Posted on 09/27/2017 1:37:32 PM PDT by Enchante
More than 92% of voters in Iraqi Kurdistan have opted for independence, according to election monitors, in an overwhelming endorsement of a proposed split from Baghdad that has sparked increasing threats of air and land blockades that could be imposed as early as Friday.
The result came after Iraq’s parliament authorised the prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to send troops into areas disputed between Arabs and Kurds that were contentiously included in the ballot.
Euphoria on the streets of Erbil in recent days has been met with sharply increasing tension in the region, which is likely to escalate in the wake of the result.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Could easily imagine Iran and Turkey joining forces with central Iraqi govt to try to suppress the Kurds....
The Kurds have been mistreated by both sides.
I would like to see them have an autonomous nation.
I don’t see other areas of Iraq/Turkey being mistreated like this. I may be blanking on other regions in Turkey, so I may be a little off base.
Neither Iraq or Turkey would seriously be harmed by a separate Kurd nation.
Leave them in peace, and they’ll probably leave you in peace.
Most of the action I’ve seen the Kurds take part in, was defensive, or helping to do away with ISIS.
Am I missing something?
There is no reason for the Iraqi’s for force them to stay. Iraq is an artificial legal entity by foreign powers, i.e. the League of Nations in 1920. The Kurds have every much a right to self-determination as the former parts of Yugoslavia.
Traitors. Saddam Hussein got 99%.
...and over 50% here prefer tyranny
Sounds familiar. When you want independence, everybody gangs up to attack you. I see EMA ripening on the vine.
The Kurds deserve much sympathy and support. I have no hesitation about wanting more autonomy for them IN PRINCIPLE. I simply don’t know (probably no one knows) how it will play out in relation to governments in Baghdad, Tehran, Ankara, and Damascus. Certainly none of those 4 govts wants to allow any greater autonomy to the Kurds.
Can a successful Kurdistan arise solely within current Iraqi territory and not have spillover effects for all the Kurds in Iran, Turkey, and Syria??? I would be happy for an independent Kurdistan IN PRINCIPLE, but the problems of “self-determination” over the past century have often turned bloody. There are various ethnic and religious groupings in overlapping territories, and it is far from simple to say how an independent Kurdistan WILL exist successfully, without armed interference from the aforementioned governments.
Iraqi Kurds have oil.
We should have split Iraq along ethnic lines right after Turkey denied us access.
Such perfidy earned them a newly minted Kurdistan on their border.
LOL
Yup. A rich Kurdistan on Turkey’s border.
Perhaps when the time comes to invade Iran, Turkey won’t be quite so inclined to jerk the rug out from under us at the last minute?
Russians totally hacked this...
But Al-Phili, Chiraq, and Baltimore have yet to report in.
I don’t disagree with that.
It’s natural for a nation to want to hang on to it’s territory.
The interesting aspect of this for me is that the area is so sparsely populated, other than the Kurdish areas. Particularly in Iraq, you’ve got nothing but dirt and sand, then the predominant Kurd area.
In reality, what control would Iraq be relinquishing? Almost none from what I understand. Perhaps others can set me straight on that.
Okay, good. Then they have a source of national wealth.
That should sustain them and keep them from wanting to bother others.
If I thought they would suddenly become a military threat against neighbors in the region, I would not support them to get independence.
Recognize Kurdistan.
Actually,99.789% want free land from other people who own it. This is a joke.
(I’m a bit concerned that there doesn’t seem to be an obvious way for the US to exit this Syrian war) Maybe a US backed Kurdistan could provide the ticket to get our troops out of Syria? A T-shaped Kurdistan giving them traditional homeland in northern Iraq and Syria plus a strip of land along Syria’s eastern border with Iraq. That strip would block the Iranians from getting a land bridge from Baghdad to Damascus. Is there any better way to get out without allowing the Iranians to dominate the region?
Can’t blame them, they’ve been ruled over in roughshod fashion by their islamic “btothers” for centuries.
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Given the fact that Iraq is less than a century old, one of many British creations, I'm not sure why it's Iraqi Kurdistan. British Iraq being a creation of numerous former cultures, one of them the several millennia old Kurds/Corduenes. As an "entity" they seem to have governed themselves well for several decades. In a difficult part of the world. Why not support their independence. It will be their job to defend it. Which I suspect they'll be up to.
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