Thursday, May 17, 2012

Perhaps We Were Hasty?

Iraq finds themselves with a powerful Iran to their east who constantly tries to undermine and influence the Iraqi government, a Syria in chaos to their west which could dissolve and spread disorder into Iraq, and now Iraq has to their north a Sunni Turkey who is willing to cut deals with Iraq's Kurdish region at the expense of the central government:

Iraq has summoned Ankara's ambassador in Baghdad to protest the behavior of two Turkish diplomats, the latest episode in a drawn-out public row between the neighbors. ...

Erdogan's government has recently forged close ties with Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, which is embroiled in a row with the Baghdad government over claims to the city of Kirkuk and the region's oil.

I'm actually a bit surprised that Turkey might be able to come to some type of deal with Iraq's Kurdish provinces. Iraq's Kurds desperately want leverage against Baghdad but are they willing to give Turkey what it wants in order to crush Turkey's own Kurdish insurgents to get that leverage?

The big question I have, however, is whether the Iraqi government is starting to wonder whether it would be nice to have 25,000 American troops inside Iraq to provide a shield against the foreign presssure Iraq is under.