Ironies in Turkey

Here's the Register's editorial on the end of the Turkish military boots-on-the-ground incursion into northern Iraq. Its's good that it was ended, but there are rich ironies, including having the power occupying Iraq and thereby thinning Iraqi sovereignty calling on Turkey to respect that pseudo-sovereignty.

Turks, Kurds and U.S. problems

So now there has been not just an airstrike but a "boots-on-the-ground" Turkish incursion into northern Iraq. As this Register editorial points out, it puts the U.S. in a ticklish position. Turkey is America's oldest ally in the Middle East, and northern Iraq, which has effectively become a small version of the Kurdistan Kurds have always wanted (why people want to have a state to enshrine their ethnic group is beyond me, and probably one of the more destructive desires in the world today, but there it is; we have a lot of educating to do) has until now been one of the most stable and pro-American areas in northern Iraq. But the pesky PKK marxist guerrilla group has been staging raids into Turkey and killing Turks, from camps in northern Iraq, and the Turks are striking back.

As Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute told me in a phone interview, there is much to understand on all sides, and much to deplore. The Turks have traditionally treated their Kurdish minority abysmally (there are Kurds in Iran as well), though things have calmed down a bit and some Kurds even serve in parliament. The recently calmed Kurdish separatist movement went on for more than 10 years, so one can understand a Turkish desire to nip the latest manifestation in the bud. The PKK is a violent group, designated terrorist by the U.S. and most European countries, and pretty ruthless. It's unclear just what relationship it has to the Kurdish regioonal government in northern Iraq -- the government officially condemns it but there's evidence it ignores it and perhaps even facilitates it. The Turks want the Kurdish government to get the PKK under control, but even if it wanted to it's unclear whether it could accomplish it.

One presumes most parties don't want the situation to spiral into wholesale violence, but it could happen easily, and the U.S., as the occupying force supposedly charged with keeping order, is caught in the middle. Things get so complicated when we invade other peoples' countries and try to run their lives without knowing much of anything about their ancient and modern feuds and resentments.

Deal not a Turkey

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the deal that just might prevent a Turkish military incursion (at least on a large scale) into northern Iraq. We reluctantly suggest that the Bush administration, which we have criticized harshly in the past -- and which has richly deserved it -- might have done someethingpretty close to right this time.

Armenian resolution incredibly ill-timed

I had a long talk last night with Peter Mentzel, our discussion leader here at the Liberty Fund colloquium. He teaches history at Utah State University, specializing in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans. He told me he was at a conference last year in Turkey at which younger Turkish historians (almost all of whom acknowledge that the slaughter of Armenians in 1915 amounted to a genocide) tiptoed to the edge of public acknowledgment. But they still meet considerable resistance from older historians and officials, for the reason that many of the Young Turks who helped make the Ataturk secularist revolution that displaced the Ottomans were officers in 1915 and share some of the guilt. But Peter thought public acknowledgment by Turkey could (have) come in a few years. It has been a gradual, careful, years-long effort.

The Armenian genocide resolution in a House committee last week, however, torpedoed that effort, and made most Turks incredibly angry at the U.S. With tensions rising along the Iraq-Turkey border due to PKK raids across the border into Turkey, and pressure developing for the U.S. to get involved against a NATO ally that has been the most pro-Western country in the Middle East and a reliable U.S. ally, this was amazingly poor timing. The Bush administration deserves a great deal of the blame; the Iraqi invasion destabilized the region and strengthened Iran, and the administration has done much else to alienate Turkey. But for the resolution we can thank Nancy Pelosi.

Who lost Turkey?

Now we're getting articles with titles like that, this one from Juan Cole at the University of Michigan. Juan teaches Middle Eastern history and reminds us that Turkey has been a solid American ally since World War II, and was a NATO ally during the Cold War. About 70 prrcent of U.S. supplies for the military people in northern portions of Iraq go through Turkey, mainly the Incirlik air base. And while Turkey has hardly been kind to the Kurds in the country, the establishment of a de facto independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq -- up to now the most stable and hopeful part of the country, has complicated life for the Turkish government, what with cross-border raids by the anti-Turk PKK; the Kurdish rebellion had been fairly quiescent.

On Sunday Kurdish guerrillas killed 13 Turkish troops. There are rumors (and more) the Turks are launching long-range artillery at suspected PKK sites in northern Iraq. And a committee in the House just labeled the mass murder of Armenians a "genocide." A Turkish cross-border incursion with men and equipment would likely destabilize northern Iraq further. Now after dissing Turkey for years, the Bush administration is pleading for restraint.

These troubles with Turkey are yet another unanticipated consequence ("blowback," if you will) of stirring the pot in the Middle East by invading Iraq. Making Iran more influential and powerful and losing a long-time ally. Good work!