I've noted that the biggest armed threat to Iraq lies in the Arab-Kurd division.
And we certainly need to start drawing down our troops in combat so the Iraqis can learn and fully take over.
That said, I'm all on board taking out some insurance by staying militarily involved in the one area that could see real fighting in the near term:
America's top commander in Iraq said Monday he wants to deploy U.S. soldiers alongside Iraqi and Kurdish troops in a disputed swath of northern territory following a series of horrific bombings by insurgents hoping to stoke an Arab-Kurdish conflict.
The move would be a departure from the security pact that called for Americans to pull back from populated areas on June 30. But Gen. Ray Odierno warned that al-Qaida in Iraq was exploiting tensions between the Iraqi army and the Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, to carry out attacks on villages not guarded by either side. The bombings have killed scores of people since Aug. 7.
The U.S. soldiers would act in an oversight role to help the troops work together to secure areas along a fault line of land claimed by both Arabs and Kurds, Odierno said, stressing no final decision had been made.
"It won't be for long if we do it. It'll be just to build confidence in the forces so they're comfortable working together, then we'll slowly pull ourselves out," Odierno told reporters during a briefing at the U.S. military headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad. "I think they just all feel more comfortable if we're there initially."
Much as the split of Czechoslovakia under peaceful measures was no significant threat to European peace, an eventual split of the Kurdish regions from Iraq under peaceful terms would be no threat to Middle East peace.
In my opinion, it makes little sense for the Kurds to risk independence if Iraq remains a free democracy. But this domestic outcome is still in doubt, so the Kurds can be excused for seeing independence as a way to protect themselves.
But we also aren't at the point where we could have a peaceful split accepted by the rest of Iraq or neighboring states. The survival of an independent Kurdish region depends on that acceptance, but the Kurds might get a serious case of stupid with this end state in sight.
Put our troops back in the field up north. Winning the peace still requires some fighting to keep terrorists from leveraging the divisions into open warfare between Kurds and Arabs in Iraq.
