I read a couple of paragraphs in Charles Tripp’s A History of Iraq tonight that hint at some of the complexity of politics in Iraq’s Kurdish north, and which may give a foretaste of what the US is getting into.

A little background: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) are Kurdish groups with a long history of animosity toward one another.

In December 1994, the PUK forces seized Arbil and the administration of the region ground to a halt. Attempts by interested outside parties, particularly the United States, to bring the two sides together seemed to have little effect and by the end of 1995 the death toll of the sporadic fighting between the two sides had reached into the thousands. Despite the economic and human cost of the conflict, neither the KDP nor the PUK seemed able to reconcile their differences, seizing instead upon every point at dispute to drive home their case, backed up by force of arms. In these circumstances, it was inevitable that the parties should look beyond the Kurdish region for allies to help them. Initially, the KDP looked to Turkey, providing assistance for several massive and prolonged incursions by Turkish troops during these years as the Turkish armed forces tried to destroy units of the PKK (the radical Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey). Meanwhile, the PUK cultivated Iran, despite earlier misgivings, as the power best placed to lend them immediate support.

Nor had either party neglected to keep a channel open to Baghdad. This served the KDP well when, in the summer of 1996, Iranian forces entered the territories of the PUK allegedly in pursuit of units of the KDP-I (the Kurdish autonomy movement in Iran). Accusing the PUK of enlisting Iranian military support, the KDP turned to Baghdad and asked for military assistance from the Iraqi government. Within a short space of time, 30,000 Iraqi had entered the Kurdish region, helping the KDP to capture Arbil from the PUK and taking the opportunity to hunt down opponents of the Iraqi regime who had taken refuge there.

So to recap, that’s the KDP fighting the PKK in order to curry favor with the Turks. The PUK, frightened by the KDP’s links to Turkey, then turn to Iran, who enter PUK territories to chase down members of the KDP-I, leading the KDP (not allied with the KDP-I, by the way) to ask Baghdad to come and invade.

This kind of thing won't last, of course, because when we invade, they will all unite in their love of American values. Just like when we went into Lebanon in 1982 and Somalia in 1993.