New Yorker (Hersh): Israel looks to the Kurds

[Vympel]

Well, there are all sorts of possibilities here!

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. In early June, Intel Brief, a privately circulated intelligence newsletter produced by Vincent Cannistraro, a retired C.I.A. counterterrorism chief, and Philip Giraldi, who served as the C.I.A.?s deputy chief of base in Istanbul in the late nineteen-eighties, said:

Turkish sources confidentially report that the Turks are increasingly concerned by the expanding Israeli presence in Kurdistan and alleged encouragement of Kurdish ambitions to create an independent state. . . . The Turks note that the large Israeli intelligence operations in Northern Iraq incorporate anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian activity, including support to Iranian and Syrian Kurds who are in opposition to their respective governments.

In the years since the first Gulf War, Iraq?s Kurds, aided by an internationally enforced no-fly zone and by a U.N. mandate providing them with a share of the country?s oil revenues, have managed to achieve a large measure of independence in three northern Iraqi provinces. As far as most Kurds are concerned, however, historic ?Kurdistan? extends well beyond Iraq?s borders, encompassing parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. All three countries fear that Kurdistan, despite public pledges to the contrary, will declare its independence from the interim Iraqi government if conditions don?t improve after June 30th.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Hmmm... one can only imagine the sparks, and there WILL be sparks, that will come from this...

Perhaps Turkey, Iran, and Syria will unite to twart an independent Kurdistan AND Isreali ambitions in the area.... but I doubt it.