AN INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN: ARMENIA'S NEW REGIONAL NEIGHBOR????

Will federalism in Iraq lead to an independent Kurdistan a stone's throw from Armenia??

How will a Kurdish state affect political developments in Anatolia and the immediate region??

These and a host of other questions inherently flow out of the recent talk of a "federalist" political solution to the chaos now taking place in Iraq. The possibility of an independent Kurdish state just a few hundred miles from Armenia, let alone bordering Turkey, should get our collective minds speculating as to what the effects would be for the region in general and Armenia in particular.

A March 12th report published by the influential United State think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, focuses on the possibility of an independent Kurdistan created on the territory that now comprises the Kurdish Provisional Government in northern Iraq.

For it seems that there's a growing consensus for transforming Iraq into a federalist state, based on ethnic and sectarian lines, as the most likely approach that could lead to a political settlement in that war torn country. No one doubts that federalism will eventually lead to total independence for Kurdistan, despite what Iraqi Kurdish politicians and leaders state to the contrary.

The report quotes United States Senator Joe Biden, the democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, as stating that his proposed federalist plan, " offers a road map to a political settlement in Iraq that gives its warring factions a way to share power peacefully and a chance to leave with our interests intact."

Biden claims endorsement of his plan by a bipartisan group of heavyweights including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright, and James Baker, former senior State Department officials and a number of senators and congressmen.