[Marxism] Re: Iraqi Kurds' Suspicion of U.S. Grows (Socialist Voice)

["David McDonald" <dbmcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is interesting to me that this article points out that developments in
Iraqi Kurdistan flow essentially from the fact that Iraqi Kurdistan is not
be occupied by the US. This, in turn, is a result of the fact that the
Turkish masses opposed the war in Iraq to the tune of 90%. This extremely
united opposition forced the Turkish government at the last minute, and
under incredible pressure from the US, to deny US troops passage through
Turkey on their way to invading Iraq from the north. As it happened, an
entire division of US troops was thus left floating around the Mediterranean
Ocean and had to be re-routed through a sea journey of probably ten thousand
miles so they could wait in line to invade Iraq through the Kuwait, which
had become a bottleneck. Not just inconvenient and humiliating, but, as I
pointed out at the time, militarily seriously damaging because the loss of a
second front allowed the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein to concentrate
its forces in the south of the country. No army wants its opponent to know
which direction it will attack from.

I raise this now because numerous voices have complained that the massive
antiwar movement that coalesced around February 15th dissipated when the war
began without effect or consequence, leading these voices to believe that it
failed utterly. This article shows on the contrary the long reach of the
antiwar movement, of which the Turkish masses were a leading contingent, and
its continuing impact on big historical questions.

David McDonald


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