Zvi Bar’el on the Kurds in Haaretz: ‘Is a magic formula in the works for overthrowing the Iranian regime? Donald Trump spoke Sunday with the heads of Iraq's two main Kurdish parties – the Kurdistan Democratic Party's Masoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's Bafel Talabani. The U.S. president seems to have made them an offer they couldn't refuse.’

And: ‘Trump deserves praise, at least for recognizing that the Iraqi Kurds aren't a monolith; you have to speak with both leaders. Their rivalry, which sparked a civil war in the 1990s, continues to fuel an intra-Kurdish conflict in Iraq.’

Talabani is closer to Iran, Barzani has ties to the CIA. And the 10 to 12 million Iranian Kurds are divided.

But now Trump ‘had ruled out involving Kurdish forces in the war against Iran.’

The empire is not betting on the Kurds? The empire is betting on itself.

(a sf 2073)