Jim lots of words but you've managed not to say anything of substance.

On the contrary, it is a devastating critique on the failure of the left.

Right Jim. What the problem here is that the Kurds had an autonomous control in the north of Iraq before the invasion that is now gone. The invasion let the Kurds come back to the region but they kicked out the arabs and dispossessed the 80,000 Palestinians that Saddam had protected.

There is a demented disconnect from reality with these evangelists who just want to kick the life out of the western left while forgetting that we have been fighting for the rights of the Iraqis for decades without the use of bombs. It is the right that have outlawed and demonised the Kurdish freedom party, it is the right that have demolished Iraq without a plan of what to do next, it is the right that are in power in the US, UK and here (and don't try the spin that Blair is of the left).

It is the AWB who paid Saddam for the bunkers "to bury the Kurds". I am sick to death of the whining of those who advocated the invasion and demolition of Iraq who then blame the rest of us who opposed it because it has gone pear shaped.

We had no right Jim. Full stop. Iraq was not and is not our toy and Iraq was not doing anything to hurt anyone, anywhere.

no Jeremy, this article is an exercise in self affirmation which you obviously find comforting as it offers you an easy way out of the failures of the position you support.

it seems strange for the 'right' to be accusing the 'left' of inaction while generally gloating about holding the balance of power, the support of the 'silent majority' and the general conservatives of the populations of the coalition of the willing, etc. as we keep being told, the 'left' isn't in government.

so what have the right done with all this 'democratic' power? well the easy answer is 'liberation', although I don't remember that being really high on the agenda until after the wmd's failed to show, but then I could be wrong, by its own admission the us government 'makes its own reality', so perhaps they can manipulate what was true in the past.

An independent Kurdistan, including the Turkish provinces would provide a nice diversion for Iran. If we play our cards it right might even be a "friend" to the west. As a bonus a smaller more western Turkey could be more easily absorbed in the EU.

But wait we live in an age of nationalism and this is about as likely to happen as the US granting statehood to central american countries upon meeting certain judicial and economic standards. If our record in Afgahnistan and Iraq are anything to go by they wouldn't be our friends for long.

In the 1990s, William Waldegrave, who was in charge of Prime Minister John Major’s Open Government initiative, ordered the removal from the Public Records Office of files detailing how British troops had used poison gas against Iraqi dissidents including Kurds in 1919.

Churchill bombed them with an early version of napalm. They had an independant kingdom for a few years, until oil was discovered.

This article is a disgraceful piece of crud.