The Kurds should have their own state.

[farmerbyron]

It is pretty clear that Iraq is 3 distinct different countries trying to make it as one. This is much of the reason why it is and has been a gigantic clusterfk. It is a country drawn up by the British back in the early 20th century despite the long standing differences among the population. The Kurds in the north are the only ones with a modicum of sense about them but an independent Kurdish state has been counter to the US goals of a functioning democracy of Iraq. Something that will never exist. We would have stood a much greater chance of success dissolving an artificially created state of Iraq into the 3 naturally independent populations of Iraq. Kurdistan in the north. The Sunni area west of Baghdad and then the Shiite area in the south. Especially now that we have these ISIS fckers taking advantage of an inept and helpless Iraqi govt. Why not throw our support to the most competent group in the region and make some progress on at least one stable area of the Middle East?


^^^^^Is my personal opinion. Below is what sparked my interest.


http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/12/rand-paul-is-right-give-the-kurds-a-state/#disqus_thread

Rand Paul Is Right-Give The Kurds A State
The Kurds are ready to be the peaceful, Muslim democracy the Middle East needs.

By Willis L. Krumholz

MARCH 12, 2015


Sen. Rand Paul is right to call for an independent Kurdistan, and the arming of its forces, the Peshmerga. In doing so, he strikes a balance sorely needed in the GOP’s 2016 foreign-policy platform after years of imbalance.

The Bush administration’s subtly-stated justification for the Iraq War was to establish a vibrant, Muslim, western-style democracy in the Middle East. Such a development’s efforts in preserving Pax Americana can hardly be underestimated. An Arab democracy in the heart of the Muslim world would abide by the rule of law, uphold private property rights, foster free-thinking education, and enshrine the human rights of women and girls-all necessary ingredients to development and happiness dependent upon democracy, and woefully missing in the Middle East.


A vibrant Muslim democracy in the Middle East would also be a major blow to radical Islam, providing an example of modernity and wealth that an Obama-administration jobs program could never hope to accomplish. This would be the Muslim world’s ticket into the twenty-first century.

But establishing a democracy in Iraq proved hard to accomplish. Iraq’s sectarian divides were a powder-keg waiting to erupt, and the Iranians have too much sway over the Shia majority that dominates eastern Iraq. If there ever was one, all hope for an Iraq not entangled by Iranian influence is now lost.

Yet there is still hope of a Middle-Eastern, Islamic democracy: the Kurds.

Give the Kurds Their Own State
The Kurds practice a moderate form of Islam, have a democracy with regular elections, and are blessed with what The Economist calls “a raucous media” and “a boisterous parliament” (if our cousins across the pond think the media and parliament is let-loose, it really must be). It is time the Kurds in northern Iraq were granted statehood and given greater military aid. This is the Muslim democracy we have been hoping for.

America doesn’t have to engage in nation-building to try to ensure the success of democracy where its chances are already good.
Such a move is not nation-building. The Kurds in northern Iraq are a viable state already. They have oil revenues, functioning institutions, and a well-trained army. Kurdish institutions and society have also developed organically, unlike in Kosovo or greater Iraq.

America doesn’t have to engage in nation-building to try to ensure the success of democracy where its chances are already good. Long ago, John Stuart Mill distinguished between the futile effort of trying to impose liberty on those who do not desire it, and the fruitful effort of aiding in a people’s self-fought liberation-the latter epitomized by French assistance to the colonists during the American revolution.

“But the evil is, that if they have not sufficient love of liberty to be able to wrest it from merely domestic oppressors, the liberty which is bestowed on them by other hands than their own, will have nothing real, nothing permanent,” Mill writes in “A Few Words on Non-Intervention.” “…But the case of a people struggling against a foreign yoke, or against a native tyranny upheld by foreign arms, illustrates the reasons for nonintervention in an opposite way; for in this case the reasons themselves do not exist. A people the most attached to freedom, the most capable of defending and of making a good use of free institutions, may be unable to contend successfully for them against the military strength of another nation much more powerful. To assist a people thus kept down, is not to disturb the balance of forces on which the permanent maintenance of freedom in a country depends, but to redress that balance when it is already unfairly and violently disturbed.”

Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, the Peshmerga, have performed admirably in the face of Islamic State. They should be given weapons and greater Western aid to fight the jihadists. American assistance is also needed in negotiating a permanent and lasting understanding on such issues as the transit of oil and the territorial divide between the landlocked Kurds and the Arab-Iraqis.

If the Bush administration made an error in trying to grant democracy to the entire country of Iraq, the Obama administration is making an equal error when it fails to give the Kurds direct aid because of a desire to placate the Iranians.
What of resistance to a Kurdish state from the Iranians and the Turks, both of whom have a sizable Kurdish population? First, the Kurds are on good terms with Turkey’s flawed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but the issue is settled if a pact is brokered that guarantees a U.S. security blanket for Kurdistan as long as Kurdistan doesn’t seek to carve off portions of its neighbor’s territory.

Second, much of the U.S. reticence to arm the Kurds comes because of our attempted deal with Iran, as the Iranians act in the interests of their Shia-Iraqi proxies. If the Bush administration made an error in trying to grant democracy to the entire country of Iraq, the Obama administration is making an equal error when it fails to give the Kurds direct aid because of a desire to placate the Iranians.

The GOP’s 2016 Foreign Policy
So Paul is right to call for Kurdish independence, and arming the Kurdish Peshmerga. Such a move could have huge implications for the long-term fight against radical Islam. More broadly though, the senator from Kentucky is striking the right balance on foreign policy that the GOP sorely needs to articulate going into 2016.

Republicans want America to have a strong defense, and a global presence, because this maintains the Pax Americana. China and Japan, or South Korea and Japan, are not going to war right now because of Pax Americana. Ebola and HIV-AIDS are beaten back in Africa largely due to Pax Americana. Goods and services flow freely across the globe, employing countless millions, because of Pax Americana.

A strong case needs to be made for increasing funding for American air power, missile defense, and naval resources, while clearly distinguishing the military prowess necessary to maintain Pax Americana from nation-building.

A strong case must also be made as to why the current administration, and by association former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, practiced a reckless foreign policy when taking out Gaddafi in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt, but also a feckless foreign policy that refused to fully stand up for indigenous democratic movements in Ukraine and Iran (to name a few examples).

The GOP in 2016 can still be the party of a strong national defense, and the defense of fellow democracies, without being the party of nation-building and blind interventionism. Rand Paul strikes that balance, and calling for Kurdish independence is a good start.

 

[SMS]

The Kurds do deserve their own state, but we aren't going to fix past f-ups by jacking around and creating phony borders and faux states again. That's what created the whole mess.

If the Kurds want their own slice of heaven, they're going to have to duke it out with their neighbors and make it happen.

 

[farmerbyron]

The Kurds do deserve their own state, but we aren't going to fix past f-ups by jacking around and creating phony borders and faux states again. That's what created the whole mess.

If the Kurds want their own slice of heaven, they're going to have to duke it out with their neighbors and make it happen.

I agree but the problem has been largely the US stance on a unified bull$hit country of Iraq. The US govt. needs to get out of the way and let the Kurds secede from the fuked up state of Iraq.

 

[Hobbes]

Turkey has something to say about it.
If the Kurds get their own state it will include the parts of Turkey with predominately Kurdish population.
Turkey is opposed to that and they are also a critical NATO member.

I would like to see Kurdistan as much as anyone but that is the primary obstacle.