re: #4 Bob Levin

I think the direction I’ll go, first, is trying to understand who the Kurds are. There was a comment the other day about Israel’s Lieberman saying that Israel could support the Kurds—and someone said that it’s a bad idea, or an ironic moment, that Israel is supporting a terrorist group.

If the PKK is considered a terrorist group, simply because they embraced Marx for a few years (which is State Department shorthand for, I don’t want to read anymore), then that bears some examination. Who didn’t read Marx in the 60s? It’s very possible that the Kurds have a legitimate reason to want to rule themselves, and are obviously capable of doing so because they are geographically isolated. They’ve always had to rule themselves.That’s the first stage.

Just a quick note re: the part of your post that I highlighted. You may want to read up on the relative success of the largely self-governing Kurdish region of Iraq both during the period between the Gulf Wars, when the Kurds were somewhat protected by the no-fly zone imposed by the US and Britain, and since the overthrow of the Saddam regime. Again, my knowledge of the subject is not as up to date as it once was, but there was quite a bit written about Kurdish Iraq as a “success story”.