What do you predict will happen as a consequence of the war?

there are no exceptions to the "first time for everything" rule

Here's an interesting article I just read:

Why the Bushist party MUST have more war
By Chris Floyd, Moscow Times

As shovels scoop the shredded viscera of cold collaterals in Baghdad, and brisk hoses scour the blood from market stalls and children's bedrooms -- festive preparations to make ready for the enthronement of the new lords of Babylon -- we cast an anxious gaze beyond the barbed steel of the security perimeter, to a column of troops and ordnance rumbling toward the horizon. Whither are they bound? Who's next to feel the mailed fist of liberation?

At the moment, all signs point to Syria. Iran, of course, would be a more glittering prize -- not to mention a more remunerative one for the unholy trinity of Oil, Arms and Construction, whose mephitic spirit broods over the rising American Empire. But Iran is a big beast; first Iraq must be chewed, swallowed and digested before there is sufficient room in the imperial gut -- and sufficient loot in the imperial treasury -- for another sumptuous banquet.

Syria, however, would make a tasty snack -- rough fare gulped down on the long, circuitous march to Persia and Cathay. What's more, a dose of shock and awe for Damascus would secure the rear for any eventual push on Teheran. And once recalcitrant Syria is brought to heel, the juicy olive of Lebanon would surely fall of its own ripe weight, without any need of brutal plucking. Then, with the equally cowed Jordan, it could serve as a -- what should we call it? repository? refuge? -- yes, a refuge for the troublesome hordes of Palestine, transferred -- humanely and happily, of course -- from the newly cleansed lands of Judea and Samaria.

Such are the utopian visions that allure the policy-makers in the court of the imperator, George Augustus. But there are practical considerations that drive them on as well. Their leader excepted, these are not vain or stupid men. They can certainly see what the blind, bedazzled and bought-off media refuse to show the rest of the nation: that the U.S. economy is in serious decay, that the infrastructure of American society -- its ability to provide education, medicine, roads, justice, security, stability, opportunity, equality -- is being severely fractured by the ever-growing, unconstrained imbalance between a small circle of powerful elites and the increasingly disempowered multitudes who serve them.

Of course, the imperial courtiers applaud this imbalance; they believe it's the best, most efficient ordering of society. (The fact that their own wealth and privilege are enhanced by this higher order is simply a happy accident.) That's why they're striving mightily to increase the imbalance through their radical domestic policies: their deliberate bankrupting of national and state governments through massive tax cuts for the wealthy, coupled with gargantuan military spending that siphons any remaining funds away from public services. The Imperator's own political mentor, Grover Norquist, put it well -- long before that other happy accident on Sept. 11: "We want to shrink government down so we can drown it in the bath water."

But vestiges of America's democratic system remain. As in the dying days of the Roman Republic, the traditional structures of self-governance -- though increasingly gutted -- are still in place and retain their old meaning for many Americans. (Many others, of course, are glad to see their liberties subsumed by the growing authoritarian cult of the Commander in Chief.) The Commander and his courtiers cannot yet rule solely by fiat -- though they're almost there, as shown by Bush's still-unchallenged assertion of his right to order the extrajudicial killing of anyone on earth whom he deems -- on secret evidence, or none at all -- a "terrorist," or even just an undefined "supporter" of terrorism.

But as long as some semblance of democracy survives, there is a danger that the courtiers could be tumbled from power by the multitude. Therefore, the true nature of America's societal rot must be kept hidden at all costs. The courtiers know they cannot govern a country at peace and hope to survive politically. Only war -- with its upsurge of tribal feeling, its emotional floodtides sweeping away doubt, dissent and reason -- can provide the necessary diversion from the Regime's fanatical policies of Imbalance.

So there must be more war, and soon. Syria is currently being sized up as a prospect. Unsubtle hints are being floated in the press: Damascus "aided and abetted" Saddam, Damascus is sheltering Hussein's minions, Damascus might be hiding Hussein's vast storehouses of weapons of mass destruction, which the cluster-bombing liberators failed to find. Damascus has its own weapons of mass destruction, supports terrorism, has invaded neighboring countries, and might, conceivable, possibly, one day threaten the United States in some hypothetical fashion -- just like Hussein. And last week, Bush courtiers suddenly began trumpeting the fact that the repressive Syrian regime -- a Baathist Party state, just like Iraq! -- sadistically tortures its prisoners, who are often snatched in secret arrests and held without charges or trial. This fact has hitherto been conveniently overlooked by the Bushist Party state, which has been sending some of its own Guantanamo zeks -- often snatched in secret arrests and held without charges or trial -- to Syria's torture chambers for "special interrogation."

But as Saddam has learned, doing America's dirty work -- which he did for many years, bombing, brutalizing and gassing with the gushing support of Ronald Reagan, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George Bush Senior -- cuts no ice when the courtiers change their plans. So keep looking for that light on the road to Damascus -- not the blinding glory that converted Saul of Tarsus, but the flash of flesh-chewing MOABs launched by the Crawford Caligula, George Widowmaker Bush.

Reading over the prognostications for the post-war, it is surprising to me Turkey and nothern Iraq have not locked horns. It seemed so tenuous for a while there.

Wonder what is keeping Turkey at bay?

Threat of Kurdistan?

Turkey is not the problem at the present time; it's the difference between the young and old shi'a that have different ideas of how Iraq should be governed. The Baath Party is responsible for most of the terrorism against the US and UK military, and perhaps against the Shiite. There are probably other Arabs entering Iraq to assist with the terrorism, because they don't want to see Iraq as a US-type democracy. Things are going to get worse, not better in the many months to come. This administration never understood nor planned for the post war situation, and when they were warned about the necessary steps, they repremanded or poo-poode the good advise they received. Since this administration is unwilling to let go full control of running Iraq, nobody else will help with securing or contributing to Iraq's future. We will end up paying most of the billions and American lives to continue this futile war. The only people that will benefit are the friends of this administration; namely Halliburton and Bechtel. c.i.

I am out of the Turkey/Kurdistan loop. If anyone can jot down a few sentences to explain Craven's answer above, I'd appreciate it.

I am sure Craven will - but, Turkey has a large Kurdish population, which, as with the Kurds in Notrthern Iraq, wishes to separate and form a Kurdish state.

I would guess that Turkey fears that, in any war with Iraq, its Kurdish population would seize the chance to claim independence from a weakened Turkish state - possibly in combination with the Kurds in Iraq.

Just my guess re what Craven means.

Thanks-- I knew the Kurds practically controlled Northern Iraq--but couldn't figgur the 'Kurdistan threat'. Maybe Kurdistan would throw in with the Iraqi Kurds...? And, didn't realise Turkey had a bunch of Kurds...

These issues didn't stop Turkey pre-war, though. The geography was the same... But, thanks. You're probably right.

Maybe he's suggesting Turkey may become Kurdistan.

Some interesting (linked) info is provided here:
ETHNIC VIOLENCE INTENSIFIES TURKEY'S IRAQ DEBATE

Deb has it and Walter completed it. One of both Turkey's and Iraq's fears is the self-determination of the Kurds. ;-) It would weaken both countries and for that reason the US wants to support the ' Unified Iraq' line. We'd hate for this war to result in the weakening and destabalization of some prominent muslim countries.

I think Turkey is laying low and hoping to ride this one out.

As a consequence of the war, the situation will only get worse, as we are witnessing right now.

It took the myopic bumbling of the US administration and the chaos ensuing the invasion and occupation of Iraq to expose the fragility of the status quo maintained by the different governments of the Middle East regarding the various factions thereof.

With the lack of a strong central (totalitarian?) power, like that which Saddam Hussein exercised, like that which the Turks exercise over the Kurds there, the different factions in Iraq are falling upon each other, resuming their medieval rivalries.

I think that weakening and destabilization of the individual countries were goals of the allied forces, namely the British, after the defeat of the Ottomans in WWI when they first drew lines in the sand in the Middle East, carving it up to convenience their own self-interests. The Kurds had been promised their own state, but the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne divided the Kurd territory between Turkey, Syria and Iraq (where oil had been discovered). Revolts by the Kurds of Iran in the 1920s and of Turkey in 1925 and 1930 were forcibly quelled.

Further destabilizing the region, the British abetted the incursion of European nationalist fanatics, the Zionists, into the Middle East. The devastating effects of these manipulations continue to reverbate there and throughout the world.

Sofia,
what do you mean by, "This will hang heavily around Colin Powell's neck for the rest of his tenure." The State Department has nothing to do with the Bush administration's exercises in Iraq. It is entirely a Defense Department operation.

Re: Colin's neck.
I thought, obviously wrongly, that tensions between the US and Turkey would remain at a boiling point for a long while. Perhaps until Iraq was nearly stable--I expected (at the time) a couple of years.

Colin was the one sweating it over Turkey in the pre-war, and I suspected it would fall to him to keep Turkey from overstepping the border. He was the diplomat.

Kurdistan may be the key, for sure, but before (and during) the war, everybody was speculating that the threat of kurdish independence, or even kurdish (de facto) autonomy within the new iraq, would push turkey into moving its soldiers in, somehow.

Kurdish Iraq was already de facto autonomous in the last Saddam years, but that was an exceptional state - after the war, the reasoning was, the new map of the iraqi political order would be drawn, and Turkey would make sure to get its military paws in some way or other, to ensure the Kurds wouldnt get a formalisation of their status and power out of it. ('Twas one of the doom-focused arguments of war opponents when they(/we) said war would bring more trouble than good).

So, really, Sofia's question still stands. Before and during the war, the perceived threat of "Kurdistan" was used to predict Turkey would intervene; now its the explanation that it doesnt intervene? That needs more explanation. <grins>



thats a map that says more than a page of words. whoever drew the maps of the world back then, musta been fools.

Explanation is simple: anyone who said that the Kurd threat would motivate Turkey to intervene was woefully misinformed.

The only thing the Kurd threat has done is make Turkey fear the result of the war and lay low.

Whoever said it would have inspired them to act militarily was probably pulling that out of his/her rear.

<shrugs> well, there are turkish sodliers inside iraq and there have been reports of incidents between them and the kurdish troops. i'm sure there would have been more if the americans werent keeping out an extremely vigilant eye on the matter. and the turks were amassing troops at the border by the close of the war, and there were reports that the US govt had to very expressly forbid, threat and bully Turkey into not sending any more of them over the border than what the americans would strictly allow - hardly a voluntary choice to be low-key, there.

The US has managed to threaten every single country in the area during this mess. Not a single one was not the recipient of strong US pressure. Not even Isreal.

So it's kinda along the lines of "what's new". Turkey sent troops because they wanted a buffer against refugees. The US, as usual, said "this is our game, go to the bench since you weren't here when it tipped off".

Hmmm, well, having left the hoopoe in my other coat, I shall have to do this without benefit of entrails...
I predict that the US will be in Iraq for a decade,at least, that the second term Bush Presidency contiues to piss off the rest of the world,and that Isreal and the rest of the middle east engulf themselevs in a "nookyaler" fireball, while Bush and co. sing hosannas and prepare to be "raptured" into the sky.
When the expected "express elevator to heaven" fails to occur, and Bush realizes how silly he looks standing naked by the pool in Crawford, sucking in his gut, and trying not to be aroused by the sight of his two daughters (there under duress, and extermely hung over) he will simply order "nookyaler" strikes on the rest of the world. Close curtain, end of play, sic transit gloria mundi (and Gloria Tuesday too, for that matter...).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2791723.stm

Iraqi Kurds warn Turkey
By Jim Muir (an old article)
BBC correspondent in Erbil, northern Iraq

The Kurds of northern Iraq have warned that there will be clashes if troops from neighbouring Turkey cross the border.

Ankara is demanding that Turkish forces should enter the north of the country to secure Turkey's interests if the US and Britain go ahead with an attack on Iraq.
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It does seem that Turkey has been convinced to stay on their side of the border, but for a while I was concerned that keeping them there would be a very tenuous enterprise. I do think without our "keeping an eye" (which I think is part of Colin's job) on the border situation, the Turkey/Kurd fiasco would make Baghdad and Najaf look like a picnic. But, that's just my opinion.