# How expensive to buy out Kurdistan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 25, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485 "2018-01-25T21:58:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/1 "2018-01-25T21:58:14Z")
If one wanted to bribe the politicians and/or people of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran to forget about wasting energy trying to maintain hold on the Kurds, about how much would that likely cost? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/2 "2018-01-25T22:10:43Z")
“If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” The cultural hatred of the Kurds, partiuclarly by Turks and Arabs, goes back for centuries, notwithstanding the oil and mineral resources that the Kurds would more-or-less legitimately claim as part of their ethnic territory. The Kurds have been used as proxies in various regional conflicts including by the United States in the First Gulf War when George H.W. Bush called upon them to rise up against Saddam Hussien, and then as quickly abandoned and ignored their plight once the US objective was achived. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/3 "2018-01-25T22:13:26Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” > > The cultural hatred of the Kurds, partiuclarly by Turks and Arabs, goes back for centuries, notwithstanding the oil and mineral resources that the Kurds would more-or-less legitimately claim as part of their ethnic territory. The Kurds have been used as proxies in various regional conflicts including by the United States in the First Gulf War when George H.W. Bush called upon them to rise up against Saddam Hussien, and then as quickly abandoned and ignored their plight once the US objective was achived. > > Stranger If I offered you $5,000,000, would you agree to vote for Donald J. Trump in the next election? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/4 "2018-01-25T22:20:08Z")
Also, let’s say that the Turks have an insensible rage against the Kurds. So why do you want them as part of your country? Just for the joy of kicking them? How is that very defensible? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/5 "2018-01-25T23:25:55Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If I offered you $5,000,000, would you agree to vote for Donald J. Trump in the next election? No. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Also, let’s say that the Turks have an insensible rage against the Kurds. So why do you want them as part of your country? Just for the joy of kicking them? How is that very defensible? I don’t think Turkish President Erdoğan gives two shits about defending anything he does, but he’d be happy to get rid of the Kurds and keep the territory which is a ‘solution’ I don’t expect the Kurds would go along with for both cultural and practical reasons. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/6 "2018-01-25T23:50:45Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If I offered you $5,000,000, would you agree to vote for Donald J. Trump in the next election? Sure. I’ll vote for him this November for any office you choose. (Un)fortunately, he’s not a resident of my state so I don’t think he’ll win. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/7 "2018-01-26T00:25:36Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If I offered you $5,000,000, would you agree to vote for Donald J. Trump in the next election? Depends. How long to I have to keep up the charade? Will you arrange some system to reclaim the money in cases where I was bald-facedly lying? Would “You can’t prove I didn’t vote for him!” be good enough for you if I spent the rest of my time announcing that I didn’t vote for him? > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Also, let’s say that the Turks have an insensible rage against the Kurds. So why do you want them as part of your country? Just for the joy of kicking them? How is that very defensible? I’m fairly sure that a Final Solution would appear untenable for reasons of international politics, and aside from such an approach there probably isn’t a very clear path to making them go away. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/8 "2018-01-26T00:32:34Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > So why do you want them as part of your country? Option A - Keep a subset of the Kurds under your thumb (with other subsets under the thumbs of neighboring states.) Deal with the insurgents that are armed as best as limited funds and smuggling can support. Option B - Cluster all the people that are pissed about their long-term oppression together into one state on your border. Give them access to lots of oil money. Hope they don’t remember how pissed they are when the international arms brokers come calling. A is a durable but the generally manageable security threat. B creates the possibility of a much bigger, possibly existential, threat. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/9 "2018-01-26T00:45:20Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Depends. How long to I have to keep up the charade? Will you arrange some system to reclaim the money in cases where I was bald-facedly lying? Would “You can’t prove I didn’t vote for him!” be good enough for you if I spent the rest of my time announcing that I didn’t vote for him? I’ll publicly hand you the money, after making the offer publicly. And if you turn around, then I’ll start selling arms to North Korea. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/10 "2018-01-26T00:53:59Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’ll publicly hand you the money, after making the offer publicly. And if you turn around, then I’ll start selling arms to North Korea. If you’re in a position to buy votes for five million apiece, you’re probably in a position to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/11 "2018-01-26T03:25:16Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If I offered you $5,000,000, would you agree to vote for Donald J. Trump in the next election? I would. I live in a red state so my vote doesn’t matter. Plus I’d donate some of the money to voter registration drives in swing states for whomever the democrat was. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/12 "2018-01-26T03:53:14Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > No. > > I don’t think Turkish President Erdoğan gives two shits about defending anything he does, but he’d be happy to get rid of the Kurds and keep the territory which is a ‘solution’ I don’t expect the Kurds would go along with for both cultural and practical reasons. > > Stranger :dubious: Erdogan has always been fairly moderate on the Kurd issue, comes with not being a nationalist. The current actions have been forced on him by circumstances, the rise of Kurdish militias due to US support in Syria, and thats something no Turkish leader of any description could tolerate. Most of the “plucky” Kurds the West loves to gush over, are ethno-nationalists of the worst type who if they came to actual power would conduct ethnic cleansing of the type that would make 1990’s Serbs blush. What no one’s learnt _anything_ from Aung Sung Suu Kyi? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/13 "2018-01-26T06:53:16Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > If you’re in a position to buy votes for five million apiece, you’re probably in a position to do so. Well we are talking about the US government. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/14 "2018-01-26T08:13:45Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If I offered you $5,000,000, would you agree to vote for Donald J. Trump in the next election? Yep. Easily. Trivially. That’s a _lot_ of money. I could turn around and offer a thousand people who are lukewarm on the election or liberal but unable/unwilling to go vote a cool grand to go and vote for his opponent, [save a few hundred lives](https://www.againstmalaria.com/), and still keep 3 million dollars for myself. But then again I’m a rational thinker and kinda selfish. When talking about the Kurds, we’re typically talking about fairly rabid nationalist and religious sentiments that have to be overcome, and those folks aren’t famous for rational thought, last I checked. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/15 "2018-01-26T09:08:45Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > But then again I’m a rational thinker and kinda selfish. When talking about the Kurds, we’re typically talking about fairly rabid nationalist and religious sentiments that have to be overcome, and those folks aren’t famous for rational thought, last I checked. 😕 What if, secretly, everything came down to money and power, and religion and racism and everything else just serve as good excuses to make it sound like it isn’t all about money and power? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/16 "2018-01-26T14:23:28Z")
A nation’s sovereignty is not for sale at any price, and that’s how Turkey sees it. You can’t pay them enough. $5 million to vote for Donald Trump isn’t an analogy at all. Asking me to vote for a loathsome asshole isn’t a huge deal, and I can flip some of the money to swaying two votes away from him. Accepting a bribe to throw my vote doesn’t fundamentally change me. A better analogy would be “how much money to buy one of your kids?” - to which I would respond that there is not enough money in the universe and money isn’t even a meaningful measurement of that. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/17 "2018-01-26T14:35:34Z")
I got this from TV Tropes. > [@](#): > > The (possibly apocryphal) story goes that when Abe Lincoln was a lawyer, a man came to his second floor office and offered him a bribe to throw his client’s case. When Lincoln refused the man said “Everyone has his price.” and raised the offer. This went on for a few moments as the man kept saying that “Everyone has his price” and making a larger offer. Suddenly, Lincoln grabbed the man and threw him down the stairs. When a stunned man asked why Lincoln didn’t just refuse the latest offer, Lincoln said, “He was getting too close to my price.” As the quote mentions, the story probably isn’t true. However, if you offered Turkey an absolutely tremendous amount of money to ignore the Kurds, I’d expect a violent reaction, much like in the story. If an independent Kurdistan ever emerges, I would expect it to be carved out of Syria, Iraq and maybe Iran, simply because those countries are all less stable than Turkey. The Iraqi attempt failed because the Kurds tried to obtain Mosul (which was traditional Kurdish territory, but now the Kurds are a minority there) and because at least one of the Kurdish factions was led by an unprincipled leader. There’s at least one nation (Pakistan?) that said their people would eat grass if they had to so their country could get nukes. They were successful, despite the high financial cost. People consider some things more important than money, although which things vary from one person to another. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/18 "2018-01-26T14:41:29Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > I > There’s at least one nation (Pakistan?) that said their people would eat grass if they had to so their country could get nukes. They were successful, despite the high financial cost. It was a former PM who said that, nearly a decade and a half before the programme began. The actuals costs of the programme [were not particularly high](http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Pakistan/PakArsenal.html). Political costs, much more so. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/19 "2018-01-26T15:10:33Z")
One. Million. Dollars. Can I get in on the “vote for Trump payday”? I live in CA, so my presidential vote _really_ doesn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485/20 "2018-01-26T17:23:55Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If one wanted to bribe the politicians and/or people of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran to forget about wasting energy trying to maintain hold on the Kurds, about how much would that likely cost? What, precisely, is the “debate” here? That is, what proposition are you putting up for discussion? Others have bit on the red herring you trolled, but I’m interested to know what particularly you are suggesting should be discussed regarding Turkey and the Kurds? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-expensive-to-buy-out-kurdistan/807485.md?page=2)