And Now The Turks
by tristero
[UPDATED]
Literally buried in an obscure corner of an obscure page in this morning's New York Times was this ominous headline: Turkey Authorizes Troops to Enter Iraq to Fight Rebels. This has been, since 2002, one of those things that worried deeply unserious people like myself who irrationally opposed Roger Cohen's efforts to make his mama proud and work for a good cause for a change:Turkey took a step toward a military operation in Iraq on Tuesday, as its top political and military leaders issued a statement authorizing troops to cross the Iraq border to eliminate separatist Kurdish rebel camps in the northern region.
Turkey moved toward military action in the face of strong opposition by the United States, which is anxious to maintain peace in the region, one of the rare areas of stability in conflict-torn Iraq. But more than two dozen Turkish soldiers have been killed in recent days, and the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed far more determined than before to act decisively...
A Turkish military offensive into northern Iraq, while unlikely, would have far-reaching consequences for the United States. Turkey is a NATO member and has the region’s most powerful army. Turkey’s support of the United States in the Iraq war is crucial. The United States’ Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey supplies the military in central Iraq...
But Iraq’s government has little authority in the region, which is controlled exclusively by Kurds, and an accord reached by Iraq’s interior minister and senior Turkish officials last month did not include permission for military operations, a formulation that frustrated Turkey.
As far as I can tell, this article contains no information to support the assertion that "a Turkish military offensive into northern Iraq" is unlikely and plenty of reasons to worry about the opposite. Anyone familiar with the situation care to explain? Juan Cole mentions it, with a slightly less optimistic take on the situation than the Times provides, but does not offer an opinion as to how likely it or unlikely a military incursion by Turkey could be.
A personal note: Once, I had a long private talk with an American deputy ambassador who had been stationed in Iraq during 2004. I brought up my concerns about Turkey and the Kurds and, with the kind of flattery ambassadors learn to dispense on a moment's notice, he expressed surprise that I, a mere musician, knew enough to ask questions about it. I, too, was surprised, but I was surprised that he thought the questions were that esoteric.
The unpredictable effects - except that I knew they would be the bad kind of unpredictable - of destabilizing Iraq on its neighbors were among the many reasons I thought the Bush/Iraq invasion was major league cuckoo. By 2004, however, I had come to the genuinely terrifying conclusion that I, a mere musician, and my colleagues for the past year, a bunch of loudmouth bloggers who refused to accord any respect to those who believed in "the triumph of hope over experience," understood the world far better than America's political and media leaders. That may sound like a boast but really it's not. It highlights how profoundly incompetent, claustrophobic, and twisted American political discourse had become, and still is.
It chills me to the bone to realize that Walter Russell Mead, an old friend who has since gone on to acquire an enormous reputation in international affairs, got Bush/Iraq wrong and I got it right. There is something profoundly out of whack in this country for something like that to be true. But it is. And it wasn't just a lucky guess on my part; I wasn't guessing. Nor was it an excusable mistake on Walter's part, not only because it wasn't simply one mistake, but because it was an inexcusable cluster of serious mistakes for anyone to make who claims expertise in foreign policy.
[UPDATE: Here's some more info on the situation in Turkey, via AP courtesy TPM. Despite the unattributed assurances of the Times, it sounds like a military incursion is indeed likely:Turks are furious that PKK rebels carry out attacks on Turkish soil and then slip across the border to sanctuaries in northern Iraq. Turkey has accused Iraqi Kurds of tolerating their ethnic brethren in the PKK.
Under intense pressure from leaders of Iraqi Kurds, Iraq's national government refused to allow Turkey to send troops across the border to chase the rebels under a counterterrorism pact the two countries signed in September.
Turkey does have potential nonmilitary weapons. It could close its border crossings with northern Iraq, which are major source of business for the Iraqi Kurd economy.
But the latest string of attacks by the PKK ramped up public pressure on Erdogan, who has been accused by the opposition of lacking determination to act."]