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  • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
    The other point why Kurdistan is a no go. It would be they who would be launching attacks into Turkey and Iran in order to unite the traditional Kurdistan homeland. Supporting the Kurds may sound like a nice idea but not when you know the actual history.
    Just like Kosovo
    No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

    To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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    • Originally posted by Doktor View Post
      Just like Kosovo
      Serbia ain't Turkey and Iran. Small potatoes. Not arguing the rights and wrongs of it. I argue against the Kosovo War. It is what it is.
      Chimo

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      • To sum up, Hope is not a strategy.
        Chimo

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        • Wasn't Saladin a Kurd?

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          • Colonel,

            I see your point now...I don't totally agree but at least understand your argument.

            Regarding Kurdistan....

            I consider it would have worked in 2005-2007. We would have been engaged, we could have helped keep a lid on things. We would play hard ball with the Turks...that administration had no probably telling other allies to pound sand. Plus we tell Turkey we would lobby on their behalf for EU membership and that would have bought some tamping down. They would yell at us in public but work with us in private.

            And we tell the Iranians to go fvck themselves. US soldiers were dying from bombs designed and made by Iranians....


            Gunnut, I remember SCREAMIN at the TV back then "Bremer, you stupid ************!!!" My wife, who was outside, came running in to see if I was okay.

            And GVChamp...with a strong Sunni area with self determination, a stable community and meaningful security work within a framework of a Greater Iraq ISIL never gets born. Hell, Al Qaeda in Iraq may have never happened.


            Way too late now. The seeds of ISIL were sown 10 years ago.
            “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
            Mark Twain

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            • yes, concur with AR. at least I understand the good col's POV a bit better now, even if I don't agree.

              as for Iraq-- we went with centralization because it was the easier choice. we did a LOT in Iraq that was the easier choice, not the better choice. back in 2003 and 2004 we had enough say to influence things, because there was no real organization on the ground yet.

              by the way, the current system in Iraq IS rather closer to federalization than it was back in, say, 2006 or 2007...precisely because the central government lost so much legitimacy and power through Maliki's utter botching of things. the Kurds are virtually independent now. and Turkey's eating it because Turkey has no other choice.
              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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              • Independent Kurdistan is a fait accompli. No one actually planned for an independent Kurdistan. It was an autonomous region and the central government virtually collapsed.

                Setting up Kurdistan as independent in 2003/2004 is a willful act of American power that will be opposed by everyone in the region. Especially Turkey, which the Bush I administration is not going to alienate 2 years after 9/11, not after we pissed them off invading Iraq in the first place. Politically, it's not even an option.

                I really don't think independent Kurdistan is sustainable, either. They have been "de facto" independent >2 years. Give it another decade of Kurdish terrorists bombing Turkey and let's see what happens.

                Are there any other examples where a federated state would've actually kept out ISIS or prevented an insurgency from arising in the first place? Saddam left the Sunnis a whole bunch of weapons to fight a civil war. And the Shi'a militias didn't want US control anymore than the Sunnis did. I don't see any way out of Iraq without going through an insurgency.


                The Brits did the split option in India and Israel: the result was 3 new nuclear powers.
                Last edited by GVChamp; 19 Mar 16,, 13:44.
                "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

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                • Sir Hew Srachan on Obama's failure in Syria from 2014; http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...the-world.html

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                  • I am still trying to understand what happened to the Status of Forces Agreement -- Iraq debacle. To an outsider the process was quite opaque. How badly did Obama press the Iraqis to renegotiate it? Did al-Maliki really believe all would be well if he was to be left with his own impotent devices? Did he understand that if he missed the deadline, that would be that?
                    All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
                    -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

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