This is anything but a simple war

I have been harping on this point since 2005, and so have other bloggers.  Even if the violence all over Iraq suddenly subsides, we will always deal with a border dispute in the north.  Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Iran all want independence.  Turkey and Iran have been working together over the years to turn the Kurdish population against one another.  But with the fall of Saddam Hussein, and are implementing an even more aggressive policy against this stateless nation.

Thousands of Turkish troops have amassed on the border region.  Within the last few days Iranian forces began shelling Kurdish towns:

Iranian artillery shelled villages in the Qandil mountains that arehome to various Kurdish militant groups, one of which — the Party for aFree Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK) — is waging a guerilla insurgencyagainst the Iranian government. Though hundreds of villagers fled theirhomes and two women were wounded, such cross-border violence isbecoming a regular feature of life in the north. But yesterday's attackcould also be a prelude to a larger struggle.

Iraqi Kurdish media are reporting that the Iranian military is massingat the main border crossing into northern Iraq, possibly for anincursion against PEJAK. Clashes between PEJAK and the Iranians havebeen increasing steadily, and Iraqi Kurdish officials say that about 40Iranian soldiers were killed on Saturday.

The situation in Iraq is extremely complex.  When the Bush Administration determines that the surge is working just by citing events taking place in Anbar Province, it does a disservice to the nuanced situation that we face.  There are so many factors to this war.  Anbar is only one.  Another is the ongoing violence along the Sunn-Shia mixed neighborhoods in and around Baghdad.  Another factor is the chaos in the suburbs of Diyala, which is just a mess.  Another is the battle between Shiite gangs in Basra over the oil wealth.  Another is Moqdada al-Sadr, who is an even bigger player today in Iraqi politics than he was six months ago.  And then we have the security concerns in the north, as I mentioned.

So this is not by any means a cut and dry war.  It is a multi-layered, super-dimensional war within a war.  Different parts of Iraq have their own issues.  Dick Cheney said it himself in 1994:

That's a veryvolatile part of the world, and if you take down the central governmentof Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off:part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it --eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over itfor eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurdsspin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten theterritorial integrity of Turkey.

Good points all around, Cheney.