fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Speaking of “Existential Threats”…

The Kurdish state-within-a-state is, in some ways, more dangerous to Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Iran, than Hezbollah is to Israel because there are about 14 million Kurds in Turkey and 5 million in Iran while there are very few Shi’ites in Israel. If the Iraqi Kurds were to wind up with oil fields […]

The Kurdish state-within-a-state is, in some ways, more dangerous to Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Iran, than Hezbollah is to Israel because there are about 14 million Kurds in Turkey and 5 million in Iran while there are very few Shi’ites in Israel. If the Iraqi Kurds were to wind up with oil fields of northern Iraq, they could finance a lot of trouble in Turkey or Iran. After all, even without oil money, the Kurdish rebellion of the 1980s and 1990s in Turkey killed dozens of times more than the recent Israel-Lebanon war. ~Steve Sailer

Turkey and Iran here face a serious threat of destabilisation (is stability in the Near East still a problem that we need to keep solving?), and if attacks from Kurdish rebels continue they will eventually come to the conclusion that they have no choice but to establish their own security cordons and buffer zones inside Kurdish Iraq.  They will have as much (or as little, however you look at it) justification in this as any other state in a similar situation. 

The threats to the internal stability and integrity of these countries are very real, and there may come a time, especially in the case of Iran, when the U.S. and Iraqi Kurdish failure (or what will be perceived as their failure) to restrain or control the PKK inside Iraq will exhaust the patience of the two governments.  There is no love lost for America in Turkish public opinion, so if anything a Turkish intervention in Iraq–which would obviously severely damage the alliance–would make Erdogan’s government very popular, at least in the short term.  The Kurds have always been the wild card in the Iraqi equation.  If Washington really wants to keep the wider region from completely melting down, it will do what it can to coordinate with Turkey against the PKK and help secure the interests of an actual NATO ally rather than encourage the separatist sympathies of the PKK’s ethnic brethren.  Failing that, Turkey will look to its own interests and the strength of the alliance, already put under tremendous strain by the invasion of Iraq that Ankara did not want, will be greatly reduced. 

Our longstanding alliances have already suffered terrific damage because of this war.  It would be grossly irresponsible if Washington were to neglect an important regional ally in a misguided attempt to, shall we say, appease Kurdish nationalist opinion.  This neglect of the PKK problem will come back to bite the U.S. in a big way that the administration will not be expecting.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here