If You've A Date In Constantinople

This won't end well.

Turkish troops have crossed into Iraq, and they're going after Kurdish Rebels (Fark Thread). As if the quagmire (giggity) in Iraq weren't bad enough, this brings a whole new level of suck to the mix.

The Kurdish problem is a double-edged sword. They're an ethnic minority that exists in about the area where the Iraqi, Turkish and Iranian borders come together. They're making a case for their own sovereign state, and some of them have decided to make it a militant cause.

During the years following Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the northern no-fly zone over Iraq pretty much nullified any influence Saddam Hussein had over the people living there, including the Kurds. Without that influence, Kurdish Iraq basically became it's own self-governed autonomous collective, developing a fairly modern society complete with Internet, cell phone networks, and a bustling market economy.

Prior to the '91 Gulf Conflict, someone (probably Saddam) gassed the fuck out of these people in an attempted genocide, killing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 Iraqi Kurds. One can see where their cranky side would come from.

Because their national claims include parts of Turkey as well as Iraq, the Turks are targets of a good chunk of Kurdish Militant activity. This, of course, doesn't make the Turks too terribly pleased, and they want this crap stopped. Within their own borders, how they handle the situation is on them. But now that they've crossed the border, they've entered a whole new ball game.

The problem is, if every tribal and ethnic entity in the Middle-east started clamoring for their own chunk of the map, it'd start to look like Europe during the feudal era: Shattered Glass. The infighting over territory and tribal/ethnic hatred dating back thousands of years would boil over, and all-out holy war would most likely result.

The sad part is, it'd all be in the name of pretty much the same god. Funny how religion works like that, isn't it...

If the Kurds get their way, who's next, the Sunni's? The Shi'as? How much land do you think the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would be willing to give up? Not much, I'd wager. And have fun carving up Afghanistan, because those are the two largest nations in the Middle-east, so that's the best logical place to start.

Plus there's still that matter of Israel/Palestine, not to mention the fact that our government has managed to piss off quite a number of Islamic nations in it's quest to funnel taxpayer dollars into corporate pockets. And don't forget Iran, can't forget Iran.

Yeah, this is going to end really well. Have fun with that powder keg...