under Saddam, other than the fact that he was a dictator.

So Iran is happy to send troops to support their Shiite brother, Maliki.

 

[Synthaholic]

Iraq needs to be broken up into separate countries, just like we did with Yugoslavia.

One for the Shia, one for the Sunni, and one for the Kurds.

Which was Vice President Joe Biden's advice 5 years ago.

 

[Synthaholic]

Iraq needs to be broken up into separate countries, just like we did with Yugoslavia.

One for the Shia, one for the Sunni, and one for the Kurds.

Try to draw that map...

When you do try to draw that map, the Sunnis get screwed.

 

[Kondor3]

I have Turkish friends who would gleefully see every Kurd wiped out. To them, the Kurds are just murderous thugs who kill women and children with as much joy as they kill male fighters.

I'm about as ignorant of the Turkish-Kurdish history and present situation as one can be without falling off the intellectual map.

I've always thought of the Kurds as another Turkey-Armenians kind of situation, wherein the Turks have been heavily (sometimes, violently) repressing the Kurds for generations, stretching back far into Ottoman times, with the Kurds having a sufficient binding identity and persistence to continue to remain a thorn in the Turkish side for a very long time.

Many Westerners sympathize with the Armenians while still thinking of the Turks as friends and allies.

It's my perception that many Westerners sympathize with the Kurds, too, while still thinking of the Turks as friends and allies.

Albeit with the caveat that the Kurds have taken to terror tactics as a component of their continuing struggle against the Turks, and that Westerners, as a rule, do not approve of terror tactics.

Did I get it right?

Most Americans are so ignorant of Kurds that they thing Kurd is something that goes along with whey. Maybe not even that much. They don't care. They (like you) have feelings and the feeling is that everyone could get along. They can't.

Just to be clear, my own soft-and-fuzzy understanding of the Kurds has routinely equated them with the Armenians, vis a vis their relations with the Turks, and I've always been of the opinion that the Turks and Armenians can never co-exist peacefully over the long-haul under the banner of a single nation. Just to be clear...

 

[Synthaholic]

Iraq needs to be broken up into separate countries, just like we did with Yugoslavia.

One for the Shia, one for the Sunni, and one for the Kurds.

Try to draw that map...

Kurds to the North...

Shiites in the Middle...

Sunnis in the South?

The South has a ton of oil, a ton of sand, and basically no population (desert).

 

[Kondor3]

Try to draw that map...

Kurds to the North...

Shiites in the Middle...

Sunnis in the South?

The South has a ton of oil, a ton of sand, and basically no population (desert).

If such a thing were attempted... a simple North, Middle and South division, I already know that the Kurds are in the North... are the Shiites in the Middle, with the Sunnis in the South... generally speaking, and allowing for some spillover?

 

[Synthaholic]

Iraq needs to be broken up into separate countries, just like we did with Yugoslavia.

One for the Shia, one for the Sunni, and one for the Kurds.

Try to draw that map...

Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters already has

Ralph Peters is one of the biggest pieces of shit on TV. I've rarely seen bigger assholes on my television.

And his map, like I said a few posts ago, would screw the Sunnis.

It's a ridiculous map: The Shiites get Iraq's massive southern oil fields while the Sunnis get no oil? And he wants to split Baghdad down the middle? Give me fucking break. He's an idiot.

 

[georgephillip]

Try to draw that map...

Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters already has

Ralph Peters is one of the biggest pieces of shit on TV. I've rarely seen bigger assholes on my television.

And his map, like a said a few posts ago, would screw the Sunnis.

It's a ridiculous map: The Shiites get Iraq's massive southern oil fields while the Sunnis get no oil? And he wants to split Baghdad down the middle? Give me fucking break. He's an idiot.

Since I don't have a TV, I haven't seen Colonel Ralph, but his Wiki makes him sound like a corporate tool, to me.

His map has been around for a few years now, and as I understand the situation, the "New Middle East" hit a detour in 2006 when the IDF couldn't take and hold Lebanon as far north as the Litani river. During the last eight years, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have experienced regime change, and, at the moment, it appears Syria and Iraq are dissolving pretty much the way Colonel Ralph predicted. The idea is to create an "arc of instability" stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Caspian basin with warring clans, tribes, and religions incapable of providing any unified resistance to western oil and gas corporations.

Blood Borders is how Colonel Ralph describes these new lines in the sand.

 

[Synthaholic]

Turkey does not share your opinion. Free Kurdistan would be at war with Turkey within hours of becoming an independent state.

That is true. Turkey would invade immediately. But i think it's time for the Kurds to have their Homeland. They've suffered enough. The Arabs, Turks, and Persians have tormented them for Centuries. I'd like to see em finally prosper.

I agree with your perspective on the Kurds.

It's just that such nation-erecting commentary takes me by surprise, coming from a Paulite.

I've always operated under the (mistaken?) impression that ya'll are fairly insistent isolationist types, except on the highest macro level(s).

But, an independent Kurdish State may be an idea whose time has come.

It would mean some existing country(ies) or another (Turkey, mostly, I seem to recall) giving-up some land, and it would probably involve some population-transfers from and to various regions, and could probably only be done peaceably via the UN, but it would be an interesting exercise in political creativity.

But nations (Turkey, or anyone else) don't give-up large tracts of land without a whole lot of convincing, and getting them (and others?) to agree might prove... well, let's say... problematic.

No it would not. There is no reason why Turkey should have to give up an inch of their territory. There is enough of Northern Iraq to create a Kurdistan.

And my fervent hope is that they do so quickly. With a stable, growing Kurdistan, Kurds will emigrate from Turkey's Southeastern towns like Diyarbakir, Van, etc. to their own country. This will lessen tensions between Turks and Kurds.

 

[Synthaholic]

That is true. Turkey would invade immediately. But i think it's time for the Kurds to have their Homeland. They've suffered enough. The Arabs, Turks, and Persians have tormented them for Centuries. I'd like to see em finally prosper.

I have Turkish friends who would gleefully see every Kurd wiped out. To them, the Kurds are just murderous thugs who kill women and children with as much joy as they kill male fighters.

I'm about as ignorant of the Turkish-Kurdish history and present situation as one can be without falling off the intellectual map.

I've always thought of the Kurds as another Turkey-Armenians kind of situation, wherein the Turks have been heavily (sometimes, violently) repressing the Kurds for generations, stretching back far into Ottoman times, with the Kurds having a sufficient binding identity and persistence to continue to remain a thorn in the Turkish side for a very long time.

Many Westerners sympathize with the Armenians while still thinking of the Turks as friends and allies.

It's my perception that many Westerners sympathize with the Kurds, too, while still thinking of the Turks as friends and allies.

Albeit with the caveat that the Kurds have taken to terror tactics as a component of their continuing struggle against the Turks, and that Westerners, as a rule, do not approve of terror tactics.

Did I get it right?

Pretty much. The PKK terrorist organization has severely damaged Kurds in the eyes of the West. They were particularly brutal in the 1990s, murdering Turkish families, and abandoning any sense of discretion between legitimate targets and civilians. They have lost a lot of steam since the capture of their leader, Abdullah Öcalan.

I love the video of his capture, and him saying how much he loved Turkey.

And that capture marked a turning point for the better in Greece-Turkey relations: it was the Greeks who tipped Turkey off where to find Öcalan, in Kenya (with purported help from the CIA and Mossad).

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU3TOMoBmnw]Apo itinin yakalanisi (Orjinal Video) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Synthaholic]

No, idiots trade five dangerous mass murderers for one common deserter.

Stupid comment is out of context without comparing it to the 151 fighters released by Bush who went back to the battle.

Deserter? Maybe. And we can wait for the results of an Article 32 investigation for that.

Anyone who takes paralegal courses in legal briefing and shepardizing know not to cherry pick cases because the argument will be deflated.

W is not President anymore, Homey. It's time for Democrats to stand up and take responsibility for your own actions and stop blaming everyone else. Obama's been President 5 1/2 years now. You wanted him, you got him, you own him and his actions now.

That doesn't give you license to be hypocrites.

 

[U2Edge]

The terrorists are now marching on Bagdad. The Iraq government is asking for help, should we oblige?
Seems strange to me that we would spend all the money & lives just to let it fall in a matter of weeks/months.

So you think we should throw good money after bad?

It was a bad idea to topple Saddam to start with. We shouldn't continue to invest in a mistake because it was a mistake.

You should always remove people who threaten global security. Saddam did by invading and annexing Kuwait. First time a leader of a country invaded and annexed another country since Adolf Hitler did it in the early 1940s. Saddam had to go for that and many other reasons.

 

[kaz]

Kurds to the North...

Shiites in the Middle...

Sunnis in the South?

The South has a ton of oil, a ton of sand, and basically no population (desert).

If such a thing were attempted... a simple North, Middle and South division, I already know that the Kurds are in the North... are the Shiites in the Middle, with the Sunnis in the South... generally speaking, and allowing for some spillover?

I would think the Shiites would be in the south and the Sunnis in the west. The problem is the Baghdad region where it's an endless patchwork and neither side is going to agree to be in the other's country.

 

[kaz]

Try to draw that map...

Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters already has

Ralph Peters is one of the biggest pieces of shit on TV. I've rarely seen bigger assholes on my television.

And his map, like I said a few posts ago, would screw the Sunnis.

It's a ridiculous map: The Shiites get Iraq's massive southern oil fields while the Sunnis get no oil? And he wants to split Baghdad down the middle? Give me fucking break. He's an idiot.

Yes, he is. It would clearly trigger two wars between the Turks and the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites in Iraq.

It's no small leap to see the Iranian Shiites jumping in to support the Iraqi Shiites. Then what happens? Most of the Muslim world is Sunni and they hate Shiites, there would be incredible pressure across the Middle East to help the Iraqi Sunnis. That could lead to an all out Middle East war. Then what happens with Israel? What happens with Russia who are married to the Shiites? At what point does it stop?

That map is the map of someone who has zero grasp of the middle east.

 

[Synthaholic]

The South has a ton of oil, a ton of sand, and basically no population (desert).

If such a thing were attempted... a simple North, Middle and South division, I already know that the Kurds are in the North... are the Shiites in the Middle, with the Sunnis in the South... generally speaking, and allowing for some spillover?

I would think the Shiites would be in the south and the Sunnis in the west. The problem is the Baghdad region where it's an endless patchwork and neither side is going to agree to be in the other's country.

Syria is Shiite - why not just give the Shiites the western part bordering Syria, which has no oil and where no one wants to live?

 

[Synthaholic]

Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters already has

Ralph Peters is one of the biggest pieces of shit on TV. I've rarely seen bigger assholes on my television.

And his map, like I said a few posts ago, would screw the Sunnis.

It's a ridiculous map: The Shiites get Iraq's massive southern oil fields while the Sunnis get no oil? And he wants to split Baghdad down the middle? Give me fucking break. He's an idiot.

Yes, he is. It would clearly trigger two wars between the Turks and the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites in Iraq.

It's no small leap to see the Iranian Shiites jumping in to support the Iraqi Shiites. Then what happens? Most of the Muslim world is Sunni and they hate Shiites, there would be incredible pressure across the Middle East to help the Iraqi Sunnis. That could lead to an all out Middle East war. Then what happens with Israel? What happens with Russia who are married to the Shiites? At what point does it stop?

That map is the map of someone who has zero grasp of the middle east.

What happens to the price of oil?

We should be racing toward renewable energy, because this ME shit is inevitable.