Kurds partioning Syria Iraq whether U.S. policy likes it or not

Kurds Sign Truce With Syrian Government in Northeast, Portending a Shift from an asinine U.S. foreign policy objective for a unified Syria and Iraq before their can be peace. While it may not be apparent to Bashar al-Assad that he can't regain control of all of Syria, both Russia and Iran realize that its useless. Iran has made its peace with the Kurds in Iraq's Kurdistan region so that the same can be expected in Syria. Putin on the other hand has no respect for al-Assad as was apparent during his hat in hand visit to Moscow last year but he has gotten Russia's support because of the Naval Base on the Mediterranean coast, an Alawite enclave. Anything to keep his base secure is in Putin's interest but he has no interest in expanding al-Assad's control beyond the Alawite regions of Syria because its a quagmire of dysfunction with no end.

Unified Syria and Iraq as prerequisites for Peace is perpetual War

Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart is a background work on the Middle East that should be required reading for our State and Defense Department policy makers.  Nowhere in this work is it possible to see Iraq and Syria unifying rather than Balkanizing into separate ethnic and religious states.

In the Middle East trust your enemy's intentions not your friend's

Fractured Lands Part IV ISIS Rising 24. Azar Mirkhan
“I’ve never trusted the Arabs, but as strange as it sounds, I trusted Daesh,” Azar explained, using a common term for ISIS. “In the past, the Arabs always lied — ‘Oh, you Kurds have nothing to fear from us’ — and then they attacked us. But Daesh was absolutely clear what they were going to do. They wanted to take this part of the world back to the caliphate. They wanted to eliminate everyone who was not their kind — the Christians and the Kurds and the Shia — and they were absolutely open about it. After their June offensive, I had no doubt they were coming for us next.”

Kurds are fighting for their own nationhood not for a unified Iraq

New York Times Magazine Part IV: ISIS rising by Scott Anderson 26. Azar Mirkam :

By May 2015, Barzani said, nearly 120 pesh merga had died in Sector 6, where the greatest ISIS incursions had occurred. At the same time, pesh merga commanders make an interesting distinction between where they are willing to suffer losses to regain land and where they aren’t. For example, the ISIS-held village that Azar studied with his binoculars was inhabited by Arabs, not Kurds.

“So even though it is on K.R.G. territory, it’s not worth losing men for,” he explained. “Not until we’re ready to do a much bigger offensive.”

But when that offensive might come was a matter tied up with international geopolitics, and with the outcome of decisions being made in Washington and Brussels and Baghdad. In light of the woeful conduct of the Iraqi Army in the past — and absent any will to place significant numbers of Western troops on the ground — many American and European politicians and foreign-policy advisers were calling for deputizing the one fighting force in the region that had proved its mettle, the pesh merga, to lead the campaign to destroy ISIS. Less clear was whether anyone had seriously discussed this idea with the Kurds.

“You know, the Americans come here, and they want to talk about retaking Mosul,” Sirwan Barzani said. “Are you going to do it with American troops? No. Are you going to do it with the Iraqi Army? No, because they’re useless. So let’s have the Kurds do it. But what do we want with Mosul? It’s not Kurdistan; it’s Iraq, and why should we lose more men for the sake of Iraq?”

Climate Change: What's so Alarming? @ClimateBasics #Libertarian

Climate Change: What's so Alarming? This guy is Danish for God's sake so don't give me any grief about my climate change bias which is that Bill McKibben is dumber than shit and his New Republic piece "The World at War" is laughably stupid reflecting poorly on the magazine's readers.

Medicare should for the prenatal and young exclusively

Obamacare is going down. It's "Wellness" gamble is not paying off and so the young and healthy will drop out leaving in the system only those who need it.   Long life and health comes from moderate consumption that needs to be taught by both family and medicine.  Rather than devote government resources to the aged it should be to the young and leave it to voting age citizens to choose and pay for the services they can afford. Make Medicare for the prenatal and young and hand off them off to the private sector as they mature.    

Julian Assange interview on NPR clear. lucid, correct; Interviewer not so much

NPR's interview with Julian Assange, the morally sketchy founder of Wikileaks secluded in the Ecuador Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape charges, this morning showed a train of thought that was lucid, clear and correct and in great contrast to the interviewer who could have been mistaken as the spokesperson of an authoritarian kafkaesque nightmare of a government.