YESTERDAY PAKISTAN, NOW TURKEY
Ahmed Hany

American Chronicle, CA
icle.asp?articleID=41250
Oct 26 2007

One cannot separate what is happening on the Iraqi-Turkish borders
from Condi’s theory of creative chaos or the Congress’ decision to
divide Iraq. The American war on terror did not bring stability
to Central Asia. It spread wide spread chaos that crossed the
Afghani-Pakistani borders. The war for oil did not bring stability
in Iraq. It threatens Turkey now. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party,
PKK is using the Kurdish provinces of Iraq as a base to attack the
Turkish army and to conduct terrorist operations against civilians. To
confront PKK the first question that should be addressed is who arms
the PKK and who finance its operations. Drying up financial resources
and exposing arm providers will be better than engaging into risky
operations. The internal situation in Turkey presses the government
and the army to take serious steps that may not be well calculated. The
repeated terrorist acts forced the government to ask the parliament for
permission to fight. The Islamic government likes to give an impression
that it is as aggressive defendant of the state as the army, which is
the traditional defendant of the secularism. The weak Iraqi government
and the American occupying forces could not extend their control on
the Kurdish provinces that have big militias of an army size with an
intelligence body that had been formed during the sixties of the last
century with the help of the Mosad to make troubles for both Iraq and
Turkey. There is a direct Israeli interest to keep Turkey in trouble
because Turkey is the source of the Euphrates the northern border
of the Israeli project. Israel likes to see Turkey dependant upon
the Hebrew state. It plans to transfer water, oil and gas through a
Turkish under sea pipeline. There is also a direct Israeli interest
in creating a Kurdish state because this supports the Israeli view
of racial and religious division of the region. Lesser-sized Turkey
weakens one of the historical stabilizing forces in the region. The
Turkish government tries three options now. The first is the diplomatic
options to press Iraq to close the offices of the PKK and to handle
its leaders to the Turkish government to be tried there.

The second is to conduct joint military operations with the Iraqi
army and the US army against the PKK bases in the Iraqi lands. Most
probably, the central Iraqi government will just ask the Kurdistan
provinces to close offices. In fact, the provinces are more powerful
than the central government. The head of the Iraqi Kurdistan region
declared that the provinces would defend itself against any Turkish
invasion taking the side of the PKK. Joint military operations will
provoke the Iraqi Kurds against the central government and this will
boost separatists to ask for an official of the de facto divided
province. This leaves the third option open, which is a Turkish
military operation in Northern Iraq. Tactically, it is too difficult
to conduct an effective operation against Guerrillas in a short time.

This will expose the Turkish army to a form of attrition war. The
mountain of Northern Iraq needs compromise with the tribes there to
keep the army safe. Apparently, these tribes will not cooperate. The
advancing army should have good information about the bases and the
Guerrillas’ whereabouts. It has to do its best to avoid civilian
casualties especially that both France and the US’ Congress condemns
Turkey for slaughters against the Armenians under the Ottoman Empire
forgetting, their crimes against Algerians and American Indians. The
strategic risks of a failed Turkish operation are disastrous. The
extension of war into the Turkish lands will revive the Kurdish dream
of a nation in the Iraqi, Turkish, Syrian and Iranian lands. This
failure will be the first step to divide Iraq and Turkey. The domino
effect will affect a wide area from Pakistan to Morocco and it will
be the catalyst of the creative chaos theory. While Turkey fights its
integrity war, it minds very carefully its steps. Enforcing control on
the borders is better than going into doubtful adventures. Drying up
recruiting of the Kurdish separatists and their financial resources
through policy and security is much safer. The Turkish government
recognized the rights of Kurds to use their language and to keep
their culture and more political reform in this direction might be
the best way to deal with the problem.