Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Northern Front

Secretary Gates is in Iraq to reassure himself that our new advisory role will be sufficient to help the Iraqis defeat the shrunken Iranian supported Sadrist and Sunni Arab (including al Qaeda) terrorism and resistance.

We are mainly worried about the Kurdish issue now:

Gates also made a point Tuesday of saying that the United States is "ready to help resolve disputes over boundaries and hydrocarbons," a reference to widening tensions between Arabs and Kurds. Odierno called the Arab-Kurd rift his No. 1 security worry.


As I've long argued, even before our surge beat these enemies down (as long as we didn't abandon Iraq, I knew we could beat them), the only looming threat I could see to our success is an internal split based on the Kurdish-Arab divisions that erupts into violence.

I'm glad it is on our radar screens. I hope the Kurds don't come down with a major case of stupid and think they can survive as an independent country with hostile Turkey, Iran, and Iraq surrounding them.