[Vision2020] What is it good for?

[Dale Courtney]

> The US will not allow Iraq to fragment into a Kurdish nation 
> (Kurdistan?) in 
> the north and Shi'ite nation in the south.  US ally Turkey would go 
> ballistic (literally) over the establishment of a Kurdish 
> nation on their 
> border.  Turkey fought a very nasty and brutal campaign with 
> human rights 
> abuses galore (funny how here in the US this abuse of the 
> Kurds in Turkey 
> got meager coverage, yet we hear the mantra of Saddam's abuse 
> of the Kurds 
> every hour) to route Kurds within Turkey.  And you can bet 
> the US does not 
> want to empower another Islamic style government in the 
> middle east with 
> Shi'ites

Ted,

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I don't think that you
can say Iraq "fragmented" if it is dealt with like Yugoslavia. And, yes,
Turkey won't be happy about it at all. There would likely be a mass
migration of Kurds from Eastern Turkey over to Kurdistan -- since the Kurds
have never had a nation of their own. 

We'll see. The Middle East was carved up before with no forethought to
ethnic/religious makeup. We'll see if people are smarter this time. 

Best,
Dale