"Well, if you think it not possible, how do you explain how the Kurds have set up a decent local government. Remember, they started this with the Turks on one side and Saddam on the other, both of which would have liked to destroy them."
That's easy, the Kurds have wanted their own nation for decades. They are the largest irredentist movement in the world (the largest ethnic group in the world that doesn't have their own country....)
Also, in recent years (since the post-Desert Storm Kurdish slaughter that we allowed to happen) they were protected from Saddam by the 'northern no-fly zone', and from Turkey by diplomatic efforts by NATO, the EU, and the US to get the Turks to back off, (& by the progress of democracy in turkey itself).
"Today, I would estimate, if all of Iraq were as peaceful and well run as the Kurd portion there would be no complaints."
LOL! (Well, I guess if there were no Shia or Sunni Arabs in Iraq, no Turkomen, etc... and they were all 'Kurds', that it might have been a 'peaceable kingdom' all along. And, like Napoleon said: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride!") |
