DAMAGE CONTROL
Bulent Kenes

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 15 2007

Whatever has happened has happened. The acceptance of the Armenian
genocide claims in the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House
of Representatives has strained relations as had been envisaged. The
unfair Armenian resolution hurts the sense of justice, having
coincided with a period when the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) has stepped up its attacks, martyring our soldiers every day —
that is, its having coincided with a period when anger and sentiment
have heightened, magnifying the resolution’s potential to strain
relations between the two countries.

The US administration must have realized, albeit belatedly, the danger
the present course of events are generating, because it has increased
its diplomatic efforts to contain the destruction to be inflicted
on the relations of the two countries by the Armenian resolution,
which is nearly certain to pass on the floor of the House, where the
Democrats are in the majority. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
sent Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Dan Fried and
Defense Minister Robert Gates sent Undersecretary of Defense Eric
Edelman to Turkey very hurriedly. It is also known that Rice called
her Turkish counterparts to placate Turkey.

The political culture of the Unites States is really strange, and to
be frank, it is far from sincere. It is possible to provide evidence
for this strangeness with its two-faced attitudes on the terrorist
PKK and the Armenian genocide claims.

Turkey has, for years on end been insistently calling for the wiping
out of the existence of the PKK in northern Iraq, using all diplomatic
channels. However, neither Washington nor Baghdad or the tribal chiefs
in northern Iraq who are in Washington’s orbit have provided the
support and response it wants. Moreover, the promises made in response
to Turkey’s pressure and the mechanisms made to this end don’t go
beyond time wasting and distraction. Every moment we procrastinate
because of the United States serves the beasts based in the Kandil
Mountains. These monsters are provided all their logistical needs in
comfort and restore their strength for the attacks they will carry out
in the future, crossing the border whenever they please and spilling
the blood of Turkish youths, whether they are soldiers or civilians.

And when Turkey attempts to do what Baghdad, Washington and the Kurdish
leaders have been shying away from doing, when the blood spilt by
terrorism and the pain it causes reach intolerable heights, all hell
is lets loose. Everyone "who has a mouth" says something about the
drawbacks of a cross-border operation. Of course there are potential
risks involved in an operation into a country under occupation, where
the issue of who is fighting whom has become completely mixed up,
where the balance between powers hasn’t been established and where
dynamics haven’t settled yet. But is it not unrealistic to expect a
country to take into account potential risks when the current risks
stemming from its inaction are at their height?

This week the government will submit to Parliament a motion for a
cross-border operation. The motion is expected to be supported by all
the parties except the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP.)
However, even the passage of the motion wouldn’t necessarily mean
a cross-border incursion. It is necessary to understand that in the
event the reasons for which Turkey will enter Iraq are eradicated,
there will be no need for such an operation, despite the existence of
a passed motion. Besides Washington and Baghdad, there are also many
things that could be done by the regional Kurdish administration in
order to prevent a cross-border operation.

What I mean by this is not, of course, that it could put pressure on
Turkey to prevent a likely cross-border operation. Just the opposite:
They should expel the PKK from the Kandil Mountains to eradicate the
reasons for a cross-border operation; disarm the terrorist group;
and arrest its leaders and hand them over to Turkey. Otherwise,
neither the potential risks it would have to face in Iraq nor the risk
of severed ties with the US, nor even the repercussions that would
send oil prices rocketing sky-high could stop a Turkey whose limits
of patience are so badly pushed. Apparently, the US administration
has been following a "damage control" strategy in recent days. They
must know that the best way to follow this strategy is eradicating
the reasons for a cross-border operation.

In the meantime, I’m very suspicious as to whether the US
administration, which doesn’t want to fulfill the responsibilities
incumbent on it as a strategic partner, will be able to reach the
degree it wants to achieve its damage control when it is too late.

The same applies to the Armenian genocide resolution case. It’s
impossible to believe that the US administration and the Jewish
lobby have been doing their utmost to prevent this unfair and unjust
resolution.

We should now suspect the friendship and the strategic partnership of a
country that attempts to try Turkish history and convict a whole nation
with ill-founded claims. It is nothing but this suspicion that eats
away at the minds of the Turkish people and causes anti-Americanism
to reach unforeseen heights in this country.

What else should happen and what else needs to be lost in Turkish-US
relations in order to grasp that the most successful of damage
control strategies is stopping the course of events that will lead
to destruction from the onset?