Kurdistan

The Fiancee mentioned dividing up Iraq into three countries today. One of them being an independent Kurdistan.

We were talking about this in "Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan" class last night. If we create an independent Kurdistan, the Middle East will implode.

Turkey has trouble with its Kurds in the south east. They regularly cross the border into Iraq, where Kurds are more or less independent in the North. Turkey regularly conducts raids across the border. Turkey hates us right now because American troops recently captured a bunch of Turkish troops and treated them poorly. But the point is that both Turkey and Iran (which also has a "Kurd problem" in its adjacent regions) have said that they will not stand for an independent Kurdish state because their Kurds will try to separate, taking big chunks of each country's territory with them.

If we create an independent Kurdistan, our friend Turkey and our enemy Iran will be on the same side waging war with the Western Darling, Kurdistan. It will be another Israel. We will lose Turkey, one of the most strategic countries in the Middle East as it has both the straits between Istanbul and Anatolia and bases within bombing distance of the rest of the region. This cannot happen. If we leave Iraq and lose Turkey simultaneously, we will have no way of keeping Iran from doing anything it wants.

My heart goes out to the Kurds, but if Iran and Turkey say no, Kurdistan cannot exist. Independence will only bring more war and devestation to a group of people who have been shit on for as long as anyone can remember.