It may not make major headlines, but President Obama’s overture to the leadership of Turkey may be of crucial importance to the future prospects for peace and security in Iraq:
U.S. President Barack Obama has told Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan he hoped to strengthen ties with their country and expressed support for Turkey’s growing relationship with Iraq, the White House said Monday.
Obama spoke to the two men by phone earlier in the day.
“In both calls, the leaders discussed a number of current issues, including U.S. support for the growing Turkish-Iraqi relationship, the importance of cooperation in Middle East peace efforts, and the U.S. review on Afghanistan and Pakistan policy,” the White House said in a statement.
Turkey has repeatedly attacked hideouts of Kurdish separatists in the northern mountainous region of Iraq [italics added].
The actions of the Turkish government may play a major role in determining Iraq’s fate if the Obama administration follows through with its plan to remove U.S. forces by the summer of 2010. The looming possibility of an independent Kurdistan, combined with Turkey’s strident opposition to such Kurdish independence makes for a potentially explosive situation. Thomas Ricks sees Turkey’s potential role as a part of a possible doomsday scenario following U.S. withdrawal:
I think you’d have a full-out civil war, bloodier than you have now, and I think you would see regional intervention [if there's a full departure of US troops from Iraq]. Iran is already there in spades, I think Syria would be there. You’d probably wind up with a civil war, a regional war fought on the streets of Baghdad between Shiite bodies and Saudi Arabian money. Up in the north, you’d probably have Turkey intervene against the Kurds.
Ricks’ assessment here may be overly pessimistic. But this sort of disaster could be the outcome of Bush’s Big Adventure. And if this isn’t troubling enough, the Turkish/Kurdish situation is especially worrying because of an additional X factor – Turkey is a member of N.A.T.O. If the Turks end up at war with Kurdish forces, Kurdish attacks on Turkish soil could lead to a real mess if the Turks invoke Article V – the common defense provision in the North Atlantic Treaty.
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Good title.
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