The Wages of Intervention- by Justin Raimondo
Technically, Kurdistan is a province of Iraq, yet it has functioned as a de facto independent state since the establishment of the northern "no fly zone" in 1991. Ever since then, with Saddam cut off from his Kurdish domains, the Kurds have ruled themselves. Though up until this point very pro-American, Kurdistan is not exactly a Jeffersonian republic. The state is controlled by two families – the Barzanis and the Talabanis, who head up the two main political parties – and is a model of crony capitalism. In spite of this, however, Kurdistan is relatively free and has attracted a certain level of investment.Among the major investors is Hunt Oil, a Texas-based firm that has close ties to the Bush administration, with whom the Kurdistan regional government recently signed contracts. CEO Ray Hunt was the finance chairman of the RNC in 2002 and contributed heavily to Bush's campaigns – not to mention giving a grand total of $350,000 for both Bush inaugural celebrations and raising $35 million for the Bush Library. His reward has been a seat on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, an agency that has been a redoubt of neoconservative influence within the administration.U.S. intervention on the side of the Turks means that the Americans are directly confronting Israeli interests in Kurdistan – yet another sign of a developing rupture in the much-vaunted "special relationship."
