Posted on 11/10/2004 4:56:37 PM PST by CHARLITE
Oh no, not another modest proposal. Oh yes, but this one is not in any way, shape, or form elliptical.
In the service of the Republican reelection campaign and of our effort to discipline the middle-eastern terrorists, and in order to reduce our casualties, after the limited turnover of sovereignty on 30 June to whatever is left of the Iraqi Governing Council, it will be time for us to cut and run in Iraq.
Don't panic. I dont suggest that we run very far, just to bases in northern Iraq. This region has earned many times over the name and status of an independent state. Im talking about what Kurdish nationalists call "Southern Kurdistan." We might also secure a good-sized chunk of the southern oil fields and let the Kuwaitis run it. Then they wouldn't have to drill sideways into it anymore.
There are today about 5 million Kurds living in an area (purple in the image on the map, on the webpage),"http://www.dontmoveon.org/Proposal.htm" which is surrounded by 80 miles of Syrian border in the West, 100 miles of Turkish border in the North, 200 miles of Iranian border in the East, and a belt of 5 to 6 million Sunni Arabs in the South.
The light brown belt indicates the predominance of Sunni Arabs, and the gray around Baghdad indicates a mixture of Sunni and Shiite Arabs. The patches of dark brown ("Sunni Arab/Kurd mix"), and the cities Mosul, Arbil (traditional capital of Kurdistan), and Kirkuk were solidly Kurdish early in the 20th century. After the national-socialist Baathist party's coup in 1968, the government began to forcibly settle Arab homesteaders in portions of the North which mostly coincided with the location of major oil fields around Mosul and Kirkuk. The isolated blue splotches represent small enclaves of Turkmen. At this very moment the map is being corrected as Kurds flow back into the area and Arabs are driven out. Go for it, Kurds, I say. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, reap the wind and sow the whirlwind, and so on.
According to Raza Tataii, writing in the Kurdistan Observer, the Kurds have a history stretching back more than 12,000 years. They are thus one of the world's oldest ethnic groups. Their language is an Indo-European branch separate from the Semitic and Turkish languages. Like the Jews and the Armenians, they have survived attempts at genocide. They form important minorities in Iran, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and above all in Turkey with about 12 million speakers of Kurdish and other millions of assimilated Kurds. In addition there is a Diaspora of about 3 million Kurds living outside of the Middle East, mainly in Germany. Most Kurds are Sunni Moslems, but have a very strong liberal tradition, in the best sense of the word. The general level of education in Southern Kurdistan is the highest in the region, and women enjoy the status normally offered them in Western societies.
Since the 1991 Gulf war, the Iraqi Kurds have had effective autonomy protected by a no-fly zone enforced by U.S. air power. After the U.S. intervention in 2003, this area has become a bastion of stability in Iraq. According to Ralph Peters, writing in his article Kurds' Success Provides Lesson For Rest of Iraq, the Iraqi Kurds have a flourishing economy (even Turks are investing there), and have developed the only functioning democracy in the Middle East outside of Israel and Turkey. They also now control the northern oil fields, although some Baathist diehards are trying to pry out the city of Mosul, a big prize for whichever faction ends up with it. About 40% of all formerly Iraqi oil reserves are under the ground near Mosul and Kirkuk.
As the suicide bombings and the maiming and mutilation of U.S. and coalition soldiers and workers continue apace elsewhere in Iraq, and as U.S. and British troops react predictably to the provocation and to the rejection by the Sunnis and many Shiites of our efforts to rebuild their infrastructures, we still have northern Iraq under control and are welcome there.
We also owe them big time, due in part to our equivocal "Realpolitik" toward them for decades before the 1991 Gulf war. Moreover, last year the Kurds liberated the North for us when Turkey refused us permission to transit its air space in order to open a northern front in Iraq.
Therefore, I suggest that we soon announce the birth of, say, the "Provisional Northern Protectorate" and withdraw our troops from most of southern Iraq to bases which, I am sure, are already prepared in the North. We then protect a shortened perimeter while the Kurds really clean house.
First, the terrorists would be deprived for good of the revenue from a large oil reserve.
Second, Iran would be discouraged from fomenting more trouble. Just imagine the dilemma this development would pose Iran, state sponsor of terrorists and certainly involved in the planning of the attack of 11 Sept. 2001. For a while anyway, the mullahs would be distracted by the chaos and civil war which would erupt in Iraq from Tikrit to Basra as Arab Sunnis and Shiites fight it out for control of Saddam's palaces. Things would sort themselves out eventually, and there would be nothing left of Iraq's potential to harm its neighbors or us. Why, we might even be asked to return.
Iran would also be looking over its shoulder at 100,000 or so highly motivated Kurdish peshmerga militiamen and 100,000 or so superbly equipped U.S. soldiers, all straining at the leash and poised on the Kurdistan/Iran border, just 200 miles from Teheran. Other U.S. soldiers would be waiting at the Afghanistan/Iran border, revving their tank motors just 400 miles from Teheran. And I'm sure we could spare a division or two to put on the Syrian border to lend emphasis to the fact that, on the other side of Syria, there are Israeli troops on the Golan Heights training their field glasses on Damascus. Jordanian troops aren't much further away and must be thinking about the recent foiled attempt by terrorists to release nerve gas in Amman.
To smooth the road for us if necessary, the sizable Kurdish minorities in Iran and Syria, recent victims of state-sponsored progroms, would welcome the opportunity to have some fun at their oppressors' expense.
Finally, what a neat object lesson for nervous rulers in Iran, Saudia Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, as they contemplate the remains of what was once a proud rogue nation and occasional partner. Message in Klartext - Stop supporting terror franchisers or lose everything.
Turkey, fearful of its own Kurdish minority and burdened with the knowledge of almost a century of its brutal suppression of Kurdish aspirations, would be well advised to go along, if only in recognition of the benefits which a healthy economy will bring to everyone in this region. True, Turkey is tempted by the oil and, according to R. M. Ahmad, writing in part 2 of his article They lost us 1991 Uprising, has recently discovered a kinship with the small Turkman minority in northern Iraq, but there is nothing like a fait accompli to remind one that discretion is the better part of valor. Then there is the Turkish minority in Syria, ready at a moment's notice to demand redress and an adjustment of Syria's northern border.
My proposal is not only the smart thing, but also the right thing to do. I think enough of George W. Bush and his team to suspect that they are planning something like this already, if only to get the Iraq issue off the table before our November elections.
Calm down, folks. We really do have the upper hand.
Comments: redmanb@mindspring.com
Ooooh. I like the idea, a lot. Not the cutting and running, because I enjoy reading about the US military smokin' a bunch of Islamofascists -- but about making Kurdish autonomy even closer to independence. No wonder the Turks are bent out of shape, eh? Just wait until Iran has the Shiites kicked out of it -- the Kurdish region in Iran will be autonomous. That will leave just Kurds in Turkey without autonomy (for the time being).
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