Chapter 8, Part 4 Summary

Israel urged the United States to seal the 900-mile border between Iraq and Iran in mid-2003, to keep out Iranian-backed insurgents planning to heighten attacks against Americans and the Iraqi coalition government. The Administration made the decision not to close the border, and the Israelis were discouraged by the decision. Ehud Barak, the ex-Israeli prime minister, told Dick Cheney that the U.S. could not win the occupation in Iraq, and that it was only a matter of "choosing the size of your humiliation." Israel decided to salvage its situation in the area by establishing its own ground forces in Iraqi Kurdistan. This also allowed Israel to run covert operations inside Iran and Syria. The Turkish government had always been at odds with the concept of a Kurdish state that would threaten Kurdish areas inside Turkey. It was concerned with the...