Tuesday, February 18, 2003

The Kurds are revolting against US military government in Iraq. Of course, this wouldn't be surprising if we had set it up. Maybe I procrastinate too much, but I would have expected them to wait.

Kurdish leaders enraged by 'undemocratic' American plan to occupy Iraq

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Is Saddam going to kill some protesters, then apologize when he discovers they weren't protesting against him, but against the evil Americans? Are we going to say that the Kurds are much more ungrateful then the French because they are ungrateful before we even start, and tell Saddam we'll suspend the no fly zone if he gets in a few licks for us?

This makes it harder to hope that anyone in the Bush administration has a secret master plan. I think much of the oil Bush is counting on is in Kurdish areas too. Any chance that the Independent's "Kurdish leaders who recently met American officials." are a small dissident minority, and we are negotiating with the rest? That's not the feeling I get, but you never know. I would feel more hopeful if the Kurdish leaders concerned insisted on remaining anonymous.

"Conquerors always call themselves liberators," said Sami Abdul-Rahman, deputy prime minister of the Kurdish administration, in a reference to Mr Bush's speech last week in which he said US troops were going to liberate Iraq.

Mr Abdul-Rahman said the US had reneged on earlier promises to promote democratic change in Iraq. "It is very disappointing," he said. "In every Iraqi ministry they are just going to remove one or two officials and replace them with American military officers."

So I guess we have two things to worry about - is this really the plan, and will it work?

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