[xoxoxoBruce]

Kurds in Iraq

Meetings with Iraqi Arabs sometimes seem more like talking with the French. We are not enemies. But, generally speaking, there is no real personal connection. At best, our collective personalities just don’t seem to “click.” Yet by recognizing the sovereignty and inevitability of each other, we manage to cooperate toward our common interests, while not going to war when we disagree. But with the Kurds, like the Poles or the Brits, there is an easy and audible click. We have mutual goals, mutual enemies, and, also importantly, we actually like each other.

The timbre of relations between Kurds and Americans does not go unnoticed, especially by those interested in keeping the Kurds off-balance. Nobody wants a powerful and educated foe in their backyard; especially so if they hear the hammers pounding as survey stakes are driven into fertile and oleaginous soils, all while the carpenters are saying things like “I was born free. I live free. I will die free.”