The conventional wisdom seems to be that in order to effect “regime change” in Iraq, we need the support of the Kurds in the north of the country. Unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned before, we basically let the Kurds die on the vine after they rose up against Saddam right after the first Gulf War, so they’re not likely to trust us that much. The other problem we face is that our ally Turkey, whose cooperation we need to go to war with Iraq, has its own problems with the Kurds and does not want to see the creation of an independent Kurdistan under any circumstances. They fear that if northern Iraq becomes Kurdistan, the Kurds that make up the majority of the population in eastern Turkey would quite sensibly want to secede and join the new Kurdish country, being that the Turks oppress them horribly. So the United States is promising Turkey that there will be no Kurdistan … I don’t know what we’re promising the Kurds. It sure seems to me though that we’re setting up quite a house of cards here. If we do go to war with Iraq, when it’s all said and done it’s almost a guarantee that we’ll have conned somebody.