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Turkey gets a free hand in Iraqi Kurdistan
20.12.2007
By Sami Moubayed
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December
20, 2007
"The Americans are responsible because the Iraqi sky
is under their full control." These were the words
of Massoud Barzani, president of Kurdistan region in
'Iraq' a staunch US ally who heads the US-created
and backed Kurdistan autonomous region in 'northern
Iraq'.
He was referring to the Turkish air strike on
Kurdistan 'northern Iraq' carried out this week.
This was the largest cross-border operation since
the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Barzani knows
- in fact everybody in Iraq knows - that the
operation could not have taken place without the
green light from Washington. It certainly was not a
surprise, since the writing had been on the wall, at
least since October.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan has been
saying it for months and articulated it very clearly
to US President George W Bush when they last met in
Washington on November 5. He said that if the
Americans did not use their influence to curb - or
eliminate - the military activities of the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) on the Turkish-Iraqi border,
then Turkey would have to act in what it saw as in
its best national interest, with or without US
approval.
In the absence of any such US efforts, Turkey took
the initiative, and the Turkish army reported after
the raid: "All intended targets have been
successfully hit." Apparently, the US had "depicted"
Kurdish militias in northern Iraq and reported its
findings to the Turks.
A Turkish official was quoted saying: "It [the
military strike] has international backing. We hit
specific targets. We will do it again if we have
to." Erdogan, who has received parliamentary
approval for an operation into Iraq, authorized the
army to take action on November 28, after the PKK
increased its military operations on Turkey.
On Tuesday, Turkey sent hundreds of troops several
kilometers into Kurdistan region 'northern Iraq',
then withdrew them later in the day. It is the the
first confirmed Turkish ground operation inside
Iraq. In a statement posted on its web site, the
military said ground forces based close to the
border crossed "a few kilometers" into Kurdistan
'northern Iraq' after spotting a group of rebels
trying to infiltrate into Turkey.www.ekurd.net
"A heavy blow was
dealt to the group," it said.
Turkey, a long-time member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), has cooperated with the
United States in anti-communist activities since the
1950s. It has been complaining that the Americans
have done little to nothing in terms of combating
Turkey's Kurdish PKK militants based in Kurdistan
'northern Iraq'.
Ironically, the Americans believe the PKK is a
'terrorist' group and labels it as such. So does
NATO and the European Union.
The US is reluctant to clamp down on the PKK in
northern Iraq for a variety of reasons. They know -
thanks to Turkey - how difficult it is to combat a
guerilla movement. The Turks have been doing it
since the 1970s and they have not succeeded at bring
the PKK to its knees - despite the arrest of the
party's founder and leader, Abdullah Ocelan, in the
1990s.
To date, the conflict has cost the lives of 40,000
people in Turkey - and it is far from being over. If
the Turks, who know the terrain and are fighting on
their own territory, have been unable to eliminate
the PKK, then the US, with its very limited hands-on
military experience, certainly will not. Plus, the
Americans already have too much to cope with,
combating a Sunni and Shi'ite insurgency in central
Iraq.
They are combating - at once - the Mahdi Army of
Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, former Ba'athists
loyal to ex-president Saddam Hussein, and al-Qaeda.
And to say the least, the US is winning none of
these wars. It simply cannot open another front in
the relatively stable district of northern Iraq.
That is why it has turned a blind eye to PKK
activity in Iraqi Kurdistan, enabling the military
group to set up bases, recruit people and purchase
arms for cross-border operations into Turkey.
A second reason for US caution is the fragile
political system within Iraq. America's ally, Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has lost all of his
principle backers in the Iraqi government.www.ekurd.net
The
Sunnis, represented by the Iraqi Accordance Front,
have walked out on him since this summer. So has the Sadrist bloc of Muqtada, which is very powerful
among young people in the Shi'ite community. The
last on the walkout list is former prime minister
Iyad Allawi, who has his eyes set on replacing
Maliki and who represents a secular,
cross-confessional parliamentary coalition.
Maliki's only allies are what remains of the United
Iraqi Alliance, an Iran-backed Shi'ite coalition,
and two Kurdish blocs headed by President Barzani
and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. Simply put,
Maliki cannot risk alienating Iraqi Kurds - who are
supportive of the PKK - or else his government will
become unconstitutional.
The Americans know that and they are afraid of what
post-Maliki Iraq would look like. Violence has been
reduced in recent weeks, thanks to the cooperation
of Iran, Muqtada and several Sunni tribesmen who are
using US arms to combat al-Qaeda. According to
Maliki, violence has dropped by 77%. This is the
first "success story" both he and Bush have had in
Iraq since the killing of al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi in June 2006.
To bolster Maliki and enable him to take baby steps
towards stability in Iraq, the Americans need
Kurdish support for the prime minister. In addition
to backing them on the issue of the PKK (without
actually saying it), Maliki is also in favor of
giving oil-rich Kirkuk, a province between Arabs and
Kurds, to Iraqi Kurdistan. He has uprooted thousands
of Arab families from Kirkuk, they were illegally
brought there by the former Ba'athist regime, in
preparation for a census that was due to be held by
December 31. Approval ratings for Maliki are very
high in the Kurdish community and any hostile action
towards the PKK will ruin his working relationship
with the Kurds.
*
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the
Kurdish city of Kirkuk
and the region's oil industry.
The hands-on reality, however, shows a major u-turn
in the US attitude towards the entire crisis.
Turkish forces have penetrated kilometers into Iraqi
Kurdistan - and the US has not stopped them. It
also, however, did not give them explicit approval
to do so, and it looked the other way.
This is by no means the largest operation made by
the Turks into Iraqi territory. No fewer than 25
similar operations have been made since 1983, often
(until 2003) with the support of the Iraqi
government. This time, however, the Iraqi government
is crying foul play, mainly through its Parliament
and ethnic-Kurdish Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari,
claiming that Baghdad was neither consulted, nor
informed, of Turkish objectives.
That is not true, as Erdogan has been saying it
since 2004. When in October the Turkish Parliament
approved an operation, the Iraqis should have
realized that Erdogan was serious. They probably
betted on the US not letting the Turks attack
northern Iraq. They were wrong.
What makes this operation different is the amount of
information-sharing that has taken place between the
Americans and the Turks. This has been the first
time that Turkish F-16s fighters were equipped with
US-made low altitude navigation and targeting
infrared for night vision that makes it easier to
spot - and hit - PKK positions.
General Yasar Buyukanit, the Turkish chief of
general staff, backed this argument, "America last
night opened [Iraqi] airspace to us. By opening the
airspace, America gave its approval to the
operation." In a strong statement towards the PKK
and its patrons in Baghdad, he added, "Even if it is
winter, even if there is snow, and even if they live
in caves, we will find them and hit them. These
operations will continue all the time ... We know
these places like the back of our hand."
Tom Casey, a spokesman for the US State Department,
made his country's position clear by saying, "We
face a common enemy from the PKK. It is a terrorist
organization and we certainly want to see actions
taken that put it out of business." The same
position was echoed by the European Union.
The operations over the past few days have been a
preview of what Turkey can do in northern Iraq,
although the message carried different meanings to
different parties. The Americans are apologizing to
the Kurds, saying they had to say yes as they had no
other choice. The US would rather upset its Kurdish
friends than bring the relative stability that has
recently been achieved in Iraq to a halt. The
message came across loud and clear to the Kurds,
explaining why Barzani refused to meet US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday during her
sudden visit to Iraq. He was showing how disgusted
the Kurds are with the United States.
Toying with the Kurds - then abandoning them - is
not new to the United States. In 1974, Henry
Kissinger encouraged Iraqi Kurds to riot against
their government in order to drain the energy of the
Iraqi army and divert Baghdad's attention from
supporting Syria's efforts to combat Israel.
Kissinger fanned the flames of conflict in Iraq and
was very generous with the Kurds, prompting Mustapha
Barzani (the father of current Kurdistani president
Massoud) to send him expensive rugs as a token of
appreciation and a gold necklace for his bride on
the occasion of Kissinger's marriage in March 1974.
This, among Kissinger's numerous endeavors, was
revealed during the Watergate investigations of
1976, in what became known as the Pike Report. The
testimony said that Kissinger had armed and financed
the Kurds to dissuade Iraq from "adventurism", such
as coming to the aid of Syria. The report adds, "Our
clients, who were encouraged to fight, were not told
of this policy." The Kurds were never meant to win,
only to weaken Iraq and materialize US interests in
the Middle East. The Kurds - Barzani in particular -
should know better and re-read the history of their
people's friendship with the United States.
The second message was from the Americans to the
Sunni tribes that are using US arms to combat
al-Qaeda in Iraq, known as the Anbar Awakening
Council. These Sunni leaders are very much opposed
to giving up Kirkuk to the Kurds. They were applying
a policy to wait and see whether the US and Maliki
would let oil-rich Kirkuk be annexed to Iraqi
Kurdistan. The fact that no census has been made and
no plebiscite will take place before the December 31
deadline is a strong message to them. The Americans
are saying that they should not worry. Again, this
is bad news to the Kurds. If these tribesmen decide
to stop combating al-Qaeda - or even worse, to work
with it - then Bush is back to square one in Iraq.
If appeasing them means keeping Kirkuk with the
Arabs and letting Turkey strike at the PKK, then so
be it. It is a price the US is clearly willing to
pay.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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