Smell something cooking? Like a deal, maybe?

The New York Times for January 5 recalls that

[w]hile visiting the Kurdish region [of Iraq] in September, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that while he sympathized with Kurdish aspirations and understood that their leaders did not want to break away from Iraq, he was opposed to a separate Kurdish province or state as such.

"We would not wish to see a political system that is organized on ethnic lines," Mr. Powell said. "There are other ways to do it that would not essentially bring into the future the ethnic problems that have been there all along. They understand that, and we'll have different models to show them."

That, however, was September. Now, instead,

[t]he Bush administration has decided to let the Kurdish region remain semi-autonomous as part of a newly sovereign Iraq despite warnings from Iraq's neighbors and many Iraqis not to divide the country into ethnic states, American and Iraqi officials say.

The excuse they give is lack of time given the target date of June 30 for supposed Iraqi self-rule. However, there is a real sense of having created a fait accompli.

[T]he Bush administration plans to continue to press Iraq not to divide itself permanently along ethnic lines, officials say.

But after June 30, if all goes according to plan, the United States will be exerting such pressure not as an occupier but as a friendly outside power that happens to have 100,000 troops on the ground. Many experts fear that once a Kurdish government is formalized even temporarily, it will be hard to dislodge.

Two things of note in this regard happened between September and now. One was the November 15 agreement on a modified US bugout, dramatically shortening the timetable for "self-rule." That's the one the administration is pointing to.

The other is the capture of Saddam Hussein. Now at the time, it was presented as a great victory for US intelligence. Soon, however, doubts crept in as it became clear that Kurdish sources had announced the capture hours before the US did and in fact took credit for it. Although some poo-pooed it, the idea gained some circulation.

When this came up on Orcinus the other day, I commented

There actually are a couple of variations of the story. Two things to keep in mind in all cases are that there is good information that the Kurds had been actively hunting Ba'athists well before this and were closing in on Saddam and that his capture was initially described by the US military as "a joint operation," although that phrase disappeared later.

The DEBKAfile version suggests that the Kurds had been holding Saddam for some time, negotiating for the $25 mil reward - thereby explaining his long beard and lack of resistance to the Americans, who might have appeared as rescuers rather than captors.

Another story says the Kurds caught him, drugged him, and just left him there to be found so the US could take credit for his capture.

A third line is that they caught him, held him trying to get some promises of special treatment in Iraq's future from the US - which were or were not given before the troops moved in.

And a fourth is that they located him but didn't take him but went to US forces and said "he's at the farm over there - don't forget who your friends are" or whatever, then stood aside while the US made the capture.

I don't find the DEBKAfile story persuasive - too many presumptions about what details mean. And I don't imagine the Kurds just leaving him to be found without trying to secure some sort of compensation, financial or political.

The last two scenarios vary in detail but have the same thrust: The Kurds located Saddam and then turned him over to the US in hopes of future considerations. That, I can buy.

How the US treats Kurdish proposals for Iraq's future may provide some sort of test of my opinion.

I am frankly more than a little tempted to point to these latest developments and say "There ya go."