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A New Threat In Iraq
18.4.2007
By David Ignatius |
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April
18, 2007
While the Bush administration struggles to stabilize
Baghdad, a major new threat is emerging in the
Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. If it isn't
defused, this crisis could further erode U.S. goals
in Iraq -- drawing foreign military intervention,
splintering the country further and undermining U.S.
hopes for long-term military bases in Kurdistan.
The core issue is Kurdish nationalism, which worries
Iraq's powerful northern neighbor, Turkey, which has
a substantial Kurdish minority. The Bush
administration has tried to finesse the problem,
hoping to keep two friends happy: The Kurds have
been America's most reliable partner in Iraq, while
the Turks are a crucial ally in the region. But in
recent weeks, this strategy has been breaking down.
As with so many aspects of Iraq, the Bush
administration has wandered into a conflict that is
encrusted with centuries of ethnic hatred. Iraqi
Kurds push their politicians toward defiant
assertions of independence; Turks are demanding that
their leaders move to crush the Kurdish upstarts.
Meanwhile, the American public is increasingly fed
up with the fractious mess of Iraq and wants U.S.
troops home yesterday.
The administration, realizing that it was drifting
toward a confrontation over the Kurdish issue, last
year appointed retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston
as a special emissary. His mission is to urge the
Iraqis to crack down on the militant Kurdish
political party known as the PKK, which uses Iraqi
Kurdistan as a staging point. The Turks denounce the
PKK as a terrorist group and threaten that if the
United States doesn't take decisive action to
suppress it, the Turkish army will.
Ralston is said to have warned top administration
officials in December that the Turks might invade by
the end of April unless the United States contained
the PKK. Other knowledgeable officials are similarly
worried, and one analyst has predicted that the
Turks may seize a border strip about eight miles
deep into Iraq. Ralston has tried his best to defuse
the crisis, clearing a Kurdish refugee camp of
suspected PKK members and talking regularly with
both sides. But the time bomb continues to tick.
A flash point is Kirkuk, an oil-rich city claimed by
the Kurds, which the Turks regard as a special
protectorate because of its large Turkmen
population. The new Iraqi constitution calls for a
referendum by December on the city's future, and the
Kurds are confident they will win the vote. The
Turks, fearing the same outcome, want the referendum
delayed. The Bush administration seems to favor a
delay but hasn't said so publicly, to avoid angering
the Kurds and undermining the constitution.
Turks and Kurds have fired heavy rhetorical barrages
the past few weeks. Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani
warned that if the Turks meddled in Kirkuk, "then we
will take action for the 30 million Kurds in
Turkey." The head of the Turkish general staff, Gen.
Yasar Buyukanit, responded that "from an exclusively
military point of view," he favored an invasion of
Iraq to clean out PKK havens. If the Turks do
attack, counters one Kurdish official, "their own
border will not be respected. They will not be the
only ones to choose the battlefield."
A wild card in the Kurdish problem is Iran. Like the
Turks, the Iranians have a restless Kurdish minority
and would be tempted to intervene militarily against
a militant group called PJAK that operates from
Iraqi Kurdistan. Indeed, top Iranian military
officers met in Ankara recently for discussions with
the Turkish general staff about possible military
contingencies in Iraq, according to one U.S.
official.
Kurdish sources report that the Iranians have
recently shelled Kurdish targets inside Iraq and
that Iranian-backed Islamic groups have attacked
border posts in northern Iraq. The Iranians want to
destabilize Kurdistan, partly to damage America's
wider policy aims in Iraq, Kurdish officials argue.
Adding to this toxic brew is growing tension between
the United States and Kurdish leaders. The Kurds
were furious when they weren't given prior notice
about a U.S. Special Forces raid in January that
attempted to snatch two top Iranian Revolutionary
Guard officers at the Irbil airport in Kurdistan.
Unwitting Kurdish pesh merga troops at the airport
nearly opened fire on the Americans. Although the
airport raid was a failure, U.S. forces did manage
to grab five Revolutionary Guard members at an
Iranian consular office, which embarrassed the
Kurdish leadership. The Kurds feel their friendship
for America has been taken for granted.
Iraqi Kurdistan has been a success story, one of the
very few since the U.S. invasion four years ago. But
its status as a haven and future American base
against Iran and al-Qaeda is in jeopardy. Of bad
news in Iraq, it seems, there is no end.
The writer co-hosts, with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria,
PostGlo
washingtonpost com
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