Kurds

Steve Sailer has a fascinating post on Kurds, Turkey, Iran, the breakup of Iraq, and strange alliances. Here is a quote from his correspondent:

"The Turks I know socially are all non-typical (educated, secular, military families) and they think that the Islamists in Ankara have been living on borrowed time. A secular Turkish military regime might go ahead and work to negotiate a permanent Kurdish settlement. Sort of an "only Nixon could go to China" deal. If that is the case, I would expect something similar with Armenia. That would make the Turks look very good, despite the EU membership being torpedoed by the military coup. It would also settle some old issues with very bitter neighbors.

"A lot of interests are lining up between some very unlikely parties to try to cleanly carve up Iraq (if an Armenian-Turkish-Kurdish-Azeri-Georgian unofficial military alliance in support of a secular Middle East isn't a platypus of realism, I don't know what would be) and let the Sunni and Shiite Arab parts burn out their religious fervor in the rest of Iraq, ideally bankrupting the Syrians and the Iranians. I see nothing similar on the other side (like, our side) trying to stop this from taking place."

Well-- I hope this is happening. Though my intuition is that Turks outside of the Westernized elite (which includes the military) are not all that eager to compromise with anyone; nor are the less sophisticated Kurds.

A westernized (Turkish) Kurd said to me, not all that long ago, "We wouldn't have any problems if it weren't for the Greeks, Jews, and Armenians".

Yeah, those Armenians sure do have a lot of influence.

One of the sadder ironies is that the Kurds helped the Turks ethnically cleanse the Armenians-- only to be treated in a not dissimilar way themselves, later.

"Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return..."