WHO DID IT? PLANTATION IRAQ PAYS THE PRICE FOR THE RELUCTANCE OF THE RELUCTANT ONES

Rough first draft

HARMFUL IDIOCY FIRST, THEN RELUCTANCE: HOW TO FALL INTO A TRAP AND HOW NOT TO FIND A WAY OUT

Let me propose that when there’s a power vacuum, regional or global, some country, or a coalition of countries, unavoidably will come in to fill it. Let’s consider that, after the end of the cold war, there was such a power vacuum. Let’s say that the U.S. jumped at the perceived “opportunity” to fill it. Let me conclude that filling the global power vacuum has been more-of-a-systemic-trap than an opportunity.

Now back to the construction of the Highway to Central Asia - - to its Arab and West Asian stretch.

THE BOMBINGS IN BAGHDAD: WHO DID IT AND WHY?

Before the explosions in Baghdad, Syria’s President Bashar al-Asad issued a warning from Tehran - - a Syrian-Iranian warning, since it was dispatched from Tehran. He said that the meetings between Iranian and Syrian leaders were meant “to send a message to the countries that are far [my take: the reluctant ones] and to those that are in the region [my take: Saudi Arabia and Egypt] that their memory is weak and that they [should not] have forgotten the lessons/defeats they had been dealt in the past.” (My translation from Arabic.)

Then: the explosions.

After the explosions, the Iraqi military presented a man who “confessed” to having played a central role in the bombing against one of the Ministries. The man confessed to a Syrian connection. The Maliki government had been demanding that Syria turn in Iraqi Baath leaders who had taken refuge in Syria.

Maliki wasn’t alone in asking for the head of the Iraqi Baathist leaders now in Syria. Though relatively pleased with Syria’s control of its border with Iraq, two U.S. military delegations which had visited that country were said/rumored to have asked for the same. These parallel requests by the Maliki government and by the reluctant ones tell me the following:

a. That the two - - Maliki and the reluctant ones - - are eminently close; or

b. That the reluctant ones may be not that close to the Maliki government. Instead, that they care solely about the country’s stability after withdrawing the larger part of the troops, and about their influence that is borne out by their monstrous embassy. They perceive the Iraqi Baath leaders in Damascus as a threat to that stability.

For Syria and Iran, it’s both: a AND somewhat b. To them, the Maliki government and the reluctant ones are close. The bombings show that Syria and Iran have interpreted signs to the contrary as yet another reluctant ruse to gain time to build up a pro-reluctant Iraqi army. Concomitantly, Syria and Iran likely see that the reluctant idiots do in fact want badly a stable Iraq to: (i) disengage and save money; and (ii) likely keep U.S. troops in Iraq - - to have Iraq-as-a-base - - but where an allied Iraqi military act as an extension of the American and take on the larger share of the burden for stability.

TIME: ON WHO’S SIDE IS IT?

But, to the Iranians and the Syrians, it’d be dangerous to allow the reluctant ones to have it both ways: to free 130,000 U.S. troops so these may focus on Iran, all of this while keeping Iraq as a reluctant plantation - - at worst for Iran: as a ready base for U.S. troops for their eventual assault on Iran; at best for Iran: as a neutral neighbor in the confrontation/coming war between Iran and the reluctant ones. Not to mention that the harmful idiots might make a comeback! You may have a modicum of influence in the new Iraq, the Iranians and the Syrians seem to be telling the reluctant ones, but first you’d have to make concessions to us. You’ve retreated on the new realism you had promised; and now you’ve returned to war against us, this time in failing to lift sanctions and in the promise of yet more of the same.

At one level, not the most significant, the bombings say that Iran had given up on Maliki as trusted liaison between themselves and the reluctant idiots. But it could be not Maliki’s fault. It’s likely and mostly the fault of the reluctant ones. These had renewed their hostility towards Iran and Syria. The bombings seem to say that the Iranians and the Syrians have yet a new task: to tame yet another bunch of idiots, this time the reluctant. (Remember the harmful idiots?) So Iran activated its people to help topple Maliki. One result: Elements within the Iraqi security establishment, likely close to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), the former Badr Brigade, staunch allies of Iran ands eminently displeased by Maliki’s sweep of the provincial elections and rising popularity, make way for the Baathist/Islamist bombers of the two Ministries.

WAS THERE AN IRANIAN-SYRIAN ULTIMATUM TO MALIKI?

Prior to Asad leaving for Iran, Tehran postponed his visit. Maliki in the meanwhile made his way to Damascus. There, with his Syrian counterpart, he signed an agreement to form with the Syrians a joint high-level strategic council. But the man seemed rushed. So seemed the Syrians. The strategic council therefore smacked of a pretense to give the visit the allure of success. To announce the formation of such a high-level joint council to coordinate strategy in a one-day visit, made possible only by a postponement of Asad’s visit to Tehran, didn’t make sense. I believe the Syrians had stopped trusting Maliki and had stopped holding out any hope for realism by his allies, the reluctant ones. Still: Maliki’s rush to Damascus smacked of a man acting under an ultimatum. He seemed as if he was trying to avert a tragedy. Did he in fact receive an ultimatum? If so, what was it?

If an ultimatum existed, it was likely about the new coalition which was announced AFTER the bombing of the two ministries. As a background: the reluctant ones’ opening to Syria, shallow at best, had brought Syria no benefits whatsoever. Syria had accommodated the reluctant ones in Lebanon. Nothing. Iran was watching. Most recently, U.S. sanctions against Syria have prevented that country from purchasing Airbus passenger planes. In addition, a thrilling rush of improved relations between Syria and two of the reluctant ones’ Arab dependencies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, came to a sudden near-total-halt. King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia had planned a visit to Damascus; but that visit seemed to have been canceled.

Bye, bye realism.

Not to mention that promises of more sanctions against Iran are daily news - - in part to accommodate Israel. (See below.) (Note the recent confiscation by the U.A.E. - - the reluctant ones, really; the U.A.E. wouldn’t dare - - of a ship carrying military equipment from North Korea to Iran; is this the reluctant ones’ way to retaliate for the Baghdad bombings?) Iran and Syria therefore seem to have concluded that the defeat of the harmful ones in Iraq has meant no return to realism by the United States - - and no tangible returns to them. Instead, the reluctant ones have found their way to churning a policy in the region similar to that of their predecessors, the harmful idiots. The reluctant ones’ reluctance likely has domestic justifications: the coalition that won Mr. Obama the presidency - - a coalition, and therefore open to disunity - - runs scared of the military-industrial constituency - - a more solid block. The Obama Administration feels the pressure to keep the military-industrial constituency preoccupied. If not Iraq, then Afghanistan. If not Afghanistan, then Columbia. That coalition feels helpless at returning glory to our United States by ship-shaping the economy. The harmful idiots harmfully (and sadistically) had handed that coalition a bankrupt country and a bankrupt federal government. With this in mind, what choice but to allow the military-industrial constituency its foreign military ventures, however harmful and absurd, if only to shut it up. Since Israel is an integral part of the American military-industrial constituency (the Pentagon has gotten over its takeover by the Defense Policy Board) - - then perhaps a deal had been struck: for Israel to push its block in Congress to support President Obama’s national health legislation in exchange for the shedding by Mr. Obama of his (fleeting) realism.

On the ground, that would mean a stricter stance towards Iran and Syria and an easing up on Israel.

But Iran and Syria couldn’t afford to watch the dynamics of U.S. domestic politics play themselves out – to, in the end, their disadvantage, while Israel and its people in the United States are rehabilitated after the Iraq fiasco. The thinking of Iran and Syria: Give the reluctant ones more time, fall - - for instance - - for staged (and eminently sophomoric - - to the sophisticated Iranians and Syrians, that is, but not to sophomores in the national security bureaucracy) ruses of a wider-and-wider gap between Maliki and the reluctant ones - - and what do you get? You get an Iraq that is part-and-parcel of the rope around the necks of Syria and Iran - - an Iraq that is an integral part of the sanctions’ regime against the two countries. Not to mention that, as the reluctant ones catch their breath, if ever: an Iraq that would be the launch pad for the attack on Iran. It was time to act if only to keep the reluctant ones so preoccupied that they can’t harm Iran. Or at least force concessions. To execute aggressive policies at a time when the reluctant ones cannot retaliate militarily. To take advantage, that is. The reluctant ones seem to understand that - - that they can’t afford a military confrontation (note the State Department’s mild reaction to the bombings) and think they can manage it. Or, more likely, they just know that they can’t afford war. Not now.

But what was the ultimatum all about? I believe it was that the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) –pro-Iran - - and Muqtada al-Sadr - -pro-Syria and pro-Iran - - would form a Shia coalition against Maliki. We know this only in retrospect as in fact this coalition was announced AFTER the bombings. Maliki and Dawa were said to be welcome to join (you have to say that), but only as members not as leaders.

(Iran and Syria will have a difficult time with the Iraqi Sunnis. While Syria connects well to a part of the old Baath, these are old and wouldn’t be able to pull the Street behind them, so to speak. Concomitantly, while Syria can ally itself to Sunni Islamists, that alliance should be shallow and fraught with dangers to the secular government tf Syria. But likely that government has such a tight rein on political happenings in the country that it can afford to pull out of its alliance with the Islamists as soon as convenient. The Islamists know it. The Syrian government knows it. The times require what they require. But Syria couldn’t hope for any lasting alliance with these loose bullets. The Iraqi Street now is divided between the Islamists, funded likely by Saudi Arabia, and the tribes, in part funded likely by the reluctant ones and in part likely by the Gulf Arabs. If ISCI and Muqtada prove able to win elections, then they would need to use the financial power of the state to co-opt the Sunni Street. But theirs - - their Streets, that is - - is too hungry to accept to share. To make up for this, ISCI would need to adopt a pro-Arab ideology and focus on Palestine - - not an easy enterprise for the once-Badr anti-Arab organization. Here, it’ll need Arab Muqtada’s help. Whichever way one looks at it: it’ll not be an easy task. You can rest assured of one thing: Israel will make it easier on the Iraqis to evolve a Sunni-Arab-friendly Palestine-oriented discourse.)

But first, there had been a need to clip Maliki’s wings as the man had portrayed himself to be the savior of Iraq - - and had won elections. There would’ve been no need to clip his wings had he stayed close-and-useful to Iran and Syria. But Iran must’ve judged that the once double-agent (harmful idiots’ and Iran’s), a promising bridge between Iran and the United States, had now strayed far into the camp of the reluctant ones. And these were proving to have remained on a war footing. The man therefore became disposable. For Syria, it needed a stake in the new Iraq - - to help itself out from under the siege the reluctant ones (together with their Israeli, Saudi, and Egyptian dependencies) had imposed on it. Arab Muqtada, Syria’s Hezbollah’s connection, was/is that stake.

I would go further: Even if Maliki had stayed close to Iran and Syria, it possibly wouldn’t have mattered. The two, under siege, had no choice but to use Iraq to busy the reluctant ones. Anyone could’ve been the Prime Minister of Iraq - - even an ISCI man. The message of the bombings was meant more for the reluctant ones and less for the Iraqi Prime Minister. Maliki just happened to be in the way. It could’ve been the hypothetical ISCI man. (Or maybe, if an ISCI man, the message would’ve taken another form?)

Maliki’s trip to Syria, in retrospect, likely was an attempt to thwart the new Shia alliance being formed against him. That was likely the ultimatum. But did he know that the new alliance, with a more-or-less silent (hidden, really) Syrian Baathist partner, and Islamist foot soldiers, would stage something so violent as the blowing up of the ministries to eat away at the aura he had tried to develop? I bet you he did. His people within the intelligence services (there are rumors they’re quitting in droves and heading to Jordan - - as I’ve predicted: they’ll end up in San Diego) must’ve told him. His trip to Damascus was nothing but the desperate cry of a man drowning. He would later accuse Syria, at time referring to “neighboring countries” - -note the plural - - because he now knew he’s become unacceptable to the Iranians.

WHY DID THE RELUCTANT ONES ABORT THE RETURN TO REALISM IN THE ARAB NATION AND WEST ASIAN STRETCH OF THE HGHWAY?

In part: My money is on a new life in the Israeli-Egyptian alliance, which quid pro quo would be the following:

The Israel Lobby will persuade the Obama Administration to accept Mubarak’s son as heir to the Egyptian presidency, and quit on the idea of favoring Omar Suleiman. The Egyptian exchange: to persuade the Obama administration to ease up on the Israeli government, using the so-called Iranian threat as the means towards that end. In other words, Mubarak is hyping up the Iranian threat (which I strongly believe is an act) and likely has portrayed U.S. pressure on Israel as caving in to that threat. I think the Obama Administration has bought into that, treating the Egyptian regime as the “Arabs” to deal with. I think that, for all practical purposes, the era of pressure on Israel is over. The politicians have won against the bureaucrats (the national security bureaucracy.) (I predicted that in a prior post.)

Domestic reasons, of course, have played a part. (See above about the military-industrial constituency.)

For another, the reluctant ones believe - - as only a blind and monstrous bureaucracy can - - that they can in fact defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by taking over the Palestinian cause, even without pressure on Israel. That Israel will cooperate enough - - so long as the “Arabs” of the Egyptian government are satisfied. By so doing, they believe that they can rob Iran and Syria of the most precious of public mobilizing tools in their arsenal. With that, the reluctant ones will defuse Muslim hatred against them for waging wars in Muslim lands. Ha!

Never mind that the very presence of the reluctant ones(i.e., in the form of U.S. troops in the region or a monstrous embassy) counters any-and-all vitiating effects an Israeli-Palestinian peace - - uncertain at best - - would have.

(What’s in it for the White House? The White House may have ordered easing up on the Israelis and their Lobby possibly as a quid pro quo for these to put out the word within the Diaspora to defuse opposition by any in their block in Congress against national health legislation. What does the White House care about the stupid Middle East? The Bush-son’s administration had handed Mr. Obama a bankrupt federal government - -and a bankrupt country. Mr. Obama’s people (including yours truly) want national health first-and-foremost. So we let the military-industrial constituency, including Israel as part-and-parcel of that constituency, play away around the globe, without a strategy that would link the domestic economy to military forays - - an absolute necessity. What do we care, say the Obama people - -so long as Congress enacts national health. Apres moi, le deluge. Advice: not to become a paper negotiator, Senator Mitchell should re-think his mission and pass it on to someone else. The Obama people have given away the store to the Israelis and the Egyptians. On the other hand, Mr. Mitchell may want to hang on if only to help out symbolically and not embarrass the Obama administration - - until such time as the national health legislation issue is rsolved.)

Along with their take-over of the Palestinian half-cause-for-a-state, a gorgeous quest that should bury the Palestinian cause in the reluctant ones’ Archives , the reluctant ones have set up, and are setting up, an encirclement of both Iran and Syria. Turkey is key to this siege mostly for Turkey’s ability to reduce the supply of water to Syria and to any Iraq that doesn’t meet the reluctant ones’ expectations. An example: an Iraq that unites against the Kurds, the idiots’ - - -both reluctant and harmful - - pets. Naively, too, because Turkey is Sunni Muslim.

Never mind that Turkey has its own Achilles heel in its Kurdish part; and that Iran can penetrate Iraq’s Kurdish north under the pretext of fighting off idiots-funded Kurdish groups meant to harass Iran; that the louder the domestic opposition in Iran becomes, the more likely Iran would seek a war somewhere. Recently, around August 25, Iran bombed northern Iraq, killing around 26 people. This may have been one of the warning shots against encirclement-and-siege.

But a decent reason that eased (didn’t cause it) the scuttling of the road back to realism in fact was Egypt. President Mubarak came to Washington and met with leaders of the Israel lobby, including AIPAC. He wanted his son, not the intelligence man favored by the reluctant ones, Mr. Omar Suleiman, to inherit him. Around the same time as the visit, the Washington Post published an article by a man by the name of Abdel Monem Said, Chairman of the al-Ahram Establishment in Cairo and senior fellow at the Jewish Brandeis University. (Isn’t funny how they get these plum positions at Brandeis when they declare themselves self-hating Arabs?) The article was titled, “Egypt’s Essential Partnership.” Mr. Abdel Monem Said warned about the fragmentation of the state in West Asia, the Arab nation in particular. (These are my words, not Mr. Said’s..) He seemed to be asking the Obama Administration to cease-and-desist from interference in Egyptian domestic affairs. The Americans should be happy enough that Egypt is a solid state and shouldn’t disturb this reality.

I agree. The Americans should stay out of it. Everything they touch, it crumbles. It’s impressive, isn’t it, that an antiquated government apparatus as the Egyptian state, which has shed its Arab identity at Camp David, and now is championing Israel’s cause in Washington and in the Arab nation, still is standing on its feet. But I think that’s the extent of it. The reluctant ones would be fools to think that the Egyptian state can do more than that - - stand on its feet. At best it can help out in Gaza, but NOT on the larger Palestinian issue, and hardly anywhere in the Arab nation. Its Street is Islamist (which likely influences its armed forces, big time - - remember the checkpoint?), and the others - -the Copts - - are equally extremist. (An article by an Egyptian Copt intellectual a month ago or so, in the al-Quds al-Arabi, dammed both Muslims and Copts for their extremism.) On that, the reluctant ones should listen to Jordan’s king and to his state apparatus. These know more about their Palestinian brethren and they descend from Arab tribes and clans. Cargo cultists they are; but they’re Arab cargo cultists. They have so much at stake. Their advice therefore would be useful to the interests of the reluctant ones, without de-stabilizing the region any further. (My concern: In the end, the return to harmfulness by the reluctant ones, away from realism, should bring misery onto the people of the region.)

Besides, the Egyptian state is coming up against serious water challenges. It’ll need to protect the sources of its Nile. A new leadership might arise in Egypt as the water predicament heats up - - reluctant-ones-or-no-reluctant-ones. The new Egyptian leadership might have to once again bring Egypt out of its cocoon and back into the Arab family if only to seek that family’s help in protecting its Nile.

As with the Jewish Brandeis University Egyptian fellow, co-opting the reluctant idiots was likely on the mind of Turki al-Faisal as he published a piece in Foreign Policy. (I’m not fully clear about that. I read about it and didn’t take notes.) He seemed to be saying: We have 25% of the oil in the world; we’ve gone out of our way to help you out by producing the maximum we can; and you ignore us! Join us, O Obama Administration, he seemed to be saying - -a la sadistic Chevron ads. (I don’t mean that for Turki al-Faisal who I respect - -but I needed to get Chevron’s sick and sadistic-cult-like “would you join us” ads off my chest.) In other words: Communicate with us. Stop ignoring us. Damn it: we’re way more important than Egypt! The question now: Will Saudi Arabia join in with the Egyptian-Israeli alliance, now revived thanks to the above-described quid pro quos? Not that Saudi Arabia hadn’t been all along a part of that alliance. But now there’s less pressure on it to kiss Israel’s ass, and therefore it has more room to maneuver. Still, the Saudi ruling elite will always have on its mind the Defense Policy Board and the zest the Israel Lobby (which, by the way, now has obtained not so subtly a hand-writing sample from me) can bring against it in the United States. The pressure should be on by Israel AND Egypt! (It could be , too, that the Swiss bank accounts that Saudi Arabia fields for the Egyptian ruling elite will motivate Egypt to shield Saudi Arabia from pressure by its American lobby and the Diaspora.)


Is it because of Egypt and Israel (not Saudi Arabia since apparently the Obama administration isn’t connecting with them, likely because it believes they, too, are destabilizing the reluctant ones’ beloved Iraqi plantation by funding the Sunni Islamists in Iraq to murder Shias - - see below) that the Obama administration reverted back to the old ways of the harmful idiots and shed the fleeting realism it had once adopted?

In part, yes - - but only moderately. A more significant reason, I think, lies in the fear the reluctant ones have of the military-industrial constituency. And, too, in the continued hopes the reluctant ones had/have for Iraq-as-a-U.S.-base. (Since Mr. Obama kept Secretary Gates at Defense, you would think that Mr. Gates would be less fearful about re-defining U.S. foreign and military policy out of the trap. But that’s not to be. Though, this morning, I read an article by a really bad-looking right wing guy going after Gates for allegedly gutting the Defense Department. Damn if you do, damn if you don’t.) The fact that people like U.S. Senator John McCain (a luminary of the military-industrial constituency and closely allied to its Israeli wing) visit Iraq and head to the independent Kurdish nation-state in the north says that the military-industrial constituency still has influence and is pushing along false hopes. I suspect Iran and Syria may have targeted these false hopes (illusions, really) in the bombing of the ministries. Use Baathists, but have Supreme Council-connected government security commanders allow the trucks into the areas of the ministries.

(A friend pointed out the following: Another reason for continued involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq likely is related to the need to keep people employed. In other words, the military-industrial expenditures keep millions employed. In this time of near-full economic breakdown, pulling the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan too fast would be tantamount to severe unemployment - - and an economic depression. This perspective is not incorrect.)

Iran and Syria may not be alone in targeting Iraq-the-plantation-as-a-base-for-the-reluctant –ones. Saudi Arabia may not be far behind. For instance, on or about August 19, Iraqi deputies to parliament accused Arab countries, singling out Saudi Arabia, of financing Sunni insurgents. Saudi Arabia denied the accusation. Is this why the Obama administrations isn’t talking to the Saudis?

Can you see the unnecessary mess we’re in by such direct involvement? Have we not fallen into a trap? And now we have decided not to get out from under - - to remain entrapped, that is, thanks to the Egyptians, the Israelis, and the military-industrial constituency.

TO INDIA AND BACK

Making our way out of trap requires less reluctance. And the reluctant ones are way - - oh well: too reluctant.

In an effort to understand the Indo-Pakistani stretch of the Highway, and gain a fuller picture of our entrapment, I began to read the Indian press. It turns out that India loves our entrapment in Afghanistan. Why? Indian talking heads (writing heads, really) want clear and unobstructed access to the energy fields of Central Asia. U.S. troops there are their tool. These talking heads talk about the $1.2 billion India has spent in Afghanistan since 2001 to ease the construction of the Highway’s last stretch. That India had opened five consulates there. That it had given Afghanistan planes for its national airlines.

That access to the Central Asian energy fields would turn India into a “Great Power.”

So here it is: We redraw alliances to include in our camp India and its arch-enemy, Pakistan. Along the way, to avoid alienating the Pakistani public (as if that public and its elite are retards), we have our beloved Israel provide the weapons to India. So Israel now is one of India’s largest providers of weapons. Oh, not to forget, another thing the Indian talking heads point to: that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan serves India well in that it reins in Pakistani nationalism and Pakistani influence in Afghanistan—that last stretch of the highway. Oh well. Talking to myself, I reacted: why then not send Indian troops to do the job? Why not help us get out of this trap in which we’ve fallen thanks to so many simpletons and ideologues running our foreign policy?

To answer my question I turned to colleagues, one Pakistani and one Indian. India, they seemed to agree, has 160 million Muslims. It can’t afford to alienate them by sending troops to Afghanistan. Umm: so it is that whoever wages wars in Muslim lands should end up alienating Muslims, regardless of good strategic intentions. So the Indians pass the torch for alienating the Muslims-the-world-over . . .to us! They seem to be saying: you have a negligible Muslim population in the mainland United States; YOU can afford to wage wars in Muslim lands and alienate Muslims.

Maybe India should read the U.S. press. Maybe it’ll find out that in spite of all the happy (and staged) public relations campaign by the military-industrial constituency, public opinion in the U.S. is turning against the war in Afghanistan. We have thousands lining up for free medical care. We have armed men showing up at President Obama’s appearances, threatening violence and a racial backlash. We have a spike in unemployment which has compounded the foreclosure crisis. Incomes are flat. We’re so bankrupt that the President - - any President - - will have to raise taxes on the middle class, allow Bush-era tax breaks to run out, and inflate the economy by printing yet ore money. When he does the latter, money will pour into the pockets of foes - - Russia, Iran, and others.

I guess Iran and Syria know that - - but not India.

CONCLUSION

Here are the questions: Isn’t time to return to a durable realism and the old sinuous and indirect road to the energy fields? Wouldn’t it be cheaper? Wouldn’t the returns far outweigh the layouts in expenses? And wouldn’t it be nice to breathe fresh air in the outdoors and not the foul air found in traps - -to micro-manage the globe under the illusion that we’ll quiet down any-and-all, sooner or later? Or are we to latch on eternally to false-hope-after-false-hope: that the Islamic Republic will suffocate and crumble, as if what will come after will be ours! That Pakistani intelligence/armed forces will shed nationalism and their powerful Pashtun card in Afghanistan, which should assure them a passage to the energy fields of Central Asia, and block India’s. That such would, too, block India’s quest to be the Great Power next door. That Iraq will be a base for us, and if not, Kurdistan will - - never minding that Iraqi nationalism would want Kurdistan back into the fold, and Turkey - - sooner or later - - would need to crush Kurdish nationalism - - as soon as we leave.

Maybe a smart retreat out of the trap has begun, and I just don’t see it.

As my late uncle George used to tell me, “ya khali (Nephew), all will return to the way it was.” In my words: It would’ve been all a bad dream about mediocre women and men searching for traps in which to bury their nation.