Way of the Kurds This New York Times article talks about the precarious situation of the Kurds of northern Iraq (see this Jeffrey Goldberg piece from the March New Yorker). I always find it ironic that Saddam wants to portray himself as the new Saladin, for Saladin was a Kurd! The article makes quite clear that the northern Kurdish regions have something close to a reasonable government (the two Kurdish parties are no means liberal-but they are angels next to the Baathists to their south and west). The Kurds are a refreshing change from the despotism that characterizes the Middle East, from our "allies" the Saudis and Egyptians, to our "enemies" the Iraqis and Syrians. Because of the vicissitudes of geopolitics, these 25 million Indo-European people (like the Persians and Armenians, unlike the Arabs or Turks) will almost never be able to reconstitute into a nation-state. In fact, the "Kurdish" identity is to some extent created by outsiders, for their myriad dialects and tribes had little pre-modern coherence (the Turkish government declares that they are "mountain Turks"). So Mr. Bush, are we going to risk the Kurds for an invasion of Iraq? Are we going to be able to reassure the Turks-whose repression of the Kurds makes the Israelis look like Swedish humanitarians-that the Kurds won't flex their muscles of self-determination? Are we going to try and maintain the age-old status quo of Sunni Arab domination in the new post-Saddam Iraq? Do you know the fire that you're playing with? Let's hope Condi, Cheney and Powell do....