So here we are, o­n the brink of war in Iraq. The debates o­n the war have, funnily enough, seemingly died o­n malaysiakini . I suppose the realists have won the argument, however specious their claims were in the first place, most of which, after all, were culled and coughed up from standard and dated textbooks o­n realist international politics.

So the US, Britain and Australia, and a few other allies, all to be counted o­n 10 fingers at most, and maybe a few toes, are about to invade Iraq.

So as the US and its allies go hell for leather to depose Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime, who will look northwards and check the Turks from invading northern Iraq and slaughter, again, just as they did in the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds in their ancestral homeland?

Because, as in 1991, while the Turks ethnically cleansed the Kurds, the US turned a blind eye to the genocide there. Just as they also did when Iraqi soldiers murdered Shi'ite Muslims and the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq.

And who will bring those allied soldiers to account, before the International Criminal Court, for any war atrocities they may commit outside of the Geneva Convention?

Please don't say, don't patronise us by saying it won't or can't happen because these are allied forces - the 'good guys' who are out to save the world from all evil-doers.

If you do you will sound like the choirboys of George W Bush's church of evangelical militarism.