Maybe this explains why we're building the idiotic US Embassy in Iraq ... largest of any country anywhere!

My previous posting suggested that among other stupid activities begun by Mr. Bush in Iraq, he was building the world's largest and most expensive Embassy--larger than ours in both China and Great Britain combined. The question is ... why? [Not accounting for the hundreds of millions pocketed by the Cheney-picked contractors!]

The article at Real Clear Politics' excellent website suggest a possible additional explanation.

Just take a peek at the map of northern Iraq (shown above) and look who the players in the cross-border shenanigans ongoing for the past three weeks are. In fact, click on the map to increase its size and read carefully the names of both the countries and cities included in the region called "Kurdistan." There are very few places anywhere in the world more spaghetti-like than northern Iraq, where the British, the Arabs, the Turks, and now the Americans have played a deadly game of "Who Owns the Oil?" at the expense of the locals who think of themselves as "Kurdistan." Of course, for the longest period of time in recent history, we had an ally (Saddam Hussein) in charge in Baghdad to keep the Iranians and Syrians (with their British partners) in check.

Now ... Katie bar the door!

George W. Bush has not only defanged the Arab presence in Kurdistan through his ill-conceived Iraq War, but now he has more recently been attempting to destabilize (maybe another regime change, who knows?) Iran and its huge Shiite population. What with the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK based in northern Iraq) setting off bomb after bomb in Turkey over the past year, and now, Turkey retaliating with cross-border incursions into Iraq ... well, you decide!

Is an even greater regional war about to explode in the area covered by the map above? For starters, the Kurds make up about 20% of both Iraq and Turkey and are also a significant minority in both Syria and Iran.

Interestingly, the "plan" put forth by the moderate Republicans last Christmas (remember James baker and his crew--including today's Secretary of Defence Robert Gates) recommended an independent Kurdistan, something that Turkey would surely go to war to prevent.

I just have to wonder ... does President Bush or his neocon advisers (and yes, they still exist, even with the removal of Rummy, Wolfowitz and a few more visible faces) think they have something to gain oil-wise or otherwise from a major war in the Middle East?

I surely hope not!