fta...In 1991 after the first war against Saddam, the democracies came to our rescue but left the dictatorship in place, thus casting us back into the shadows.
***************************************************
That can be fully blamed on Chmn. of the JCOS, Colon Powell, and weak-kneed Bush 41 who listened to him instead of letting Stormin’ Norman finish the task of taking out Saddam Hussein.
Similar to Truman stopping MacArthur from going further into Korea. ....Both decisions led to the problems we now face in those countries.
That was realpolitik
Turkey was far more important to our strategic interests than Kurdistan
The big thing against Saddam going jnto Kuwait was about not drawing new borders
So we didnt
Now we are in that awkward place of having used the Kurds as allies for decades in return for at least implicit promises of recognizing their autonomy if and when victory was achieved - which is closer than ever