[MadIvan]

I disagree with one aspect of this - I doubt sincerely that Rumsfeld and President Bush were "duped" - nothing is happening that they did not authorise. Still, clever of the Kurds, very clever indeed.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

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[goldstategop]

Yes.... and the Kurds are now players in Iraq by virtue of sitting on those oil fields nearby.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Good for the Kurds!

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[giotto]

Fortune favors the one with a plan. But you're right--Bush and Rummy have been planning, too, for a long time. Something tells me we've seen only a small part of what they hope to accomplish.

[Starstruck]

I think the U.S. allowed that turkey to be basted just enough to get its attention.

[Turk2]

puke puke puke

[Trailerpark Badass]

“As I fell a crowd of Kurdish men swarmed around me, most with guns,” he recalled. “But they didn’t beat me. Instead they slapped and insulted the man who had shot me.

“Two of them then took me in a car to the hospital with my friends. They gave me new clothes and were very good to us.”

A striking contrast to the normal behavior for the region. Maybe there is some hope.

[Mr.Clark]

Saw on French TV that the Kurdish areas are very well run, with little looting or disturbance. They even had police officials from the north moving in, taking charge. Here's a side note, where do you think all those weapons are going that the Iraqi 5th Corps dropped? I think the Kurdish arsenal just saw a dramatic power upgrade...

[WOSG]

If I were Bush, I'd be secretly pleased how that worked out. The kurds are our friends, after all.
It's good to have smart and sensible people on your side.

[xm177e2]

“We made a plan for the taking of Kirkuk over two months ago,” said Colonel Khatab Omar, head of a 400 PUK police unit. “We knew we had to step in quickly behind the Iraqi Army or else the situation would degenerate and we would lose the city infrastructure to looters. The courts should be back up and running here in three days. By next week the situation should have returned to normal.”

Colonel Khatab has good reason to sound smug. In contrast to other urban areas in Iraq, which have collapsed into anarchy, Kirkuk yesterday shone as a solitary example of fast postwar recovery. Though a few incidents of arson and looting continued and shops have yet to open, the hospitals functioned, electricity and water supplies were intact and traffic police controlled the roads.

His political masters have even greater reason for self-congratulation. In a takeover worthy of a Hollywood script, the PUK duped the Americans, played off the Turks and walked over the Iraqis.

And the situation in Kirkuk was supposed to be the biggest disaster waiting to happen--instead, it's calmer than Basra or Baghdad! The PUK are very good friends of the US. I don't think it's accidental that we are using their troops here and not the KDP's.

[semaj]

"I doubt sincerely that Rumsfeld and President Bush were "duped"

I agree and am glad to see the Kurds take the initiative. I'm sure that GW was and is well aware of the situation on the ground. As for the Turks,...put some ice on it.

[LibKill]

I disagree with one aspect of this - I doubt sincerely that Rumsfeld and President Bush were "duped" - nothing is happening that they did not authorise. Still, clever of the Kurds, very clever indeed.

I expect that Bush and Co. have a much better grasp of Intel than anyone since Franklin and Churchill.

And Psyops.

So the people in Bhagdad (and some other places) looted.

This is allowable. It lets them blow off a little bit of that pent-up steam that the regime built up in them.

I have been talking to a Kurd (from Turkey) today. He is very cautious. He does not want a Turk backlash.

However, the fact is that the Coalition now has rights in the former Iraq.

If it was up to me I would call the lower two thirds of Iraq, Iraq.

The 'Northern No-Fly Zone' would be Kurdistan, on the sole condition that the Kurds go there, and not try to take anymore territory, if they did, MOAB.

[Irish Eyes]

Thanks for the post, very good news in this article.

[El Gato]

Ali Hussein Lafta, 21, exemplified the Kurds’ apparent laissez-faire attitude to recent history. A Shia soldier from Amarah in southern Iraq,

I don't think the Kurds and the Shiites have particularly bad feelings, historically speaking, between them. I predict the future government of Iraq will be a coalition between the Kurds and the Shiites, with the "rights" of the Sunni minority at least theoretically protected. We'll see I guess. If the Sunnis don't like that, they can move to Syria or Saudi Arabia.

[longtermmemmory]

I am very willing to bet that the military is using the chaos to cover a few things. Chaos is our friend.

[antaresequity]

Still, clever of the Kurds, very clever indeed.

I am impressed with the Kurds. I believe they see their greatest potential in a unified civil Iraq. I believe they may prove themselves over time to be a strong, unifying force in the New Free Iraq and a key ally beyond the borders of the new republic.

Time will tell...

[McGavin999]

We've been working with the Kurds for months. There has been training in how to forgive, the local mullahs and tribal leaders have been schooling the people on what is expected of them as responsible citizens and caring humanbeings. Looks like it worked.

Yesterday I read how the Kurds treated Iraqi POW's, with kindness and compassion, and I was so proud of them. These are a great people and they show that democracy CAN work in that part of the world.

[Lurker]

I think this is President Bush saying "Thanks for all your help" to Turkey.

A de facto Kurdish Canton in the northern third of Iraq is a rather elegant solution to more than one problem don't you think?

Regards, and thanks for another fine post Ivan.

L

[EternalVigilance]

Nothing succeeds like success...