Former head of the Marine Corps James Conway says Obama’s idea of relying on local forces with US air power has “not a snowball’s chance in hell“.
However Hemin Hawram, a leading member of the Kurdish Democratic Party, disagrees:
We just need armaments and training; we don’t need boots on the ground from any country to fight this war for us. We want these countries to support our Peshmerga – arm, train, and make them capable. Even for future confrontations against terrorists, there will be no need to support us militarily. In the coming 4-5 years, we hope the Peshmerga will be better equipped and trained, and that certain sanctions will be removed. Why should they not have tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, for example? I hope that they will be a part of an international military unit to fight terrorists in other countries and be part of peacekeeping missions.
Surely that must be a better solution.
And the reason I am inclined to believe him, rather than General Conway, is that the US and its allies were unable to create a viable unitary Iraq that could prevent what happened from happening, because Iraq is simply untenable as a nation. This has been clear for a great many years to anyone who does not have an institutional vested interest. A significant part of the US trained and equipped Iraqi Army simply turned its weapons over to the Islamic State, because they saw no reason to fight for an Iraq that was of zero value to them. The Peshmerga on the other hand has everything to fight for, and unlike foreign troops with western sensibilities and significant cultural ineptitude regarding the realities of the Middle East, the Kurds are far more likely to ‘sort things out on the ground’ if given the tools.
Southern Kurdistan intends to become an independent nation and moreover enabling that to happen by arming them (which will be the consequence) very effectively counters the threat posed by the Islamic State. It is hard to see the downside from the western point of view of enabling a pro-western de facto nation to become an effectively armed de jure nation, one very willing to do the dirty work and sort out Northern Iraq… and frankly probably Northern Syria (Rojava) too, rather than having to deal directly with the more politically problematic Syrian Kurdish PYG.
My understanding is that the USA (and the UK) are reluctant to do this because of Turkish “sensibilities” about the PKK and the Kurds.
With Erdogan in charge, that argument is about as compelling as a chocolate cattle-prod, but there you go: the Western politicians desperately hang on to deeply antipathetic “allies” while letting potentially excellent prospects dangle in the wind.
What’s the opposite of realpolitik?
I agree 100%. Gen. Conway has a very narrow point of view; his only tool is a hammer so to him every problem is a nail. At least he seems to have a realistic assessment of the competence of the Iraqi army, upon which we have showered trillions of dollars and endless man-hours of training time, all completely wasted. But I think he grossly underestimates the ability and, most importantly, the resolve, of the Kurds fighting for their homeland and their very existence. Give them some serious weapons, some air support, and encourage their nationalist aspirations, and not only would the ISIS problem be resolved in short order but the west could have a second reliable ally in the middle east.
South Kurdistan includes some large oil fields as well as having a relatively homogeneous population, so as an independent country it would likely be both economically viable and politically stable. It might even take over portions of Syria and Iran, both good things. And if it were to eventually annex some territory from Turkey, so much the better. Screw Erdogan; he is no friend to the west. (And will somebody please remind me again why Turkey is a member of NATO?)
Clovis, good question. Whatever the opposite of realpolitik is, it’s the dominant political philosophy of John Kerry and the US State Department, and has been for a very long time. (I don’t know if it’s also the dominant political philosophy of Barack Obama because frankly I don’t think he has a political philosophy when it comes to foreign affairs.)
Clovis, “antipathetic” is a marvelous word. I shall have to remember to use it some time!
The difference between western boots is they won’t be there forever, whereas a well-armed Kurdish force will exist to impose whatever meets its long term interests. This is only seen as a problem because of the underlying reluctance on creating another “our son-of-a-bitch”, which the so-called progressive movement has consistantly rallied against. It was the same movement that silenced plans to replace a post-Saddam Iraq with three separate nations, a situation that would have nipped the emergence of IS in the bud has someone had the balls to carry it out.
Exactly so, Runcie. The solution has been staring us in the damn face for years, and now it is SCREAMING in our faces.
“My understanding is that the USA (and the UK) are reluctant to do this because of Turkish “sensibilities” about the PKK and the Kurds.”
Well to not put too fine a point on it – fuck the Turks.. its clear they’re turning a blind eye to ISIS and the rumour mill is that they supplied the chemical weapons to the rebels(ISIS to be) in the attempted frame job on Assad…
Spot on, Runcie.
It’s an interesting idea, but the reliability of Muslim allies has not been all that good to date. How prone are the Kurds to being bought off, or shucking off an ally to follow their own interests?
On the other hand, I can’t imagine that a committment of serious ground forces under the catastrophically inept Obama would be anything but a catastrophe. It may be better to wait until 2016 gives us someone better suited to the job.
Laird, thank you.
Runcie, I absolutely agree, although I wasn’t astute enough to realise it at the time.
Johnnydub, I would never be so indelicate in print but yeah, they really don’t seem to be on the same side and I really don’t understand why their concerns should hold much (any) weight!
Kurdistan is not a ‘muslim state’ it is a nationalist state in which religious parties are insignificant. And more to the point, all muslims are not fungible. Kurds are an entirely different enthnic group with their own culture. They are not Arabs.
Can you think of a time when Erbil was bought off by anyone during the US military presence? In fact it was the area least friendly to the insurgents.
It is not a bug it is a feature. Everyone follows their interests. Kurdish interests, not US interests, are precisely what makes Southern Kurdistan such a great horse to back. The complete and utter failure (indeed disaster) of US policy in Iraq has been because the policies required the various factions in Iraq to act in ways they saw as being against their own interests. The Shi’ites were expected to share power with the Sunnis and Kurds. The Shi’ites have zero interest in doing that, and the same applies to the Kurds. Anything that pretends that is not the case cannot possibly be stable. So yes, I think it is a given the Kurds will be a great ally because their interests are also US interests (crush IS, make northern Iraq and the Kurdish bits of Syria islamofascist free). US and Kurdish interest coincide in the only ways that matter.
But at some point the Kurds in Erbil will also tell Baghdad to fuck off and declare independence, regardless of what the US wants. It is only a matter of time. But the US was idiotic to care about Iraqi “unity” in the first place. As for Turkey, who cares? They have consistently done what is in their interest regardless of what the US wants, both when Saddam was the target and again now. In the Middle East, you need to play by Middle Eastern rules. The US is super awesome great at blowing shit up, but it is just terrible at all the rest.
70,000 KURDS FLEE ISIS GENOCIDE IN SYRIA…
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/09/70000-kurds-flee-isis-genocide-in-syria-obama-goes-golfing/
This is a good reason why we need something like Van Vogh’s fictional ‘The Weapon Shop’. If we set up an arms’-trading company, then the Kurds could get their weapons from a neutral company, not needing the permission of governments.
The 100-Year-Old Agreement You Need to Know About to Understand What’s Driving the Islamic State
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/09/18/the-100-year-old-agreement-you-need-to-know-about-if-you-want-to-understand-whats-driving-the-islamic-state/
“The End of Sykes-Picot”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWHn96DXRDE&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFWHn96DXRDE&has_verified=1
The Kurds may not need BOTG but the Iraqis surely do, and Isil is on more Iraqi territory than Kurdish.
And with some BOTG perhaps we could eventually leave some there, to help influence the Iraqi government rather than leaving that job to Iran.
You mean like before? See how well that worked out. Moreover it implies the US actually knows what the best course of action is, it implies the US understand what needs to be done better than the locals and that is demonstrably untrue. As I have said before, the US is really good at blowing up people’s armies but it is really bad at ending an insurgency and then leaving a stable viable regime behind.
Nope. Iran is never going to not be there, they are not like the Soviets in East Germany who can be eventually pushed back. But US troops will one day go home and everyone knows that.
It appears that in Syria Turkey is using ISIL to subjugate the Kurds. It is telling that Turkey will not let the US (or UK) use its airbases to attack ISIL. No doubt the Turks think they can control the Caliphate.
Will the Turks support ISIL against the Kurds in Iraq?
Two things only to add to this excellent discussion:
– To this point, ISIS (or whatever they call themselves today) have enjoyed a couple of unique advantages – access to money and heavy weapons, and the quality of opposition that is typical of Arab armies – and they have enjoyed some success.
They are themselves a rag-tag army of essentially-amateur religious fanatics, with some elements of professional leadership. Their cause is almost-entirely religious, and pretty-much independent of national boundaries or interests. And they have never come up against a group anything-like themselves. Until they ran into the Peshmerga and their penumbra.
I think it’s interesting to see the coverage from the Turkish border – the typical flow of pitiful refugees is almost-matched by a flow of Turkish Kurds headed the other way, to fight. I think that ISIS (OWTCTT) may be in for an unpleasant surprise. They have never run into a resistance that a) really doesn’t align at any level with their religious directions and b) has fought off or stalemated plenty of others equally-well-equipped.
– Regarding weapons – every major power has learned to its cost that ‘heavy’ weapons, designed to delay (or advance) in the Fulda gap are nothing but a liability in very large parts of this area of operations. Apart from some relatively-small areas, taking your main battle tank to war here is like taking your accordion hunting. What the Peshmerga and their penumbras need is lots and lots of small arms and ammunition, stuff that is light, man-portable and semi-disposable. Rifles, mortars, shoulder-fired missiles, grenade launchers, anti-tank missiles, stuff that will go on the back of a donkey or a Toyota Hi-Lux. Remember that the Russians were sent packing from Afghanistan (in large part at least) by the one-man, shoulder-fired, one-shot Stinger missile system. Billions in air-power and close-air-support capacity brought to its knees by a disposable weapon costing a few thousand $$$.
I hope the West can resist the urge to meddle, with ‘advisors’ and ‘trainers’ and ‘resources’ and chest-thumping displays of technology. This has never worked in this region. These people know how to fight in the place where they are, they don’t need your lessons. Just send them endless C130s filled with AK-47s and 7.62 x39 ammunition, M79s and Claymores, they’ll figure out what to do.
The absolute-best, absolutely-most-desirable outcome would be for the Kurds to wipe out ISIS (OWTCTT) and then keep going, all the way to the southern border of Iraq. Toss out all the laughable puppets and corruptocrats that infest the area. But I doubt that the US and the other Western powers (never mind Russia) will allow that to happen. There’s no success so obvious and desirable that this array of chuckleheads can’t screw it up.
llater,
llamas
Or even better they keep going until they reach the Lebanese border (i.e. Kurdish Rojava simply gets added on to Southern Kurdistan, now that the Syrian-Iraqi border is irrelevant, and indeed Iraq itself is now irrelevant).
About a hundred thousand Kurds in Syria have expressed no confidence it the Kurdish forces – expressed no confidence by fleeing into Turkey.
I AGREE with Perry that the West should arm the Kurds – who are anti Iranian regime as well as anti ISIS.
However, a Plan B. is needed (just in case the Kurds fail).
The Middle East must not be allowed to fall to ISIS – with their forces in Syria and Iraq linking up with similar people based in Arabia.
And it must not be allowed to fall to the Iranian regime either.
And not just because the West has been engaged in dealing with the Persian threat since the time of Cyrus.
The Iranian “hastener” regime must not be allowed to gain nuclear weapons – and they are very close to doing so. Because they will use these nuclear weapons to spread fire and death so that the “Hidden One” may return.
mo
“But that is insane Paul” – they may be insane, but they are NOT stupid (an important distinction).
As for the Sunni – Pakistan already has nuclear weapons and their are many pro Islamist people in Pakistan (including in the military and ISI – Pakistani intelligence).
If the civilian government falls in Pakistan there must be plans (ready to be put into action – the very moment they are needed) to eliminate the Pakistani nuclear forces.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of people (Sunni or Shia) who believe that Allah wants them to USE them – not an acceptable position.
About a hundred thousand Kurds in Syria have expressed no confidence it the Syrian Kurdish forces, Paul, namely the YPG. The Kurds we are talking about are the ones from Erbil and their army the Peshmerga 😉
Don’t feel bad, a few months ago, before I found a couple Kurdish internet pals who live just outside Kirkuk who could explain this all to me, I was a bit foggy on who-is-who in Kurdistan too.
Apparently we have already begun providing some training for the Kurds (sorry if that’s behind a paywall). However, I don’t think they’ve been provided any weapons yet. It seems that the Iraqi government is insisting that all weapons be shipped through Baghdad, which will pretty much guarantee that the Kurds don’t receive them. And we still seem to be fixated on preventing the disintegration of Iraq, as if that’s not inevitable anyway.
Our gracious host wrote:
“The absolute-best, absolutely-most-desirable outcome would be for the Kurds to wipe out ISIS (OWTCTT) and then keep going, all the way to the southern border of Iraq.
Or even better they keep going until they reach the Lebanese border (i.e. Kurdish Rojava simply gets added on to Southern Kurdistan, now that the Syrian-Iraqi border is irrelevant, and indeed Iraq itself is now irrelevant).”
No argument at all. But first things first. Iraq is the crumbling state whose disintegration and/or fall to ISIS presents the greatest threat to the West right now. Endless civil war in Syria and other points West, while troubling, are not priority 1.
When attached by a group of armed men, you shoot the closest one first.
llater,
llamas
I don’t subscribe to the notion it was solely the fault of the scheming British and French. It is interesting to note that when the Ottoman Empire was in charge, the area that became Iraq was split into three administrative regions that were largely Kurd (Mosul), Sunni (Baghdad) and Shi’ite (Basra), either because the Ottoman rulers meant it that way or it became that way because of the divisions. Irrespective of the agreements after the war, Faisal-Weizmann, Balfour, Sykes-Picot, or whatever, you cannot easily stand against the way things were before as the original divisions were too deeply rooted. If the Arabs (under Faisal) had got their way it wouldn’t have made much difference, you’d have just ended up with a pan-Arabic and/or Caliphate kingdom already where IS intend to be and the Kurds would have been just as disgruntled about it.
I have a sneaking suspicion that , admirable as the Peshmerga may be , we should resist the urge to go a little misty-eyed at the prospect of their reaching the Lebanese border or washing their boots in the Persian Gulf. As has been noted here before , the region is a snake pit , full of , erm , snakes. That the Kurds have survived by being just as snake-like as the rest of them must surely be a given. So , should the noble mountain warriors triumph , expect to see good old Middle Eastern corruptocracy , incompetence and double dealing quickly assert itself among them too.
Well technically Kurds are already on the Lebanese border (the YPG) 🙂 But I would hardly describe what a reasonably stable state might look like as being ‘misty eyed’. From what I am told (by Kurds) the only thing pretty much all Kurds agree on is there needs to be an independent Kurdistan. Other than that, they are highly factionalised. But that too is ok, as none of the factions that matter and have serious traction within Kurdistan are political islamists, and indeed the ones in Erbil are a mixture of centre-right to centre-left folks that would not be out of place in Southern Europe apparently (ie political moderate and somewhat corrupt). Things get a bit more wild and wooly politically the further you get from Erbil it seems.
Huh? You seem a little geographically confused, haha. Kurdistan does not extend to the Persian Gulf.
I am grateful for the detail on Kurdistan’s intetnal political dynamics , an area where there’s been a dearth of good information. And ndeed , Kurdistan does not extend to the Persian Gulf. That , respectfully , was partly the point. It was an admittedly clumsy allusion to the old Tsarist dream of Russian troops washing their boots in the Pacific. I’ll shut up.
I have been climbing that curve too, Sean. Kurdish politics is crazy complex when you factor in the Syrian, Turkish and Iranian Kurds. But the money quote for me from my Kurdish chums in near Kirkuk was this:
“We’re the only Kurds that really matter right now politically. The PKK (Kurds in Turkey) are politically untouchable by the USA as they are marxists and the Turks regard them as terrorists. The YPG in Rojava (Syrian Kurds) are too close to the PKK, so again, untouchable. The Kurds in Iran are largely leaderless and too tightly controlled by the Iranians. But Southern Kurdistan (i.e. Northern Iraq) are western oriented, secular, centrist politically, extremely anti-daesh (ISIS) (and to be honest fairly anti-Arab generally in private) and HAVE LOTS OF OIL. That all makes us politically supportable and economically viable as an independent nation”.
And my chums are actually *not* supporters of Masoud Barzani and the current government in Kurdistan. Interesting stuff.
Interesting stuff indeed, Perry. Thanks for the quote.
The problem Perry, may be that the Peshmurga are physically unfit, lack training and fighting spirit.
But we cannot hope to determine the fate of the Middle East by the use of proxies. If the outcome concerns our vital interests we need to apply our full force, including “boots on the ground”, even if that results in cries of “Sykes Picot”, imperialism etc. Otherwise we should try an isolationist approach, having eliminated the enemy within.
But the evidence does not back you up even slightly, Gordon. The Peshmerga lack heavy weapons and logistic support (particularly the later), and that is really all they lack. The Islamic State captured (or more accurately was simply given) heavy weapons and stockpiles of ammunition when the US trained Iraqi army simply bugged out. And once the effects of operational surprise wore off when Islamic State moved against them, the Peshmerga actually proved quite viable.
Moreover the record for the USA actually crushing insurgencies and then having a viable political situation afterwards is terrible. They are really awesome great at blowing up people’s armies, but then what? Do they systematically wipe out the insurgent power base? No, that would not play well on CNN. Instead they build schools and dig wells. Unbelievable.
The sort of ruthlessness and understanding of local political realities that actually made British Imperialism viable at an acceptable economic cost is completely absent from US culture. Indeed the British do not really think that way much any more either.
THAT is why it is infinity and incomparably better to leave the “boots on the ground” to locals with convergent interests, which in this case means the Kurds from Erbil. They are very likely to be much much better at what comes next than the USA. The USA needs to blow shit up from the air, advise (a bit) and just leave the messy and ultimately vastly more important “what comes next” to the locals. Iraq and its magic disappearing army is what happens when the US gets involved in actually managing stuff after the blowing shit up phase is over.
Perry:
“The sort of ruthlessness and understanding of local political realities that actually made British Imperialism viable at an acceptable economic cost is completely absent from US culture. Indeed the British do not really think that way much any more either.”
True:
So: Quoi faire?
Drop bombs, arm Kurds, show them which end to point at enemy, and (above all) leave the choice who that actually is to them… and then get the hell out of the way 😉
I have more sympathy for the Kurds than any other group in the area, and I have the (dubious) experience of having spent several years in this part of the world.
If we expect to make the Kurds our ground enforcers, we are cutting our own throats.
The muslim world is such that any help from the US delegitimizes the recipient. If we arm and train the Kurds, maybe they win and we have to fight an even worse group two years down the road. Maybe they lose and ISIS gets all those guns. What we won’t get is a stable middle east. And mark my words well, any guns we give to the hajis will be turned on us. See Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq.
No, if “we” expect them to be “our” ground enforcers, then “we” have learned nothing whatsoever from the entire predictable debacle in Iraq.
Arming the Kurds makes sense because they have a vested interest in a well armed (and independent) Kurdistan, and that can only happen if they drive the Islamic State out of Southern Kurdistan. They will not be “our” enforcers, they will be their own enforcers and the only reason for us to care is the huge oilfields around Kirkuk, which we do not want controlled by Arab Salafist Islamists, but rather by secular Kurds.
Unfortunately, upon mature reflection (and watching that clueless idiot Kerry on the TV last night) I think I know how this will play out.
The US sends some arms to the Kurds – just enough to get them going.
This stirs the roiling mess of factionalism that is the Middle East.
Half-a-dozen players in the region start to put the pressure on the US to stop arming the Kurds, in favour of (some other solution that suits their particular interest).
The predictable chorus of far-Left naysayers in the US make common cause with one or more of those players.
President PantyWaist and whichever clueless idiot happens to be SoS at the time cave in, and stop sending arms to the Kurds – just as the first good results start to come in, just enough to give them a political fig-leaf to cover their decision. And the Kurds lose.
ISIS (OWTCTT) takes over a large part of the region, supported by their silent partners/enablers to the South and East. And 5 years from now, the Saudis and the Emiratis will come wailing to the West to save them from the cuckoo that they installed in their own nest. Once they start to what they created on their own doorstep, good and hard, they are not going to like it much at all. No more Lamborghinis, no more blonde hookers, no more Cuesta-Reys, no more Johnnie Walker – these ISIS guys are serious, and they don’t care what Arabs they kill for being insufficiently pure. Hell, they would probably count it a coup to publicly execute a few Saudi royals for wearing green socks, or not having a beard, or whatever other bat-sh*t crazy things they think their sky-boogeyman commands.
This President and all of his coterie simply hate the idea of any foreign-policy success that is achieved by force of arms. By anybody. In his community-organizer heart, he truly believes that ‘success’ – whatever that is – can always be achieved by jaw-jaw, and never by war-war. He thinks he’s negotiating with rational actors who will respond to rational pressures. He’s wrong.
I just hope that by the time the bill comes due, that there is enough fracked US oil and gas that a more-sensible President will be able to tell the Saudis and the Emiratis ‘Sorry, no help this time. You fouled your own nest, you clean up your own mess.’ And there will be a period of factional and religious fighting, with all the genocide, atrocities and pitiful human suffering that are the normal condition of the Middle East. Oh, well.
Commenter Kim du Toit has sometimes used the expression ‘Africa Wins Again’ to describe the futility of expecting too much development in Africa – the values that are endemic in the region are just too powerful for the values of the developed world to overcome. Much the same appears to be coming true in the Near and Middle East. We can’t ‘win’ for any Western value of ‘win’, so we should quit trying, and simply encourage in any way we can the player that seems to offer the outcome that is the least-worst for us.
llater,
llamas
Plausible. Let us hope you are wrong.
“Secular” Kurds! I just choked on my tea.
Mr. de Havilland, your views often agree with my own, and your style is exemplary for internet comments. Don’t make yourself into an idiot this easily. The only difference between the “Secular” Kurds and the “Salafi extremist Sunnis” is who they think should be in charge of the putative caliphate.
Okay. Someone tell me what OWTCTT stands for.
Or What They Call Themselves Today
Sorry Tarrou but you completely misunderstand both me and Kurdish politics then.
Yes most (but by no means all) Kurds are muslims. However political Islam is very much a minority interest. It is the politics that are secular.
The Islamist Parties in South Kurdistan are not part of the KDP/PUK coalition government of Masoud Barzani in Erbil. Indeed the Kurdish Islamic parties are very much on-the-way-down and are not even the main opposition, which is the even more explicitly secular Gorran movement.
Politics in Kurdistan has one overwhelming core element to it, and it is NOT religion: it is Kurdish nationalism. And that is why it was the Syrian Kurdish YPG soldiers who went and rescued those Kurdish speaking Yazidis from Mt. Sinjar in Iraq (who do you think did that? Obama on a magic carpet?). The fact the refugees on Mt. Sinjar were Yazidi was irrelevant, the fact they were Kurds was not. It ain’t about religion. A Kurdish Caliphate is about as likely as an American Kingdom. If you do not grasp that, you do not grasp Kurdish politics at all, and I got my crash course from a deeply cynical Kurdish couple 🙂
“And there will be a period of factional and religious fighting, with all the genocide, atrocities and pitiful human suffering that are the normal condition of the Middle East.”
I’m not certain, but I think llamas considers that to be a bad thing.
Mr. de Havilland,
If you’re talking to Kurds, I imagine they are some of the many who emigrated to other lands. As such, they are not exactly representative of their homeland. You talked to one couple. I lived with them for a year. In what became their autonomous region. They have not forgotten their racial hero Salahadin. There are no significant religious minorities, and in fact, they follow a pretty harsh version of Salafi Islam, only made more relatively palatable by the fact that they don’t actually execute witches and stone women all that much (a low bar, I think). As I said, I sympathize with their plight, I support a Kurdish state. And of the hordes of seventh-century scum that inhabit that wretched and useless corner of the earth, they are far and away the best. But that’s not saying much. And I guarantee you this, if they get their state and dispose of their closer rivals, they will turn on us. There is no other path.
Anything else is delusion and irresponsible fantasy. We already know that the Kurds are willing to wage terror campaigns when they want to. They did so against Turkey. As long as they remain a divided minority beset by racist Arabs and shia Persians, they’ll look to us. The minute those threats fade, they’ll be out for westerners and jews just like the rest.
They live near Kirkuk actually.
And how will they turn on “us”? It is Syria, Turkey and Iran who have to worry, not us, and not because of religious motivations but because of Kurdish nationalism.
Once they have an independent Kurdistan, all we need from them is to keep any Arab salafists out and jut sell their oil on the world market. There are Christians in the Peshmerga, btw.
Mr. de Havilland,
It’s funny, I heard the identical argument made about playing the Iranians off the Iraqis in the ’80s. Look where that got us.
But I am not arguing for that at all, even if in Syria it was an attractive notion to have Hamas, the Baathists and al-Nusra all killing each other until hell freezes over.
The Henry Kissenger “It’s a pity they can’t both lose” remark was to keep Iran and Iraq fighting as long as possible. But what I am saying is we should want the Kurds to WIN and establish a well armed state in Southern Kurdistan. And as Turkey is openly acting as a conduit for Erbil’s oil, strangely they might actually enable that to happen, which does make me curious what their thinking really is.
You know, it’s like I’m psychic or something.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/09/24/isis-targets-saudi-pilots-including-son-of-crown-prince-after-syria-strikes/
llater,
llamas