U.S. Troops In Kurdistan?

Its become something of an article of faith among a certain bien pensant foreign policy set that we should pull out of Iraq, save leave U.S. troops in Kurdistan. This includes observers whose views on Iraq I typically respect, like Andrew Sullivan, who writes:

I'll wait to hear what the president has to offer in detail before making a clear decision in my own mind. But my view right now is that we should withdraw most combat troops by the middle of this year; and leave a remaining force in the Kurdish region and along the Iraq-Turkey border. Protecting the fledgling democracy in Kurdistan and reassuring Turkey should be our top priorities.

But here's the rub folks. The Turks don't want us to put troops up in Kurdistan, or near their border. It won't "reassure" them at all. Quite the opposite, in fact, especially talk of NATO'izing a foreign troop presence there (the Turks will panic this is a precursor to an independent Kurdish state).

Meantime, and frankly, is Kurdistan really a "fledgling democracy", as Andrew writes? I suspect one of the great under-reported stories of this war is all the reverse Arabization going on up in the North of the country. It's not all peachy clean up there, truth be told, and Kirkuk of course remains a mega tinderbox. It's likely about as "fledgling" a democracy as the rest of Iraq, all told, albeit of course enjoying less endemically poor security conditions.

The reality is that the Kurds (who were petrified by the ISG report, which calls for more equitable sharing of oil revenue, and less federalism than Gelb-Biden)--must swallow painful concessions, or the risk of Turkey militarily intervening will likely become at least as high (probably higher) than Saudi and Iranian cross-border military meddling on behalf of their Sunni and Shi'a, respectively, proxies. (And, as I said, U.S. troops garrisoned in Kurdistan are no panacea, indeed they would likely cause a major crisis, worse than the '02-'03 one, in Turkish-American relations, probably unacceptably high tensions).

Again, all this is no longer about "victory", but containing the damage from what could yet prove the biggest blunder in U.S. foreign policy history (if it hasn't already). And sure, let's call containing the worst spill-over, if this team is capable of it, "success", if that makes POTUS happier. But let's keep focused now on realistic goals, not Alice in Wonderland stuff, OK? This means we won't be presiding over some glorious trinity of Shi'a, Sunni and Kurdish "moderates" singing kumbaya simply because we "surge" into Baghdad--whilst slaying the Iranian Beast for good measure on our off hours. Indeed, any surge, if it comes to that, must be viewed not as some Grand Push to Victory, but as a way to provide critical breathing space for intensive diplomatic and political efforts to somehow allow for an imperfect settlement to be broached that avoids A) a massive, full-blown civil war in Iraq, and B) major interventions in Iraq by regional players like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey.

Our goal in Iraq, put simply, is to douse the raging fire our hubris and ineptitude set alight, as best and cleverly and forcefully (given our limited resources) that we can, hoping and praying our efforts at damage control can make some difference at this advanced hour, and keeping in mind we're stuck with a national security team that has distinguished itself by its manifold blunders (save Gates). Important to keep in mind, as well, the reason the ISG is recommending a massive region-wide diplomatic crisis management effort involving Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Riyadh, Cairo, Teheran, and Amman, among other capitals, is because the region is in such a state of brewing chaos that any sources of further instability and conflict must be dampened down to keep the regional temperature under control, wherever and however possible. Yes, the situation is this bad.

MORE: An excellent read from Scowcroft here. Remember, he called all this correctly initially. Let's now take very seriously the advice of those who were on the right side of this debacle, not the wrong one, no?

Posted by Gregory at January 4, 2007 05:06 AM

