Stardate 20030301.1316

(On Screen): Now we get to find out what CENTCOM has planned for a south-only strategy, because the Turkish Parliament refused to permit us to use their territory for an assault from the north.

The measure got 264 ayes, with 251 nays and 19 abstentions. But the rules required it to get an absolute majority, and it came up 3 votes shy.

Opposition leader Deniz Baykal welcomed the outcome.

"This has shown again that the whole world now has to give importance to national opinion and show understanding of parliament when approaching Turkey."

"This has to be seen as a development that increases Turkey's standing, importance and value," he said.

What it does is to mean that there will be a war anyway, and that Turkey's economy will sustain all the damage which was expected, only without the benefit of any huge aid package from the US. That deal for billions of dollars of direct aid and even more in loans just became waste paper.

It means that the current government of Turkey will discover it no longer has a sympathetic partner in Washington. The US will no longer use its influence for Turkey's benefit with the IMF. We also won't be pushing the EU to admit Turkey.

It means that the US is now hamstrung in trying to protect the northern Iraqi oil fields which are Turkey's primary source of petroleum. Nor is there much of an interest in trying anymore.

It means that Turkey just took decades of cooperation with the US and fed it through a paper shredder. This is not going to increase Turkey's standing, importance or value; it will guarantee a steep decline in all three. Turkey has angered the US government but won't reap any reward in any concomitant increase in regard by the Weasels. Their economy will tank and they're going to discover that international aid is much harder to come by. The Turkish parliament just made an extremely big and very expensive mistake, one which will affect Turkey for years and maybe for decades. They didn't just vote to prevent war; they just voted to make it so that Turkey will suffer as much as possible during that war.

I think it raises the very real possibility of a military takeover. The military has been suspicious of the AKP anyway, and this will only confirm their suspicions.

There's no word about how this might affect our continued use of Incirlik. The bill didn't deal with that, and I can only hope we're permitted to keep using it. If not, then USS Truman would have to pick up the slack, flying its jets from the Med.

One of the big concerns will be whether, when we start the invasion from the south, the Turkish military sends forces of its own in from the north and tries to occupy the Kurdish areas. Will we consider that to be a threat? Will we actively work to stop it?

We could, maybe. We could threaten to bomb them if they do so, but that would be an extremely perilous step to take. Another possibility is airborne. While the 101st generally prefers to deploy by helicopter, they can be deployed by parachute if need be. Helicopters have relatively short range, but parachute drops can come from a long way away, and northern Iraq can definitely be reached. We could put a couple of thousand men in that way, but that too would be perilous because they'd be isolated until forces could come up from the south. It's not so much that they could actually prevent Turkish forces from advancing as that we would have to assume that the Turks would be unwilling to attack us if we got there first. Since I don't know how important this eventuality is viewed to be, I don't know if they'll take that step. We will only find out once combat begins.

One thing I do know: the Turkish government gets no big new aid package. They're not going to get a dime.