Toll, I guess I wouldn't do much to get a result for the Kurds, beyond using any diplomatic influence I had to get the parties round a table. But then I wouldn't have armed Iraq to the hilt in its spat with Iran, I wouldn't have rushed to the defence of a brutal and greedy regime when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and I would not have imposed a new sovereign state on the middle-east as a means of preserving western influence in that region.

Norton1, yes, I can see a gun's the best way to settle and argument. Hope you're proud of whatever killings you got to do in Vietnam, and think they served some valuable purpose in the grand scheme of things.

I'm not sure what threat was posed to American troops by the Iraqi convoys log-jammed on the retreat back to Baghdad. I think anyone who reads Schwarzkopf's account of Desert Storm and its aftermath would soon understand why the military advice was against going all the way.