Ignoring the recent lesson on failed states, the US and Israel do not overlook any opportunity to destabilize other countries viewed as a threat.
Iraq (long-term, now that the US has destroyed its economy and infrastructure) and Iran (short-term, we haven't attacked it yet) are seen by the US and Israel as threats to our unquestioned dominance of the region. So, after the US is run out of Iraq, who will keep Iraq weak, disunited, and in chaos, and who will be a thorn, or a spear, in Iran's side? The Kurds. This is the next installment of the US/Israeli strategy of permanent chaos in the Middle East.
An independent Kurdistan, especially after the Kurds take Kirkuk and its oil (and who would stop them?), will sow regional grief between the Kurds and Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, and, it it can be arranged without involving Turkey in a war, between those nations as well. An independent Kurdistan would simplify and sharpen the conflict between the Shii and the Sunni in Iraq because the only oil Iraq would have left would be in the Shiite south. But while they are fighting each other over ancient enmities and modern oil, the association of the Shii with Iran will mean the US and Israel will not allow them to win, or lose. Therefore, you can assume that Iraqi oil will be left in the ground for many years. Israeli/Kurdish intelligence-gathering and other operations have been common in Iran and Syria for years, and the ground is likely prepared for the incitement of trouble in those countries when it becomes useful. Israel is also building a substantial economic presence in Kurdistan. And the Kurds are now mounting a full-blown lobbying campaign in Washington.
Of course, Israel officially denies helping the Kurds.
First, the feel-good stuff:
"Have you seen the other Iraq?" the narrator asks. "It's spectacular. It's joyful."
(snip)
Kurds are promoting their interests through an influence-buying campaign in the United States that includes airing nationwide television advertisements, hiring powerful Washington lobbyists and playing parts of the U.S. government against each other. A former car mechanic who happens to be the son of Iraq's president is at the center of Kurdish efforts to cultivate support for their semi-independent enclave, but the cast of Kurdish proponents also includes evangelical Christians, Israeli operatives and Republican political consultants.
In the past year, Kurds have spent more than $3 million to retain lobbyists and set up a diplomatic office in Washington. They are cultivating grass-roots advocates among supporters of President Bush's war policy and evangelicals who believe that many key figures in the Bible lived in Kurdistan. And they are seeking to build an emotional bond with ordinary Americans, like those forged by Israel and Taiwan, by running commercials on national cable news channels to assert that even as Iraq teeters toward a full-blown civil war, one corner of the country, at least, has fulfilled the Bush administration's ambition of a peaceful, democratic, pro-Western beachhead in the Middle East.
The Kurds' lobbying activities in the post-Saddam Hussein era began with a quest for $4 billion.
Kurdish leaders believed they were owed at least that much from the United Nations' corruption-tainted oil-for-food program, which regulated the sale of Iraqi oil from 1995 to 2003. Because the money was transferred to a trust fund controlled by the United States shortly after the invasion, the Kurds set their sights on Washington.
Seeking help to navigate Washington, Farhad Barzani turned to Danny Yatom, a former director of Israel's spy service, the Mossad, according to senior Kurdish officials and former U.S. government officials familiar with the Kurds' efforts. Yatom's business partner, Shlomi Michaels, who was looking for investments in Kurdistan, agreed to help the Kurds find a lobbyist, the officials said. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Michaels initially sought out Jack Abramoff, then a powerful Republican-connected lobbyist, the officials said. But Abramoff, who was later convicted of bribery and is now in prison, asked for more than the Kurds wanted to pay, the officials said. One American lobbyist said Abramoff wanted the Kurds to pay him $65,000 a month. Michaels did not respond to several phone messages.
[O]n June 23 [2004], the U.S. occupation administration in Iraq gave the Kurds $1.4 billion in cash. The U.S. military flew the money -- brand-new $100 bills in shrink-wrapped bricks -- to Irbil on three helicopters.
Although officials with the occupation authority maintained that the payout was the Kurds' share of Iraq's 2004 capital budget and was unconnected to lobbying, Kurdish leaders insist otherwise.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
And the real purpose of it all:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government decided, I[Hersh, in 2004] was told, to minimize the damage that the war was causing to Israel’s strategic position by expanding its long-standing relationship with Iraq’s Kurds and establishing a significant presence on the ground in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.
Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel’s view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel’s clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports.
Asked to comment, Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said, "The story is simply untrue and the relevant governments know it’s untrue." Kurdish officials declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the State Department.
However, a senior C.I.A. official acknowledged in an interview last week that the Israelis were indeed operating in Kurdistan. He told me that the Israelis felt that they had little choice: "They think they have to be there." Asked whether the Israelis had sought approval from Washington, the official laughed and said, "Do you know anybody who can tell the Israelis what to do? They’re always going to do what is in their best interest." The C.I.A. official added that the Israeli presence was widely known in the American intelligence community.
The Israeli decision to seek a bigger foothold in Kurdistan—characterized by the former Israeli intelligence officer as "Plan B"—has also raised tensions between Israel and Turkey. It has provoked bitter statements from Turkish politicians and, in a major regional shift, a new alliance among Iran, Syria, and Turkey, all of which have significant Kurdish minorities.
Israeli involvement in Kurdistan is not new. Throughout the nineteen-sixties and seventies, Israel actively supported a Kurdish rebellion against Iraq, as part of its strategic policy of seeking alliances with non-Arabs in the Middle East. In 1975, the Kurds were betrayed by the United States, when Washington went along with a decision by the Shah of Iran to stop supporting Kurdish aspirations for autonomy in Iraq.
A top German national-security official said in an interview that "an independent Kurdistan with sufficient oil would have enormous consequences for Syria, Iran, and Turkey" and would lead to continuing instability in the Middle East—no matter what the outcome in Iraq is. There is also a widespread belief, another senior German official said, that some elements inside the Bush Administration—he referred specifically to the faction headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz—would tolerate an independent Kurdistan. This, the German argued, would be a mistake. "It would be a new Israel—a pariah state in the middle of hostile nations."
http://www.newyorker.com/...
Here is Israel's latest utterance on the subject:
Israel on Wednesday denied claims that it was helping Iraqi Kurds in their purported efforts for independence, with two senior cabinet ministers saying the Jewish state saw Iraq as a united country.
When asked by a reporter in a group of visiting journalists from Turkey if Israel was providing assistance to the Iraqi Kurds, National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said: "As far as I know, there's nothing."
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/...