The weirdest thing about the Iraq War is how it always turns out that, underneath the surface, we are at war with ourselves, or one of our closest allies.
For example, we could, if we wanted, refer to the "al-Qaeda" and "foreign fighters" in Iraq by their other name, "Saudi Arabia."
And the Kurdish groups that "we" sponsor covertly or overtly are in a state of high conflict with one of our most important allies in the region, NATO member Turkey.
But the weirest thing of all has been two news stories that popped up in the last two weeks that detail activities by private companies with very strong ties to George W. Bush. These private companies -- we could, if we wanted, refer to them as "GOP-flavored corporations" -- have been exposed as taking action in Iraqi Kurdistan ...
The kind of action that I believe indicates that they know something that we don't about the future of Iraq as it looks to George W. Bush and Co.
Big GOP money is betting on a partition of Iraq.
And big GOP money is betting that one of the winners of the partition will be Iraqi Kurdistan.
Has big GOP money ever been wrong when it comes to figuring out how to make a profit on our Iraq War "victory?"
Here are the stories:
First from Jackson Williams at the Huffington Post:
This news from last week didn't generate nearly enough buzz but is surely a big deal: Hunt Energy of Dallas has signed an oil production-sharing agreement with the grand poobahs of northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, in apparent defiance of the central government in Baghdad, which has questioned its legality.
Paul Krugman ragged about it in his New York Times column, but there was very little hard reporting on it. There should be more, and here's why.
...
But now, Bush's Texas pal Ray Hunt has grabbed a big 'ol piece of the Iraqi oil patch pie for himself. He's getting his before the government has even worked out its own revenue sharing plan. Bush's crowd is apparently the country's fourth stakeholder.
Any bet that Ray Hunt would cut a huge deal like this without a strong indication that the Kurds would eventually, or even soon, have the kind of autonomy that would guarantee it?
I wouldn't bet that.
Second story here from CNN:
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
...
According to officials in Washington, the investigation grew from internal Pentagon and State Department inquiries into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq.
It gained steam after Turkish authorities protested to the U.S. in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels.
Now ... The CNN article did not provide enough information to tell directly whether this was a renegade operation by Blackwater employees, or part of a deal by Blackwater itself to get arms to the PKK.
I suspect that it was the latter, because Blackwater employees are said "to be cooperating" with the investigation. They've got to be cooperating against someone, don't they?
What I am starting to believe, reading these two reports and -- I confess -- from something just in the air, that the Bush Administration has begun to put the word out that Iraq will eventually be partitioned, either by them or by the next presidential administration.
Hunt Oil made their move.
Blackwater began to make their move, either with or without the explicit approval of the Bush Administration.
Problem is, Turkey is going to be furious if Iraq is split into three entities. I suspect that Israel will protest on Turkey's behalf -- the two U.S.-oriented, non-Arab states in the region seem increasingly joined at the hip -- and will have its own security concerns.
And I presume that Saudi Arabia will literally have a baby over it.
In some ways, allowing a partition of Iraq seems sensible ...
In other ways, I don't know.
What do you think?
UPDATE: Diarist "drational" has written from a different perspective here about the predictability of the way things seem to be headed in Kurdistan. "DHinMI" writes in some comments below as well that my interpretations are wrong here and that incompetence on the part of the Bush Administration explains what is going on, not necessarily duplicitousness.