From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Thu Aug 15 2002 - 14:38:43 MDT
Turkey made working with the US on anything contingent on ruling out the idea of a Kurdish homeland or state. Period. As Turkey is currently providing most of the soldiers in Afghanistan and is supposedly providing troops in Georgia (another major diplomatic cock-up), it seems likely that the US has agreed to this condition.
Most Military observers see a second Gulf War ($80 billion minimum) leading to 200,000 military, and around 30,000 civilian casualties on the Iraqi side, eventually defeating Saddam, and as long as no other ME country (including Israel) becomes embroiled in the beanfeast when all bets would be off, followed by a long and bloody occupation trying to stabilize the country (which will almost certainly mean battles with the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs and the fundamentalists), with hands tied because of "humanitarian scruples" (hooray!), followed by an ignomious retreat after some six years (at $10 billion a year without fighting). If this is not done, any replacement will be as insecure as hell. Of course, Bush says that the US will not hang around, but looking at some of the other places the US has been involved (e.g. Kosova), this seems like a fair analysis - unless somebody as ruthless as Saddam is installed and the West plays hands off and Iran plays along. A little like Afghanistan. At which point we have to wo
nder what the point of the exercise is? Meanwhile the House of Saud wonders about the probability that Iran will get involved with the Sunni and Kurds again (as has happened previously) and trembles. And when Saudi Arabia catches cold, the US oil companies develop pneumonia.
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26107>
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