Boiling Point Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

It seems like the administration is finally starting to respond to the situation on the Iraqi-Turkish border.  Too bad that one of the reasons we are in this mess is that despite warnings by a number of experts and a clear escalation of tensions, the Bush Administration did very little to address the situation before it spiraled out of control.   Four and a half months ago:

The Turks accuse Iraqi Kurds of supporting the separatist PKK rebels, who are fighting for independence in Turkey's heavily Kurdish southeast. Since the fall of Baghdad, the Turks have worried that the Iraq war could lead to the country's disintegration and the creation of a Kurdish state in the north.

There are suggestions that the US military may be simply turning a blind eye toward a conflict it does not want to plunge into, in an effort not to alienate its few remaining friends in the region. But diplomatic efforts to calm the situation have stumbled, and the Turkish military has ratcheted up its warnings that a larger-scale incursion may be coming.

"People are basically looking at this as a matter of Turkey defending its sovereignty," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He said that as long as there is not a large number of Turkish troops in Iraq on a more permanent basis, the US is likely to continue to have a muted response.

As Turkey prepares for a national election, there also is growing pressure within the country to strike back at the PKK as well as the Iraqi Kurds who may be quietly allowing the rebels to operate.

"Turkey is about to reach its boiling point." Cagaptay said. "The arguments of rationality will be trumped by popular anger over the PKK."

Let's just hope that it's not too late.  That the recent tensions have finally lit a fire under the U.S. and Iraqi governments and that they will take substantive steps to address Turkish concerns.  The one good sign is that the U.S. government , Iraqi government, Kurdish government, and Turkish government all have an interest in avoiding an all out
confrontation.  The bad news is that nationalism often trumps interests, especially when a conflict is allowed to simmer.

Comments

[Mike M.]

So wait a minute... Turkey wants to send troops into Iraq because it believes that the Kurds who live there are harboring Kurdish terrorists, right? So how in the heck is that any different than our rationale for invading Afghanistan or our phony rationale for invading Iraq. Seems like the Turks have every right to invade. We set the precedent.

[Zathras]

Let's not get carried away here. I can well imagine the Baghdad embassy and senior coalition generals being preoccupied with violence and political quarrels in the Iraq part of Iraq, to the extent that trouble in the north could find us unprepared.

But let's not forget that the cause of this trouble is that group of Kurds intent on blowing things up in Turkey. They were liberated from Saddam Hussein and spared the brunt of the civil war that followed, largely through the efforts of the United States, but for some of them that isn't enough. I don't mind the rank ingratitude so much, but we ought to be very clear that American sympathy for the Kurds and their sad history has its limits, which are being tested right now.

[Ivan]

The Turks will eventually go into Iraq if Kurdish Terrorist or rebels continue to mount operations from Northern Iraq. The Turkish soldiers are some of the toughest soldiers in the world. I have never met a soldier who has trained with them that does not recognize this fact. The solution is simple allow NATO forces to pursue terrorist , like the PPK in Iraq. Since Turkey is part of NATO they could participate. They have a right to defend themselves.

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