Kurdistan
Eric Martin posted an excellent comment over at American Footprints regarding the increasingly tense situation in Kurdistan and its probable effect on the US strategic position.
Also, can we stop talking about Kurdistan as a viable destination for any such ill-advised residual force? We would be putting ourselves in a massive lose-lose situation - stuck, hapless, in the middle of a conflict that would pit a NATO ally against our potential patrons (and part of the country we just "liberated"). If we side with our NATO allies, the Kurds won't be the most hospitable of hosts. Yet if we side with the Kurds, we would alienate a country that is far more essential to a wide range of US interests - beyond its NATO status even.
Neither side would really accept neutrality either, especially inaction from such proximity. This counts moreso the Turks, who we would be relying on to provide routes of re-supply for our Kurdistan garrisoned troops (already a shaky proposition given Turkey's likely anger at our decision to move north regardless). If not for the Turkish routes, the re-supply would have to run through Iran (uh, not gonna happen), or up through the entire expanse of Iraq (where we would have just left due to the difficulty of occupation).
Not to mention the fact that our presence would likely inspire the Kurds to overreach in connection with controversial issues like the status of Kirkuk - and even PKK-related activities in Turkey and/or Iran.
Come to think of it, it would be such a colossally bad decision that I fully expect the Bush administration to make it. Kurdistan, here we come.[emp. added]
Seems he has the same high opinion of the Bush Administration’s decision-making process that I do. More and more, it is beginning to look like David Brin may be right:
Yes, there probably is some kind of a conspiracy at the very top, that aims to make the US government fail. The perfect consistency of this administration, never making any decisions that even tangentially or accidentally benefit the people or commonwealth of the United States, beggars any other explanation, including the “standard model” of dogmatic and corrupt ineptitude.
