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The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

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Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Kepler said:
Turkey really, really doesn't want to see an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, since the Kurds also claim a chunk of eastern Turkey (and have been fighting a guerrilla war about it for decades). It might be preferable for the security of the region to have Iran annex the Shia parts of Iraq and the Sunnis and Kurds co-rule the remainder. But I don't know whether that splits the oil equitably or whether that would just create a South Sudan-like "Instant Failed State, just add blood."

Does anybody get the feeling that if Iraq broke up there's not a single Iraqi who would shed a tear? They sure seem to be much more invested in their clan, village, and imam than nation-state sovereignty.
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There is no Iraqi Nationalism. That appears to be true no matter how you look at it. Thanks for the clarification on Turkey. I was forgetting why they were so against a Kurdish State on their border.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Bob Gray said:
In my book they were certainly a mixed bag, but the simplistic ways they are caricatured nowadays is really quite silly.
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Agree. The Mather family themselves are a fascinating case study. Cotton Mather was equal parts philosopher, crank, and con-man and his dad Increase was... well, he was about the strictest religious fundamentalist of any strain to ever come down the pike yet it was he who wrote "better ten suspected witches should escape, than one innocent person be condemned," which is probably going to directly contradict the 2016 Republican platform.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Kepler said:
Turkey really, really doesn't want to see an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, since the Kurds also claim a chunk of eastern Turkey (and have been fighting a guerrilla war about it for decades). It might be preferable for the security of the region to have Iran annex the Shia parts of Iraq and the Sunnis and Kurds co-rule the remainder. But I don't know whether that splits the oil equitably or whether that would just create a South Sudan-like "Instant Failed State, just add blood."

Does anybody get the feeling that if Iraq broke up there's not a single Iraqi who would shed a tear? They sure seem to be much more invested in their clan, village, and imam than nation-state sovereignty.
Click to expand...
That was true for Turkey for many years, but their views on the Kurds have shifted significantly in recent years. I've seen a number of articles talking about how some level of independence for the Kurds isn't necessarily viewed as a bad thing by Turkey anymore. For example:
http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-koplow-turkey-should-push-for-iraqi-kurdistan-2014-6

I'm not saying it's a slam dunk they support independence, but the old dynamic of Turkey being leery of anything Kurd related is no longer the reality on the ground.

Agreed on Iraq and nobody in Iraq seeming to be worried about the country breaking up?
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Bob Gray said:
That was true for Turkey for many years, but their views on the Kurds have shifted significantly in recent years. I've seen a number of articles talking about how some level of independence for the Kurds isn't necessarily viewed as a bad thing by Turkey anymore. For example:
http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-koplow-turkey-should-push-for-iraqi-kurdistan-2014-6
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Wow. That's really interesting; thank you.

I hope that's true, since the Kurds are at least in the Sweet 16 for historically screwed ethnicities that it would be nice to give a break.

Of course, Turkey also has a HUGE army (more than half the size of Russia's). If I were ISIS, I'd think twice about crossing the Turkish border.
 
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Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Kepler said:
Wow. That's really interesting; thank you.

I hope that's true, since the Kurds are at least in the Sweet 16 for historically screwed ethnicities that it would be nice to give a break.
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Hey, in a region that has seen very little good news over the years, it's nice to see at least someone getting along better than they used to.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Bob Gray said:
Hey, in a region that has seen very little good news over the years, it's nice to see at least someone getting along better than they used to.
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If the Kurds are no longer the issue I say get the 3 state solution going ASAP before the whole think blows up. If they were even smarter they'd include the Syrian territory in the deal.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

ScoobyDoo said:
If the Kurds are no longer the issue I say get the 3 state solution going ASAP before the whole think blows up. If they were even smarter they'd include the Syrian territory in the deal.
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I hear ya. But can you hold this lead balloon for me?
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Still waiting for somebody to come out here and say we should have troops in Iraq. Opie, Fishy, walrus, huskyfan, what's the deal? Still think we should be fighting this war for the Iraqi army which ran away from the fight faster than Dick Cheney requesting a draft deferment during Vietnam?
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

So while we're waiting for other USCHO righty posters not named geezer to man up and tell us where they stand on Iraq, an interesting thing for me is where Rand Paul ends up in all of this. As the so called leader of the isolationist wing of his party, he's been completely silent. Does he go for broke, say this war was stupid from the get go, and we should have nothing more to do with the place? That would be a bold move that would earn him the never ending scorn of the Beltway Media set, the same people who still ask McCain, Graham, and Bush Admin people for advice on the Middle East :rolleyes:. However, it would signify a clean break from the past.

Far from an Obama problem, this Iraq problems is a disaster for the Republican party. Bob Schieffer, etc may be too senile to remember who got us into that war in the first place when they book their guests, but the American people aren't. Nobody likes a smug jerk who cheerleads a useless war that he has no stake in (as in he or his kids aren't serving in the armed forces) and then comes back a decade later and says "LETS DO IT AGAIN". In 2016, is the GOP candidate, for the 3rd election in a row, going to run on a platform that US troops should still be in a combat role in Iraq, a full 13 years after the start of the war? Good luck with that...
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Rover said:
an interesting thing for me is where Rand Paul ends up in all of this
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It's really his moment, but my guess is he's going to prevaricate. Ron would say "the war was an inevitable disaster; I will give up the Empire to save America." Rand seems to be much more of a garden variety weasel politician. NRO is terrified he might derail the GOP-militarist gravy train. If he actually did that -- if he made an unequivocal break with the party's dogma and said he would dismantle the imperial war machine -- and he opposed Hillary's cynical triangulation in the general... that sure gets interesting.

But the GOP has not made one decent, humane move in 36 years, and I just can't believe it will happen. It sure would be sweet, though, to slay the enemy within.
 
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Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

ScoobyDoo said:
If the Kurds are no longer the issue I say get the 3 state solution going ASAP before the whole think blows up. If they were even smarter they'd include the Syrian territory in the deal.
Click to expand...

Forgive my ignorance, but what is this 3-state solution?
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

ScoobyDoo said:
Split Iraq into 3 countries. 1 Shia, 1 Kurd, and 1 Sunni. Thus eliminating the holy war fighting and giving each religion\group their own nation.
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The problem many of the Kurds have had with those proposals in the past is that the oil is in the southern half of the country. While they want to be left alone, they also want a bite at the apple.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

St. Clown said:
The problem many of the Kurds have had with those proposals in the past is that the oil is in the southern half of the country. While they want to be left alone, they also want a bite at the apple.
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Back when our corporations were about to steal their oil, er, I mean normalize market distribution, here was a map of reserves. Not sure how that actually maps onto a tri-state solution. Looks like whoever gets the west gets the shaft.
 
St. Clown said:
The problem many of the Kurds have had with those proposals in the past is that the oil is in the southern half of the country. While they want to be left alone, they also want a bite at the apple.
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Send the Texas and Maryland legislatures over to Iraq to gerrymander a solution.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

St. Clown said:
The problem many of the Kurds have had with those proposals in the past is that the oil is in the southern half of the country. While they want to be left alone, they also want a bite at the apple.
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There is some oil in the north. The Kurds' recent move into Kirkuk was at least to some extent for the purpose of strengthening their claims over oil in the north. The Kurds are in a tiff with Baghdad right now over oil the Kurds shipped through Turkey and Baghdad has been pressuring countries to not buy the oil the Kurds sent directly through Turkey.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

walrus said:
Hatred runs deeper than your logic
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Hatred might work to their advantage, just this once. This doesn't seem to be one side wanting to dominate the other, it seems to be everybody saying "get your hands off my desert." If this was political gamesmanship the aggressor would have the incentive to keep the country together so they could lord it over the whole thing, but since it's sectarian and local, everybody might be willing to go to neutral corners.

The longer the violence lasts, the more it becomes a vendetta cycle and that's no longer a solution. Like the Israelis and Palestinians, once enough people are thinking "you killed my sister," peace becomes impossible.
 
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