more happy war thoughts

[wrog]

Meanwhile, this guy says the Kurds will actually be a huge problem and that this war is really the Beginning of the End for the American Empire.

Kurdish nationalists have long experience with betrayals and alliances of convenience, and know American perfidy very well. They have declared at the outset that in the event of an invasion, they will defend themselves from Turkish incursions. They are not willing to lose the autonomy they have gained over the last eleven years in Northern Iraq. This not only puts them at odds with US ally Turkey, it potentially puts them at odds with the US itself, even with US wishes that they participate in indigenous actions against Iraqi forces. The US does not want that region destabilized in the post-invasion period, because Kirkuk in the East of Iraqi Kurdistan is a huge oil producing zone.

The very first complication of post-invasion Iraq will likely be the demand that US commanders disarm the Kurds.

Northern Iraq could easily become contested terrain involving partisan warfare between Turks, Kurds of three factions, the Iranians, and the US, with the Syrians in a position to play the silent interloper. This would amount to the devolution of Northern Iraq, a key strategic region, into another Afghanistan or Somalia. It is already straining relationships between Turkey and the United States, NATO allies, even as the NATO alliance itself comes under severe strain, with a Euro-American trade war as a backdrop.

And the Kurds have the motivation, tenacity, and fighting spirit to do those kinds of things that General Van Riper did to defeat the Rumsfeld "Robo-Military" in Operation Millennium Challenge.

We begin to see how the Bush Junta is the equivalent of a mad bee keeper, that no longer leaves the hive stable and merely smokes it into a stupor to harvest the honey. It now proposes to simply start swatting all the bees and taking the honey by brute force.

but go read the whole thing; it's all quite scary.

Comments

la la la I can't hear you

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

All this talk of the Kurds, but why is nobody concerned about the whey?

I know, I know, that was really cheesy.

Oops, so was that.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this guy is echoing a lot of my thinking.

As good as this war will almost certainly go militarily, it's a diplomatic and political disaster of historic proportions, and its logic has no end but total subjugation by the US of the rest of the world (for which there are not the resources, even in the US) or overreach and collapse. That overreach may take a long time, but it's not going to be a fun ride.

Hopefully we'll find some way to abandon the logic before it gets too far.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I think we abandoned logic quite a while ago.

[aldon.livejournal.com]

Over the past few days, I have been thinking about how much the current situation seems to parallel the classic Greek tragedy. The leaders fatal flaw, usually some sort of hubris, takes the leader into what appears to be assured victory, only to find the tables turned by fate, and if victory is obtained at all, it is only done at great cost.

I hope, for the sake of everyone involved, the twist of fates isn't as brutal as I fear it may be. Goff's article leads me to believe otherwise and to cast Goff at others in the role of the soothsayers who tried unsuccessfully to warn the leaders.