Anybody want in on the pool?

[JAG2955]

Personally, I'd have started them on the concept of Charmin Extra Soft before working up to Hobbes' Leviathan.

Alright, listen up you primitive screwheads....

Hell, if you can get that culture to use a rock instead of their hands, you've just advanced their civilization thousands of years.

[First Shirt]

Gets back to the "having them by the balls." Don't care how dedicated you are to whatever philosophy you espouse, if the pain is bad enough, you might be moved to rethink your position.

Or, as Curtis LeMay once pointed out "If you kill enough of them, they'll stop fighting." It's not a particularly elegant philosophy, but it has the benefit of being true, 'cause eventually you'll find the ones who aren't totally committed to whatever the goat-humping pederast had to say, and will, with a little persuasion, start to think for themselves. Yeah, it scares the upper crust, but having the peasantry thinking for themselves has untold benefits.

[Frankingun]

My guess is the Kurds will be happy to be rich, and independent - and, it gives Turkey the option to offer their Kurdish dissidents an opportunity to move to a nation of their own.

Neither the Turks nor the Kurds seem inclined to go for that.

+1 to that. The LAST thing the Turks have wanted for their Kurdish minority is to lose them, and their land, to a Kurdish state.

[HTRN]

My guess is the Kurds will be happy to be rich, and independent - and, it gives Turkey the option to offer their Kurdish dissidents an opportunity to move to a nation of their own.

Neither the Turks nor the Kurds seem inclined to go for that.

+1 to that. The LAST thing the Turks have wanted for their Kurdish minority is to lose them, and their land, to a Kurdish state.

And the fact that Turkey is a fairly powerful member of NATO in the region, along with being a US "Ally"... What might be best for the region won't happen, because our regional connections are opposed to it.

[Aesop]

It's already happening. Turkey needs the oil, the Kurds need the revenue, and Turkey doesn't have to give up homeland if Kurdistan gets carved out of the former Iraq. Five seconds after Maliki's pretend regime falls, Kurdistan announces its independence, and it's a done deal.

The Turks would much rather have oil-trading businessmen for neighbors than a bunch of Restore-the-Caliphate jihadis.
The farther they can push that crap away from them, the less trouble they have. Right now Baghdad is the soft spot.
And if the Kurds are going to stir up trouble, it's more likely to be in Northern Iran and the edge of Russia.
For the hat trick, the Iraq that's left has 1/3 less territory, population, or resources, and the 2/3s that's left would much rather knock each other off than go visiting in Kuwait, Saudi, or Iran.

Exactly like everyone said in 2003.

Chopping Iraq up into 3 disparate pieces solves a host of problems, and if anyone ever heads a repeat ass-whupping, it'll only be against a fraction of the former problem. And the Kurds are generally well-disposed and friendly to us as well.

There is virtually no downside to Kurdistan unless you're Russia, Iran, Syria, or the ISIS forces. F**k all of them.

[Aglifter]

It's much easier to be neighbors than roommates.

[mekender]

It's already happening. Turkey needs the oil, the Kurds need the revenue, and Turkey doesn't have to give up homeland if Kurdistan gets carved out of the former Iraq. Five seconds after Maliki's pretend regime falls, Kurdistan announces its independence, and it's a done deal.

The Turks would much rather have oil-trading businessmen for neighbors than a bunch of Restore-the-Caliphate jihadis.
The farther they can push that crap away from them, the less trouble they have. Right now Baghdad is the soft spot.
And if the Kurds are going to stir up trouble, it's more likely to be in Northern Iran and the edge of Russia.
For the hat trick, the Iraq that's left has 1/3 less territory, population, or resources, and the 2/3s that's left would much rather knock each other off than go visiting in Kuwait, Saudi, or Iran.

Exactly like everyone said in 2003.

Chopping Iraq up into 3 disparate pieces solves a host of problems, and if anyone ever heads a repeat ass-whupping, it'll only be against a fraction of the former problem. And the Kurds are generally well-disposed and friendly to us as well.

There is virtually no downside to Kurdistan unless you're Russia, Iran, Syria, or the ISIS forces. F**k all of them.

I agree 100% but I figure that it is perhaps just as possible that Turkey just decides to go ahead and take Kurdistan for themselves, since they dont exactly like each other.

[randy]

Sometimes I really wish Bush on 9/12 had just ordered ICBM strikes on Kabul, Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus and Tripoli and then announced that was the attention getting step. Don't make us have to get nasty about it.

[Aesop]

It's already happening. Turkey needs the oil, the Kurds need the revenue, and Turkey doesn't have to give up homeland if Kurdistan gets carved out of the former Iraq. Five seconds after Maliki's pretend regime falls, Kurdistan announces its independence, and it's a done deal.

The Turks would much rather have oil-trading businessmen for neighbors than a bunch of Restore-the-Caliphate jihadis.
The farther they can push that crap away from them, the less trouble they have. Right now Baghdad is the soft spot.
And if the Kurds are going to stir up trouble, it's more likely to be in Northern Iran and the edge of Russia.
For the hat trick, the Iraq that's left has 1/3 less territory, population, or resources, and the 2/3s that's left would much rather knock each other off than go visiting in Kuwait, Saudi, or Iran.

Exactly like everyone said in 2003.

Chopping Iraq up into 3 disparate pieces solves a host of problems, and if anyone ever heads a repeat ass-whupping, it'll only be against a fraction of the former problem. And the Kurds are generally well-disposed and friendly to us as well.

There is virtually no downside to Kurdistan unless you're Russia, Iran, Syria, or the ISIS forces. F**k all of them.

I agree 100% but I figure that it is perhaps just as possible that Turkey just decides to go ahead and take Kurdistan for themselves, since they dont exactly like each other.

We just finished trying to do that for a decade with 10 times the military at our disposal than what they'd have, and you figure Turkey would take a crack at it when they get nothing for it in return but grief from a bunch of pissed off Kurds, and casualties to match? Okay, but I'm thinking it would slightly more likely they'd try to rule the world.

[NVGdude]

I agree 100% but I figure that it is perhaps just as possible that Turkey just decides to go ahead and take Kurdistan for themselves, since they dont exactly like each other.

It's not that the Turkey doesn't like the Kurds, it's that Turkey has always had a slight problem with Kurdish separatists in the south who want independence. Kind of like if we let Mexico have Tucson. Nobody would miss them, but it would set a bad precedent.

Building a pipeline through Turkey is win-win. Turkey gets oil, the Kurds get revenue, and the Turks have a lever (threatening to turn off the pipe) to get Kurdistan to help keep the Kurds in Turkey from doing anything stupid.