Good short explainer on Kurdish history & independence. Also note that next year is the 100th anniversary of Sevres treaty in which we Allies esp the British promised the Kurds a referendum for Kurdish self determination (Churchill supported the Kurds)
mesc.osu.edu/blog/birth-nat…
mesc.osu.edu/blog/birth-nat…
President Edrogan's perspective....
The Iranian regime's perspective....
The Russian perspective.....
My periodic reminder that the Russians, Turks & Iranians, have been plotting and warring against each other in the Middle East, Caucasus, and Black Sea, since well before the idea of a United States was a figment of rebellious imagination
Also, 2019's Iran-Iraq border is where it is because it is the border/frontier agreed between the Persian Shahs (Iran) & Ottoman Sultans (Turkey) in treaties that were supervised by the Russian Tsar: the Treaties of Erzurum of 1823 &1847. The Russians then fought the Ottomans....
Forty years later, Western security is still haunted by the fall of the Shah of Iran...
Which allows me to shamlessly push my piece here on Iran
Which allows me to shamlessly push my piece here on Iran
When I first started reading Geopolitics' basics at school and at university, recall a retired British Army officer saying to me, sardonically, "You do realise that the Bible begins and ends in the Middle East for very good reasons?"
The Blob is simply crazy & incapable of examining a map. This would forfeit the Black Sea into becoming a Russian lake and would only deny us any influence with Turkey’s military, which is its one national institution in the Erdogan era. These people are insane
Have been thinking of this pre-WW1 map a great deal in recent days....
For some reason.....
For some reason.....
Have also thought about this 1914 map a great deal as well....
The critical places then are the critical places now....
Note also the critical importance, as always, of the Hellespont
The critical places then are the critical places now....
Note also the critical importance, as always, of the Hellespont
The "Whither?" Blob losing it online as the final and inevitable Syria denouement is reached was likely inevitable but its unhinged quality is nonetheless surprising.
If you want a Kurdish State (beyond the KRG), you either have a Kurdish war of independence (assuming Kurdish unity & with an enormous bodycount) or you have a Congress of Berlin style affair where *all* major players sit down & deal it into existence. There is no third option.
