Hersh, the pessimist, constructs a Henny Penny tale out of Israeli-Kurdish cooperation

Guardian:

Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilize the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.

The article was written by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib. It is sourced primarily to unnamed former and current intelligence officials in Israel, the United States and Turkey.

Israel's aims, according to Hersh, are to build up the Kurdish military strength in order to offset the strength of the Shia militias and to create a base in Iran from which they can spy on Iran's suspected nuclear-making facilities.

...

Israel has a longstanding relationship with the Kurds, whom they regard as one of the few non-Arab allies in the area. The Iraqi Kurds, who played a key role in providing the United States with intelligence ahead of the war, have been angered by the United Nations resolution on Iraq earlier this month. The resolution did not affirm the interim constitution that granted them minority veto power in a permanent constitution and so could potentially leave them sidelined.

One Turkish official told Mr Hersh that Kurdish independence would be calamitous for the region. "The lesson of Yugoslavia is that when you give one country independence everybody will want it. Kirkuk will be the Sarajevo of Iraq. If something happens there, it will be impossible to contain the crisis."


The scenario is based on the liberal myth that the occupation of Iraq has been a disaster. It has not. There are a few hundred terrorist who have the capacity to make things messy. They do not have the capacity to defeat the US military or even the Iraq's new military. They are concentrated in Faluja and Baghdad occasionally making forays into other locations. The Sadr rebellion has already failed, as anyone with any sense of military history could have predicted. The only reason it was given any credence was because liberals in the media wanted the US to fail so they could use it to defeat President Bush.

Having the Israelis work with the Kurds to get intelligence on Iran's nuke plans make sense and will ultimately be helpful to the US. When it is time for regime change in Iran they can provide valuable information. For the Israelis it makes a lot of sense to since Iran is the chief sponsor of Hizballah which seeks Israel's destruction. Anything they can do to thwart the plans of the Ayatollahs will make the world a better place.

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