Three Policy Shifts
UPI – The doom loop is indicated by a big bang followed by lurching back and forth.
Rumsfeld said three major policy shifts had occurred since the March 2003 invasion and said they had been shaped by the various changes in governance beginning with the Coalition Provisional Authority, the governing council, the interim government, the transitional government and finally the permanent government.
Emphasis mine.
Illicit Boarding Passes
WaPo –
Christopher Soghoian said he was simply trying to highlight a flaw in the nation’s airline security procedures when he put a tool on his Web site letting anyone create fake boarding passes, but federal authorities didn’t see it that way.
FBI agents visited the 24-year-old doctoral candidate’s home in Bloomington, Ind., Friday and returned on Saturday to cart off his computers and other equipment. While Soghoian has not been charged with a crime, the incident has stirred a national tempest and renewed concerns about passenger screening procedures
Kurdistan
Chirol puts together a compelling plan for Kurdistan –
Kurdistan is all the things we wanted Iraq to be and everything the rest of Iraq isn’t. It’s safe. It’s democratic. It’s western oriented. It’s modern and it’s developing quickly. Iraqi Kurdistan is a success and the longer the rest of the country remains in chaos, the more real the internal division between them will become. And one day, that border will become real.
But I think one of the caveats, oil, will not play out as easily as described –
This could be resolved in creative ways such the Kurds sharing oil revenue with the leftovers of Iraq for a fixed period of time, say 25 or 50 years until they get on their feet, or even permanently such as the Kurds passing along a smaller percentage for good. Enforcement would have to be via some international organization.
Every group in the former country of Iraq will want a piece. And the more extreme on the violence spectrum will not engage in political discourse to get theirs. And since these groups will require sources of income – the one with the oil wins.
The Kurds may be better off setting up a resilient oil system for Kirkuk and keeping the profits (or to repay the state which will subsidize the new Kurdistan). Additionally I suspect they’re probably paying a lot of attention to the Israeli model of security.
As an afterthought, why would the Kurds stop short of gaining territory from Turkey? These are a people repeated maligned by every major player in the region. Some would say because they have new state, the US as a friend, happiness and prosperity. But as we know, states do not act uniformly. Especially those with a vested interest (family, land, money) in the area in question.
New Reader
Quick post to welcome Isaac who is “a writer at the National Counterterrorism Counterinsurgency Integrated Test and Evaluation Center (NACCITEC) at US Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG)”.
He’s got some great stuff to say (as evidenced by that comment).
Readers
It’s been about a year since I seriously starting writing here. Just wanted to say thanks to the regular readership for sticking around. It’s nice to be in the top 1% of all blogs and all, but the quality of the readers and commenters is the reason I keep at it (albeit sporadically).
-Shlok