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July 25, 2006
WB: Iraq 1921-2006
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I always looked forward to seeing “Iraq the Jewel in the Crown” of our new empire!
Posted by: R.L. | Jul 25 2006 5:41 utc | 2
Peter W. Galbraith in NYT: Our Corner of Iraq
While the Bush administration professes a commitment to Iraq’s unity, it has no intention of undertaking the major effort required to put the country together again.
…
The administration, then, must match its goals in Iraq to the resources it is prepared to deploy. Since it cannot unify Iraq or stop the civil war, it should work with the regions that have emerged. Where no purpose is served by a continuing military presence — in the Shiite south and in Baghdad — America and its allies should withdraw.
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Seeing as we cannot maintain the peace in Iraq, we have but one overriding interest there today — to keep Al Qaeda from creating a base from which it can plot attacks on the United States. Thus we need to have troops nearby prepared to re-engage in case the Sunni Arabs prove unable to provide for their own security against the foreign jihadists.
This would be best accomplished by placing a small “over the horizon” force in Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan is among the most pro-American societies in the world and its government would welcome our military presence, not the least because it would help protect Kurds from Arab Iraqis who resent their close cooperation with the United States during the 2003 war. American soldiers on the ground might also ease the escalating tension between the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey, which is threatening to send its troops across the border in search of Turkish Kurd terrorists using Iraq as a haven.
From Kurdistan, the American military could readily move back into any Sunni Arab area where Al Qaeda or its allies established a presence. The Kurdish peshmerga, Iraq’s only reliable indigenous military force, would gladly assist their American allies with intelligence and in combat. And by shifting troops to what is still nominally Iraqi territory, the Bush administration would be able to claim it had not “cut and run” and would also avoid the political complications — in United States and in Iraq — that would arise if it were to withdraw totally and then have to send American troops back into Iraq.
Nice idea, but there are two serious questions:
1. With a base in northern Iraq, what are the “lines of communication”? Through south and middle Iraq where a civil war is running? Through Jordan and west Iraq? Through Turkey?
2. How will the US avoid a Trukish – Kurdish conflict? It can not in my view.
The Kurds can not be hold back by anything but a Turkish threat. This than sets up the US against Turkey with very doubtable sustainability because of lack of secured logistics.
So nice idea, but with consequences down the road nobody would like.
Another pipe dream b, for the reasons you point to, and this state of affairs would preclude an autonomus Kurdistan, and demand Kirkuk be part of that nation. Its hard to imagine some large U.S. military presence in a landlocked nation on the border of another nation(Iraq) embroiled in a civil war where one of the major points of contention (Kirkuk) is also its single most important revenue source. Not to mention that, even now, Kurdistan is being shelled by both Turkey and Iran. Sounds like a full time job just keeping it afloat.
The al-Qadea excuse however, is just….so yesterday.
Posted by: anna missed | Jul 25 2006 8:23 utc | 4
Lets just hope those soldiers stationed in the new and improved kurdistan can keep their pants zipped, and behave themselves better than in germany or korea or japan.
Will the kurdistan goverment pick up the tap for all the future children of kurd/american fraternization?
I guess not.
Posted by: sabine | Jul 25 2006 8:23 utc | 5