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turkey/syria/kurdistan dustup or heavy action

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Bevo

Bevo 13577

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4 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Erdogan is a huge POS. He has taken Turkey from a secular democracy to essentially a religious authoritarian regime.

Are the Kurds well armed? Can they protect themselves from Turkey? How much weaponry have we supplied them? How much Russian and Iranian involvement will occur?

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23473

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8 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Are the Kurds well armed? Can they protect themselves from Turkey? How much weaponry have we supplied them? How much Russian and Iranian involvement will occur?

I don't think that we directly arm them.  IIRC most of what they are armed with are arms that have been deserted from our prior military engagements in the region.

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staboner

staboner 4974

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19 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Apparently we have been arming the SDF, but primarily with light arms and armored vehicles. Our NATO ally Turkey, OTOH, will use F16s to drop US made bombs on the Kurds. 

what a CF. i mean i am not surprised by it, just weeping for humanity. complete clusterfuck

this is a decent read on the parallel deal with natural gas being discovered in the East Med. yummy natural gas

https://www.dailysabah.com/op-ed/2019/09/09/the-geopolitics-of-natural-gas-resources-in-east-mediterranean

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Hate

Hate 20108

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

Needs a place to stash all the Syrian refugees that are in turkey at the moment. I guess he figures the best place to stash some Syrians is Syria. 

Stupid Turk...everyone knows it's in Minnesota.

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Bevo

Bevo 13577

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18 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Apparently we have been arming the SDF, but primarily with light arms and armored vehicles. Our NATO ally Turkey, OTOH, will use F16s to drop US made bombs on the Kurds. 

Is NATO worried about losing an ally? I guess the UN wouldn't care because China has little interest and Russia can gain more land if the Kurds are removed.

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Hate

Hate 20108

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1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

If you were a Kurd right now, would you be a) less likely or b) more likely to aim some of your violent ire at Americans and US interests in the coming months?

Turning our friends into violent enemies, for a generation or more.  For.....what?  I truly don't get it.

I know, right?  It's almost as if we are damned if we do or damned if we don't.  Shirley this time we will pick the right Middle Eastern group to back that will make the group they try to eradicate love us in spite of our support of their eradicators.   

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Schulz2.0

Schulz2.0 28957

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2 hours ago, Bevo said:

Are the Kurds well armed? Can they protect themselves from Turkey? How much weaponry have we supplied them? How much Russian and Iranian involvement will occur?

Not well armed. ISIS was buttfucking the Syrian Kurds until we provided air support. See Manbij where the Kurds were fighting to the last man and Turkey sat back and didn’t do shit. We started providing air support and ISIS got its ass kicked trying to take a not very important or strategic town.

Turkey will roll right over them. The Kurds have small arms and maybe a few heavy machinery pieces they acquired in fighting ISIS. Turkey has tanks and air support.

We only supplied small arms to the Kurds because Turkey was pissy.

We’ve effectively ceded unfettered access from Iran to Syria/Lebanon. We’re also completely fucking a reliable ally. This is the reason Mattis resigned.

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MillerEP

MillerEP 30456

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5 hours ago, El Diablo said:

I never could keep it all straight, who the good guys were, who the bad guys were... IIRC the poster @MillerEPkept pretty good tabs on the action over there.

Yeah I've still been keeping tabs on things over there. It's all sorts of messed up, with really no good options. I don't like leaving the Kurds high and dry but we're at a bit of a stalemate there. You can't trust Turkey to do what's right, but you can't trust anyone else either. Turkey is the only one stepping up, even though we all know their decision is purely based on self interest, and probably not going to end well for anyone.

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gsoda3

gsoda3 3262

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45 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Are they truly a “strong” ally with zero recognized territory and a military with basically handguns?  Against a supposed NATO “ally”. 
 

besides being human shields what status was gained by the US from this ally?

they're pretty much our only reliable ally in that small area.  they've done a LOT of dirty work for us-  mostly against iraq (for which they paid dearly).  we've hung them out to dry against iraq and turkey several times. 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105151

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they're pretty much our only reliable ally in that small area.  they've done a LOT of dirty work for us-  mostly against iraq (for which they paid dearly).  we've hung them out to dry against iraq and turkey several times. 

I doubt they’ll ever make the mistake of trusting us again.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they turn their guns on our troops in the area. We should probably be watching our backs.
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gsoda3

gsoda3 3262

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13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


I doubt they’ll ever make the mistake of trusting us again.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they turn their guns on our troops in the area. We should probably be watching our backs.

we've done it so many times. that they're fighting for survival is the only reason they haven't turned on us yet.  i sincerely hope there will be kurds left after erdogan gets done with them. 

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immortal13

immortal13 4059

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3 hours ago, Fondren & Main said:

None of this shit is our problem.  Empower the Islamic dictators and let them rule the savages with an iron fist.  The only thing those dipshits understand over there is authoritarian regimes.

Amen. We need to be involved in less of these types of occupations, in my opinion

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Dutchrudder

Dutchrudder 11139

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5 hours ago, Fondren & Main said:

None of this shit is our problem.  Empower the Islamic dictators and let them rule the savages with an iron fist.  The only thing those dipshits understand over there is authoritarian regimes.

Bull fucking shit it isn't our problem. If the Neocon Bush Junior administration didn't decide to invade Iraq in 2003, then yeah, it wouldn't be our problem. But they did, and they destabilized the region, creating chaos in Iraq, emboldening ISIS, and giving every jihadist in the region recruiting material for the next 50 years. It's our fucking mess that our dumb country made, and we have to continue to deal with it whether we like it or not. The Kurds were the one positive prospect of a decent ally in the region that could actually fight and hold land, wipe out ISIS and instill a functional government that doesn't lop off people's heads because they believe the wrong religion.

Being complicit in letting the Turkish Air Force bomb them isn't going to go over well in the long run. It will only create more problems for the US and our allies, and further destabilize the region. The cost of feeling good about not having troops there doesn't outweigh the loss of life of the Kurds, nor does it make sense for us to create an enemy out of an ally. Keeping 2000 advisors in the area was little cost or impact to our military, and it offered a buffer against attacks from others. We will regret this decision, it's not something that should be done on a whim, this should have been a planned reduction in conjunction with the Kurds, so that they could prepare and shift their forces as needed. 

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Bevo

Bevo 13577

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4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


I doubt they’ll ever make the mistake of trusting us again.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they turn their guns on our troops in the area. We should probably be watching our backs.

Same with Afghanistan and Iraq. We pulled out and left a power vacuum. The guys supporting us from within the country were left hanging.

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staboner

staboner 4974

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i love how every time we have these ME threads people pick their own timeline and talk shit about how we have get out, not our mess, etc

Oil. it ran the 20th century. If you really, I mean really want out of there then support alternative energy policies - which IMO includes renewable energy types too. Take the foot off of oil and get the leverage and fake market forces off of it. then let the region figure it out.

its not our business. ha

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Shady Ray

Shady Ray 1633

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At the end of the day, unless the U.S. makes a decision to set up permanent shop in Northeastern Syria, the region will eventually be controlled again by Assad, or it is going to be controlled by Turkey.

The U.S. media, with its unserious treatment of the true situation in the ME, likes to make it sound like the SDF has some chance to eventually hold this territory as a result of their military might combined with some brokered agreement between either the SDF and Turkey or the SDF and Assad. That idea is bullshit. The Kurds have no hand to play here. Yes, they are scrappy and resourceful fighters, but they are no match for Turkey and Turkey is not going to allow an independent Kurdish region to exist there. 

They have not been engaging in conflict with Assad's SAA for a reason...and that reason is because the two sides have been negotiating under the radar for years now. The Kurds were offered more autonomy than they had before by Assad back in 2016 or so,, but they insisted on de facto independence and would not budge on their demand to keep the SDF as an independent military force as a prerequisite for coming back into Assad's fold. That was a non-starter for Damascus, which if one looks at it objectively, is understandable (what legitimate state could tolerate a separate military operating within its borders) and now the Kurds will likely cut a deal again with Assad, but this time, without even the other provisions relating to autonomy that Assad had agreed to before.

And if the situation presented itself to ally with the U.S. again in some mid-east conflict, the Kurds will just as quickly do it once again. This isn't about them wanting to die alongside us as allies because of shared beliefs or something...this is about choosing to work with the only "friend" they'll ever have with any influence (us) in the region to help achieve their intense desire for an independent Kurdish statelet. It's been going on forever and it will continue to go on.

This isn't new. Hell, Kissinger said in 1975: "Promise them (the Kurds) anything, give them what they get, and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

That doesn't make what our orange dumbfuck in the Oval Office did justifiable in any way. Rather this has basically been U.S. government policy for over 40 years and at some point, the Kurds/SDF needs to deal with the powers in the ME without some silly fantasy of them getting their own state. It just isn't going to happen and they need to negotiate with that in mind.

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Captainant

Captainant 27678

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9 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Are they truly a “strong” ally with zero recognized territory and a military with basically handguns?  Against a supposed NATO “ally”. 
 

besides being human shields what status was gained by the US from this ally?

Well, besides their consistent assistance on US objectives in the region and being THE key ally in the fight against ISIS? Well I do recall orange man saying ISIS is dead, so we may as well sell our longtime ally down the river right?

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23473

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10 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

they're pretty much our only reliable ally in that small area.  they've done a LOT of dirty work for us-  mostly against iraq (for which they paid dearly).  we've hung them out to dry against iraq and turkey several times. 

 

10 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I doubt they’ll ever make the mistake of trusting us again.

 

2 hours ago, Shady Ray said:

This isn't new. Hell, Kissinger said in 1975: "Promise them (the Kurds) anything, give them what they get, and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

 

https://theintercept.com/2019/10/07/kurds-syria-turkey-trump-betrayal/

 

THE U.S. IS NOW BETRAYING THE KURDS FOR THE EIGHTH TIME

Jon-Schwarz_avatar_1521505999-1521505999..jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&h=60&w=60

October 7 2019, 3:23 p.m.
 

THE WHITE HOUSE announced Sunday night that the United States is giving Turkey a green light to invade northern Syria, with the U.S. troops there now apparently pulling back to another area of the country. This is the scenario that Syrian Kurds have long feared. It will almost inevitably lead to a Turkish attack on Kurdish militias in Syria — fighters who loyally helped the U.S. destroy the Islamic State, but whom Turkey bogusly claims to be terrorists.

On Monday morning, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman asked why Donald Trump made this decision:

 

So did Trump just betray the Kurds because
(a) He has business interests in Turkey
(b) Erdogan, being a brutal autocrat, is his kind of guy
(c) His boss Vladimir Putin told him to

Remarkable that all three stories are perfectly plausible.

 
 
 
 

What Krugman left out, however, is the most likely explanation: (d) Trump is president of the United States. Nothing in this world is certain except death, taxes, and America betraying the Kurds.

The U.S. has now betrayed the Kurds a minimum of eight times over the past 100 years. The reasons for this are straightforward.

The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 40 million people centered at the intersection of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Many naturally want their own state. The four countries in which they live naturally do not want that to happen.

On the one hand, the Kurds are a perfect tool for U.S. foreign policy. We can arm the Kurds in whichever of these countries is currently our enemy, whether to make trouble for that country’s government or to accomplish various other objectives. On the other hand, we don’t want the Kurds we’re utilizing to ever get too powerful. If that happened, the other Kurds — i.e., the ones living just across the border in whichever of these countries are currently our allies — might get ideas about freedom and independence.

Nothing in this world is certain except death, taxes, and America betraying the Kurds.

Here’s how that dynamic has played out, over and over and over again since World War I.

1 — Like many other nationalisms, Kurdish nationalism blossomed during the late 1800s. At this point, all of the Kurdish homeland was ruled by the sprawling Ottoman Empire, centered in present day-Turkey. But the Ottoman Empire collapsed after fighting on the losing side of World War I. This, the Kurds understandably believed, was their moment.

The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres completely dismembered the Ottoman Empire, including most of what’s now Turkey, and allocated a section for a possible Kurdistan. But the Turks fought back, making enough trouble that the U.S. supported a new treaty in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty of Lausanne allowed the British and French to carve off present-day Iraq and Syria, respectively, for themselves. But it made no provision for the Kurds.

This was America’s first, and smallest, betrayal of the Kurds. At this point, the main Kurdish betrayals were handled by the British, who crushed the short-lived Kingdom of Kurdistan in Iraq during the early 1920s. A few years later, the British were happy to see the establishment of a Kurdish “Republic of Ararat,” because it was on Turkish territory. But it turned out that the Turks were more important to the British than the Kurds, so the United Kingdom eventually let Turkey go ahead and extinguish the new country.

This was the kind of thing that gave the British Empire the nickname “perfidious Albion.” Now America has taken up the perfidious mantle.

2 — After World War II, the U.S. gradually assumed the British role as main colonial power in the Mideast. We armed Iraqi Kurds during the rule of Abdel Karim Kassem, who governed Iraq from 1958 to 1963, because Kassem was failing to follow orders.

We then supported a 1963 military coup — which included a small supporting role by a young Saddam Hussein — that removed Kassem from power. We immediately cut off our aid to the Kurds and, in fact, provided the new Iraqi government with napalm to use against them.

3 — By the 1970s, the Iraqi government had drifted into the orbit of the Soviet Union. The Nixon administration, led by Henry Kissinger, hatched a plan with Iran (then our ally, ruled by the Shah) to arm Iraqi Kurds.

The plan wasn’t for the Kurds in Iraq to win, since that might encourage the Kurds in Iran to rise up themselves. It was just to bleed the Iraqi government. But as a congressional report later put it, “This policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting. Even in the context of covert action ours was a cynical enterprise.”

Then the U.S. signed off on agreements between the Shah and Saddam that included severing aid to the Kurds. The Iraqi military moved north and slaughtered thousands, as the U.S. ignored heart-rending pleas from our erstwhile Kurdish allies. When questioned, a blasé Kissinger explained that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”

When questioned, a blasé Kissinger explained that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”

4 — During the 1980s, the Iraqi government moved on to actual genocide against the Kurds, including the use of chemical weapons. The Reagan administration was well aware of Saddam’s use of nerve gas, but because they liked the damage Saddam was doing to Iran, it opposed congressional efforts to impose sanctions on Iraq. The U.S. media also faithfully played its role. When a Washington Post reporter tried to get the paper to publish a photograph of a Kurd killed by chemical weapons, his editor responded, “Who will care?”

5 — As the U.S. bombed Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991, George H.W. Bush famously called on “the Iraqi military and Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.” Both Iraqi Shias in southern Iraq and Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq heard this and tried to do exactly that.

It turned out that Bush wasn’t being 100 percent honest about his feelings on this subject. The U.S. military stood down as Iraq massacred the rebels across the country.

Why? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman soon explained that “Mr. Bush never supported the Kurdish and Shiite rebellions against Mr. Hussein, or for that matter any democracy movement in Iraq” because Saddam’s “iron fist simultaneously held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” What the U.S. wanted was for the Iraqi military, not regular people, to take charge. “Then,” Friedman wrote, “Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein.”

6 — Nevertheless, the dying Iraqi Kurds looked so bad on international television that the Bush administration was forced to do something. The U.S. eventually supported what was started as a British effort to protect Kurds in northern Iraq.

During the Clinton administration in the 1990s, these Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, were the good Kurds. Because they were persecuted by Iraq, our enemy, they were worthy of U.S. sympathy. But the Kurds a few miles north in Turkey started getting uppity too, and since they were annoying our ally, they were the bad Kurds. The U.S. sent Turkey huge amounts of weaponry, which it used — with U.S. knowledge — to murder tens of thousands of Kurds and destroy thousands of villages.

7 — Before the Iraq War in 2003, pundits such as Christopher Hitchens said we had to do it to help the Kurds. By contrast, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg had this dour exchange with neoconservative William Kristol on C-SPAN just as the war started:

Ellsberg: The Kurds have every reason to believe they will be betrayed again by the United States, as so often in the past. The spectacle of our inviting Turks into this war … could not have been reassuring to the Kurds …

Kristol: I’m against betraying the Kurds. Surely your point isn’t that because we betrayed them in the past, we should betray them this time?

Ellsberg: Not that we should, just that we will.

Kristol: We will not. We will not.

Ellsberg, of course, was correct. The post-war independence of Iraqi Kurds made Turkey extremely nervous. In 2007, the U.S. allowed Turkey to carry out a heavy bombing campaign against Iraqi Kurds inside Iraq. By this point, Kristol’s magazine the Weekly Standard was declaring that this betrayal was exactly what America should be doing.

With Trump’s thumbs-up for another slaughter of the Kurds, America is now on betrayal No. 8. Whatever you want to say about U.S. actions, no one can deny that we’re consistent.

The Kurds have an old, famous adage that they “have no friends but the mountains.” Now more than ever, it’s hard to argue that that’s wrong.

 

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Trey3216

Trey3216 15346

Posted
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5 hours ago, staboner said:

i love how every time we have these ME threads people pick their own timeline and talk shit about how we have get out, not our mess, etc

Oil. it ran the 20th century. If you really, I mean really want out of there then support alternative energy policies - which IMO includes renewable energy types too. Take the foot off of oil and get the leverage and fake market forces off of it. then let the region figure it out.

its not our business. ha

Fake market forces are the only thing keeping much of the alternative energy industry alive right now.  True market forces would have us investing in nuclear power plants, and running natty pipelines into Boston, New York and New Jersey.  But those three bastions of market making would rather pay 4x the natural gas prices to have it shipped from Europe on a diesel guzzling boat rather than dig underground and have it piped in.  

 

The dumbest thing that has happened in the last 15 years was backing Erdogan on that complete farce of a coups several years back.  Want to keep Turkey in check with NATO? Feed Erdogan to the wolves.   

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SquishMitten

SquishMitten 10408

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3 hours ago, Shady Ray said:

Rather this has basically been U.S. government policy for over 40 years and at some point, the Kurds/SDF needs to deal with the powers in the ME without some silly fantasy of them getting their own state. It just isn't going to happen and they need to negotiate with that in mind.

If all they want is their own state, can we just give them Florida?

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Hagbard Celine

Hagbard Celine 10867

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5 hours ago, Shady Ray said:

At the end of the day, unless the U.S. makes a decision to set up permanent shop in Northeastern Syria, the region will eventually be controlled again by Assad, or it is going to be controlled by Turkey.

The U.S. media, with its unserious treatment of the true situation in the ME, likes to make it sound like the SDF has some chance to eventually hold this territory as a result of their military might combined with some brokered agreement between either the SDF and Turkey or the SDF and Assad. That idea is bullshit. The Kurds have no hand to play here. Yes, they are scrappy and resourceful fighters, but they are no match for Turkey and Turkey is not going to allow an independent Kurdish region to exist there. 

They have not been engaging in conflict with Assad's SAA for a reason...and that reason is because the two sides have been negotiating under the radar for years now. The Kurds were offered more autonomy than they had before by Assad back in 2016 or so,, but they insisted on de facto independence and would not budge on their demand to keep the SDF as an independent military force as a prerequisite for coming back into Assad's fold. That was a non-starter for Damascus, which if one looks at it objectively, is understandable (what legitimate state could tolerate a separate military operating within its borders) and now the Kurds will likely cut a deal again with Assad, but this time, without even the other provisions relating to autonomy that Assad had agreed to before.

And if the situation presented itself to ally with the U.S. again in some mid-east conflict, the Kurds will just as quickly do it once again. This isn't about them wanting to die alongside us as allies because of shared beliefs or something...this is about choosing to work with the only "friend" they'll ever have with any influence (us) in the region to help achieve their intense desire for an independent Kurdish statelet. It's been going on forever and it will continue to go on.

This isn't new. Hell, Kissinger said in 1975: "Promise them (the Kurds) anything, give them what they get, and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

That doesn't make what our orange dumbfuck in the Oval Office did justifiable in any way. Rather this has basically been U.S. government policy for over 40 years and at some point, the Kurds/SDF needs to deal with the powers in the ME without some silly fantasy of them getting their own state. It just isn't going to happen and they need to negotiate with that in mind.

They were close, until they cut their deal with Royal Dutch Shell instead of Exxon.

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Shady Ray

Shady Ray 1633

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Kurdish analyst on Deutsche Welle radio program here in Germany saying just now that the word out of NE Syria is that SDF and SAA (Assad) have made a deal for SAA to come into Kobani and Manbij to secure both cities from Turkish incursion. Could happen within the next few hours.

If true, Assad is about to take a huge step towards gaining back almost all of his territory.

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InkaUtexas

InkaUtexas 25951

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Yep...This is such a fucked up situation. 

 

AKCAKALE, Turkey (AP) — Syrian government troops will deploy along the border with Turkey to help Kurdish fighters fend off Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, the Kurds said Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump ordered all U.S. troops to withdraw from the area to avoid getting caught in the middle of the fast-escalating conflict.

 

https://apnews.com/7e90fd08a89e49d9bcae6a85a131a64a

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Goredho

Goredho 17407

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Posted (edited)
On 10/9/2019 at 5:27 PM, Armybrat said:

This is correct, except it goes back to the times the Brits fucked it up, then the thousand years before that when the locals did it to themselves.

Yeah, the Middle East is a bunch of imaginary lines drawn on the map by Britain after WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire with no real consideration for the different groups living within them.  “A Peace to End All Peace” is a great book that explains it all very well.  I am sure Turkey’s claims go back to the pre-WWI Ottoman Empire.

Interestingly, the period of British occupation afterwards featured insurrection and terroristic attacks just like all the shit we’ve seen in the region recently.  The British finally said fuck it and bailed, much like we are now.  And I’m sure 80-100 years in the future someone else will be dealing with the same shit with no natural order to the region having been established.

I stated elsewhere, I don’t mind the strategy of trying to end our entanglement in the ME.  That’s a noble fucking goal.  But the execution needs to be thoughtful and controlled to ensure we are not creating much bigger problems for ourselves down the road.  It feels like we are just bailing.


EDIT:  Looked at it on Wikipedia, and yep, Turkish claims to Syria go way back, ending with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after WWI.

"Ottoman Sultan Selim I conquered most of Syria in 1516 after defeating the Mamlukes at the Battle of Marj Dabiq near Aleppo. Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918, although with 2 brief captures by the Iranian Safavids, notably under Shah Ismail I and Shah Abbas."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Syria#Ottoman_era

Edited by Goredho
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immortal13

immortal13 4059

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On 10/10/2019 at 1:12 AM, Dutchrudder said:

Bull fucking shit it isn't our problem. If the Neocon Bush Junior administration didn't decide to invade Iraq in 2003, then yeah, it wouldn't be our problem. But they did, and they destabilized the region, creating chaos in Iraq, emboldening ISIS, and giving every jihadist in the region recruiting material for the next 50 years. It's our fucking mess that our dumb country made, and we have to continue to deal with it whether we like it or not. The Kurds were the one positive prospect of a decent ally in the region that could actually fight and hold land, wipe out ISIS and instill a functional government that doesn't lop off people's heads because they believe the wrong religion.

Being complicit in letting the Turkish Air Force bomb them isn't going to go over well in the long run. It will only create more problems for the US and our allies, and further destabilize the region. The cost of feeling good about not having troops there doesn't outweigh the loss of life of the Kurds, nor does it make sense for us to create an enemy out of an ally. Keeping 2000 advisors in the area was little cost or impact to our military, and it offered a buffer against attacks from others. We will regret this decision, it's not something that should be done on a whim, this should have been a planned reduction in conjunction with the Kurds, so that they could prepare and shift their forces as needed. 

You're right, before we got over there, it was the model of stability

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