Catastrophe On The Horizon

Nonetheless, the director of the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Soner Cagaptay, estimates that there are now 250,000 soldiers, most of whom have gathered in the last four weeks, massed at the Qandil mountain range on the border with northern Iraq. Those troops, according to Mr. Cagaptay, include heavy artillery and tanks, the most significant troop buildup by the Turks since they nearly invaded Syria in 1998 while accusing Damascus of harboring the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The Iraqi official yesterday said the figure of Turkish troops was closer to 100,000. ~The New York Sun

If Turkey invades northern Iraq, the Turkish-American alliance will be hanging by a thread.  Washington needs to make two things very clear: it must give Ankara a guarantee that the PKK’s operations will be curtailed and state very plainly at the same time that the Turkish military and government are risking the entire relationship with the United States over this.  If Turkish forces cross the border in large numbers, one contingency must be to convince as many leaders of the non-PKK peshmerga units to not engage with them. 

Turkey has legitimate security concerns, the same as any country attacked by terrorists from foreign bases, and our political class’ excessive sympathies with the Kurdish cause have blinded them to recognising the seriousness and legitimacy of the Turks’ concerns.  Washington must provide some arrangement by which American and Iraqi Kurdish forces will cooperate to contain the activities of the PKK.  Our policy in Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have mostly been on autopilot for the last few years, and this is the result.  On something of this magnitude, the prevention of a possible Turco-American or Turco-Iraqi war, the country would support the President if he showed anything resembling intelligence and determination on this question.  Unfortunately, given his track record, I have little confidence that this crisis can be averted by anything that the President or the State Department might be able to do.