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"In addition to which," McCaskey added, "except for 1967, the Syrians generally like to fight proxy wars. They gave arms to Iran to fight Iraq in 1982, let the Lebanese kill each other during fifteen years of civil war, then went in and set up a puppet regime--that sort of thing."

Herbert looked at McCaskey. "Then you agree with me?"

"No." McCaskey grinned. "You agree with me."

"So assuming Bob is right," Hood said, "why would Syrian Kurds attack Turkey? How do we know they weren't acting as agents for Damascus? They may have been sent to Turkey to pick a fight."

"The Syrian Kurds would sooner attack Damascus than Turkey," Herbert said. "They hate the current regime."

"The Kurds have also become increasingly empowered by the Palestinian example," McCaskey said. "They want their own state."

"Though even getting that won't bring them peace," Herbert said. "They're Sunni Muslims and they don't want to be mixed with the Shiite Muslims and the rest of the population. That's the big war they've been fighting in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. But put the Sunnis together in a new Kurdistan and their four branches--the Hanafites, Malikites, the Shafites, and the Hanbalites--will start tearing each other apart."

"Maybe not," McCaskey said. "The Jews have strong differences of opinion in Israel, but they coexist."

"That's because the Israelis believe more or less the same thing in terms of religion," Herbert said. "It's politics where they differ. With the Sunnis, there are some very basic, very serious religious differences."

Hood learned forward. "Would the Syrian Kurds be acting alone or with other Kurdish nationalists?"

"That's a good question," McCaskey said. "If the Kurds are behind the dam attack, it's much more ambitious than anything they've tried in the past. You know, raiding weapons depots or attacking military patrols, that sort of thing. My feeling is that for something this big they'd have needed the help of the Turkish Kurds, who've been fighting their government from strongholds in the east for the last fifteen years or so."

"And joining with them," Hood said, "what would the Syrian Kurds hope to do?"

"Destabilize, the region," Herbert replied. "If Syria and Turkey were to bash away at one another while the Syrian and Turkish Kurds unified, they could become a power in the region by default."

"Not only by default," McCaskey said. "Assume they use the distraction of war to dig in all along the Turkish and Syrian border. Infiltrate villages, cities, and mountains, set up mobile camps in the desert. They could wage an intractable guerrilla war like Afghanistan lasting for years."

"And whenever the pressure got too intense in one country," Herbert said, "the Kurds could simply slip into the other. Or else they join with the Kurds in Iraq to bring that country into the fray. Can you imagine an ongoing war involving those three nations? How long before nuclear or chemical weapons are used? How long before Syria or Iraq realizes that Israel is supplying the Kurds--"

"Which they've been doing for years," said McCaskey.

"--and starts chucking missiles at them?"

"Eventually," McCaskey said, "when there's a peace settlement, it will have to deal with the Kurdish issue in order to be effective. So the Kurds get a homeland, Turkey embraces the fundamentalists, and democracy and the United States are the big losers."

"If there's a peace settlement," Herbert said portentously. "We're talking about thousands of years of animosity being unleashed on a large scale. If that genie is ever let out of the bottle, it might be impossible to put him back in."

Hood understood. He also knew that it wasn't the responsibility of Op-Center to plan for a war in the Middle East. His job was to spot "hot situations" and manage them if they became "crises." Once they evolved from that into "policy problems," it was up to the White House to handle them. The President would let him know what help was needed and where. The question was, what could be done to manage this developing crisis?

Hood turned to his keyboard