Stardate 20030322.2153

(Captain's log): Chris writes:

Your concern about the Turks happened to strike a chord with me today since they have announced the movement of 1000 or so troops into Iraq today with more to follow. I always thought of Turkey as a fairly sophisticated country especially when judged against its contemporaries in the region. The commitment to be European dating back to Ataturk. The military relationship we share through NATO etc....Unfortunately the new Islamist government seems to be immune from those influences. Jeez! First you deny us the use of territory for ground forces (which would have protected their territorial concerns), then they grant passover rights with red faces, then renege on those rights! Finally, we have to twist some arms and they relent so we can fly over. Of course, since they denied our ground forces we have had to improvise by asking for and receiving help from the Kurds. So NOW they cross into Iraq where we are busy fighting a war that will go further to ensure their security than our own to intimidate the very Kurds that are helping us! Guess they weren't so sophisticated after all. Not to mention maybe they are a little greedier than previously thought, too. Those oilfields in Iraqi Kurdistan seem to have an irresistible allure for our Turkish 'allies'. So much for EU membership. With friends like these I find myself wondering what would be so bad about a Kurdish state anyway? They have been tortured, repressed, gassed, harassed, etc... by all three of the nations Kurdistan straddles: Turkey, Iraq, Iran. I would never had shed any tears for the latter two should they lose a little territory and I'm beginning to feel the same way about our friends the Ottomans....uh....the Turks.

The big problem with a Kurdish state, from our point of view, is that there's no way it could come into being without setting off at least one war. We will have enough problems in the region without that happening, because none of the wars would serve our interests, but they'd interfere strongly with our ability to do what we ourselves require there.

The idea of a greater Kurdistan to encompass all the Kurdish territories including those in Turkey and Iran isn't possible immediately. The best that could be done would be to convert the Kurdish part of Iraq into a separate nation. But if that were to happen, it's nearly inevitable that Kurdish nationalists, bent on indeed taking those other territories, would again smuggle weapons into Iran, and into southern Turkey, to support Kurdish insurgencies there. As a result, it would be almost inevitable that Turkey at least, and possibly Iran too, would eventually get fed up with that and would invade the new Kurdistan, and then we would have a problem, because we'd likely have an obligation to protect it.

The political ramifications of direct combat between two nations both of whom belong to NATO should be obvious; let's not go there with Turkey if we can avoid it. And we're no more interested in getting militarily entangled with Iran, either. I think that the goal after Iraq is done is going to be to try to help bring about a revolution in Iran. But even the Iranians who hate the mullahs aren't going to be happy about a Kurdish insurgency, and if it seems as if we're supporting such a thing, and defending it, then our chances of bringing about a revolution go into the toilet.

And if we do succeed in helping to cause a revolution in Iran, we're going to be working damned hard to be friendly with the new regime there. So even then such a problem with the Kurds would be an impediment.

The reality is that we cannot afford to have an independent Kurdistan. Irrespective of whether there would be spiteful satisfaction in setting one up, so as to punish the AKP in Turkey, it would make future conduct of our war, the one which is really important to us, far more difficult.

So while I sympathize with your feelings, I can't endorse that idea. It's true that the AKP's performance in this ranks as "inept" on the competence scale. And if indeed you feel as if Turkey and the AKP should suffer because of it, you can be certain that they will, even if we don't directly retaliate against them, for they've dug themselves into a really deep hole.

They were in something of a no-win situation because they were getting pulled three ways all of which were pretty much incompatible. In the end, they tried to have it all and ended up with nothing.

First, the war was unpopular with the Turkish people, and extremely unpopular with the AKP's support base, who identify much more strongly with the Muslim Arabs than they do with Europeans and us Americans.

Second, if a war happened, the Turkish economy was going to take it in the teeth. It's already in trouble, and they really needed a massive aid package to even offset the damage from war, let alone try to make things better. So there we were, with an offer of aid, but it was conditional on them letting us use their territory, and on them agreeing in a timely fashion.

Third is that they're really afraid of the Iraqi Kurds. They fought against Kurdish separatists in the border region of Turkey for a long time, and finally got the situation under control, but they're damned afraid it's going to start up again. So what they really wanted to do, if it was even remotely possible, was to annex the Kurdish part of Iraq, or to go in and stomp it flat. (And they wouldn't at all have minded annexing those oil fields, since they're Turkey's main source of petr