Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2008
Turkish PM: Qassam rockets don't kill, Israel does
"Relations between Israel and Turkey have become very tense in the last two days, after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that no Israelis have been killed by Qassam missiles, while every Israel Defense Forces attack in the Gaza Strip kills dozens of Palestinians."
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Nukes, Spooks, and the Spector of 911
"Edmonds draws a picture of a three-sided alliance consisting of Turkish, Pakistani, and Israeli agents who coordinated efforts to milk U.S. nuclear secrets and technology, funneling the intelligence stream to the black market nuclear network set up by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. The multi-millionaire Pakistani nuclear scientist then turned around and sold his nuclear assets to North Korea, Libya, and Iran. "
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Iran Becomes the Trade-Off for Northern Iraq
by Jacques N. Couvas - Nov 8, 2007
Triumphalism, which generally prevails in official communiqués and the Turkish media following Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visits abroad, was dimmed Monday night at the end of the meeting between him and US President George W. Bush.
The meeting was called to discuss the crisis in northern Iraq. The expectation of editorialists and the masses in Turkey was that the United States would either commit to an iron-fist crackdown against the militias of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) operating in Iraqi Kurdistan jointly with the Turkish armed forces (TSK), or give their blessing to Ankara to launch a large-scale offensive on Iraqi soil.
But at the end of the 90-minute encounter, all Erdogan appears to have received is George Bush's assurances of friendship and his declaration of the PKK as an enemy common to both countries. Not much for the PM to write home about, as the presidential pitch was identical to the one delivered last Friday in Ankara by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
President Bush, trying to avert an invasion of Iraq by TSK, announced a new three-way military partnership grouping the United States, Turkey and Iraq to improve the sharing of intelligence, and said Washington was considering additional steps.
"We understand there's transit issues at airports," Bush said. "We understand that there's issues with money. We're taking some steps along those lines."
"Step one is to make sure that our intelligence sharing is good," Bush added. "Faulty intelligence means that we can't solve the problem. Good, sound intelligence, delivered on a real-time basis, using modern technology, will make it much easier to deal effectively (with the PKK)," he said.
Erdogan, talking to reporters before departing for Washington, had insisted that his objective was to return from the visit with concrete measures committed to by his ally. "The Turkish people are tired and impatient," he had said, alluding to the lukewarm position of the US administration in the face of escalating violence by the PKK.
Bush's pledges can be interpreted as tangible, but lack the boldness the public had hoped for.
Although no emphasis was given officially to the military alternatives by Turkey, these were certainly discussed during the meeting, as Erdogan had brought with him to the White House defense minister Vecdi Gonul and deputy chief of general staff General Ergin Saygun, in addition to foreign minister Ali Babacan. At the press conference that followed the meeting, he reiterated that an incursion into Iraq remained an option, having been approved by the Turkish parliament in early October.
This crisis is unwelcome by, and potentially risky, for both heads of state. Erdogan is under strong pressure by the population in general, and TSK and the opposition parties in particular, to send troops to northern Iraq and crush the PKK. His preference, however, has throughout his tenure as PM been to find a negotiated solution.
Paradoxically, his followers, including influential members of the Justice and Development (AK) Party, which he chairs, favor a show of might, regardless of its possible length and cost.
Bush is also in an unenviable position on this. As occupation of Iraq becomes a long term endeavor, he cannot forego the support of Kurds, who are influential in Iraqi politics – the country's President, Jalal Talibani is a Kurd – and control about a third of the country's territory, including rich oil fields. His strategy is, therefore, likely to maintain their loyalty while accommodating Turkish nationalism by letting Erdogan save face with his people.
The first moves in this direction became visible just hours before the Turkish PM's visit to the Oval Office. During the weekend, Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki solemnly declared that his government will take all necessary steps to stop PKK activities in Turkish border areas.
His intent was shortly thereafter confirmed by the closing of a number of the organization's offices, and tighter control of the crossing points between the two countries in order to limit guerrilla movements. Then, miraculously, eight Turkish soldiers, abducted in October by PKK, were released.
The suspicion for the sudden change of Iraqi attitude naturally falls on Washington. Erdogan was deprived from arguments which would have given him a stronger negotiating position in his talks with Bush. He had, therefore, to leave the initiative for resolution of the crisis to Washington and its Iraqi friends, letting a threat of incursion float, for the principle.
Carpet selling, however, is not yet over. Each one of the allies, Turkey and the United States, possesses something the other party wants.
Ankara needs to secure stability on its southeastern flank at a time of unprecedented economic growth and growing demand for energy. In addition, it is betting on the Bush administration's support to scrap the US House of Representatives' plan to declare as genocide the 1915-1916 massacres of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkey.
Washington, on the other hand, wants to keep its supply routes to Iraq open, and also convince Turkey to abstain from developing a close relationship with Iran. So, some bargaining has already started.
The meeting on Sunday probably marked its kick-off. For the moment, however, the most likely US course of action seems to be to tolerate a few rounds to be fired by TSK at the borderline mountains, already vacated by PKK, and persuading Erdogan's government and Massoud Barzani's northern Iraqi autonomous authority to put aside bitterness and find a creative compromise.
There are other factors that neither Bush nor Erdogan can overlook. For instance, the Arab states are becoming increasingly suspicious of Turkey's real motives to attack northern Iraq, whose ownership of oil fields it has claimed in the past.
The Arabs, who endured a 500-year long Ottoman rule until the end of World War I, see the development of Turkey into a regional military and economic power as a bad sign, and even fear a Turkish permanent occupation of other Iraqi provinces. Only the US can convince both camps to abstain from any initiatives that might be detrimental to the regional balance of power.
But right now, Iran is at the center of interest, both for Ankara and Washington. The former has in recent months set the stage for a rapprochement with the Shi'ite state. This looks part of a larger plan by Turkey to become a significant player in the Muslim world and particularly in the Middle East.
As negotiations with the European Union for membership are stalling, common citizens and think-tanks alike are pleading for a change of direction as a suitable alternative to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's doctrine of looking towards the West. Ataturk was the founder of the Turkish republic.
In July, Turkey and Iran signed, against protests by the US, a memorandum of understanding that would pave the way to 3.5 billion dollars of Turkish investment in Iran's South Pars gas field.
Iran, in return, has given proof of its friendship by clamping down on PKK separatists living in the country, and by offering mediation in the northern Iraqi crisis. This proposal was politely turned down by Ankara on Saturday, after a quick visit there by Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Mottaki has on occasion accused the US and Israel of conspiring to form an independent Kurdistan, uniting around 25 to 30 million ethnic Kurds living in Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.
Although the plans of the United States on this are difficult for the moment to fathom, friendly relations with Iranian Kurds are part of the US State Department's strategy to keep Tehran in check.
In spite of the Bush administration's classification of PKK as a terrorist group and its promotion on Monday to "common enemy for the US and Turkey", Washington has stopped short of outlawing the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), an extension of the PKK based in Iran. Turkish Kurds fleeing northern Iraq will, in the minds of US strategists, gross up PJAK's ranks and give a hard time to the Iranian regime.
Triumphalism, which generally prevails in official communiqués and the Turkish media following Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visits abroad, was dimmed Monday night at the end of the meeting between him and US President George W. Bush.
The meeting was called to discuss the crisis in northern Iraq. The expectation of editorialists and the masses in Turkey was that the United States would either commit to an iron-fist crackdown against the militias of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) operating in Iraqi Kurdistan jointly with the Turkish armed forces (TSK), or give their blessing to Ankara to launch a large-scale offensive on Iraqi soil.
But at the end of the 90-minute encounter, all Erdogan appears to have received is George Bush's assurances of friendship and his declaration of the PKK as an enemy common to both countries. Not much for the PM to write home about, as the presidential pitch was identical to the one delivered last Friday in Ankara by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
President Bush, trying to avert an invasion of Iraq by TSK, announced a new three-way military partnership grouping the United States, Turkey and Iraq to improve the sharing of intelligence, and said Washington was considering additional steps.
"We understand there's transit issues at airports," Bush said. "We understand that there's issues with money. We're taking some steps along those lines."
"Step one is to make sure that our intelligence sharing is good," Bush added. "Faulty intelligence means that we can't solve the problem. Good, sound intelligence, delivered on a real-time basis, using modern technology, will make it much easier to deal effectively (with the PKK)," he said.
Erdogan, talking to reporters before departing for Washington, had insisted that his objective was to return from the visit with concrete measures committed to by his ally. "The Turkish people are tired and impatient," he had said, alluding to the lukewarm position of the US administration in the face of escalating violence by the PKK.
Bush's pledges can be interpreted as tangible, but lack the boldness the public had hoped for.
Although no emphasis was given officially to the military alternatives by Turkey, these were certainly discussed during the meeting, as Erdogan had brought with him to the White House defense minister Vecdi Gonul and deputy chief of general staff General Ergin Saygun, in addition to foreign minister Ali Babacan. At the press conference that followed the meeting, he reiterated that an incursion into Iraq remained an option, having been approved by the Turkish parliament in early October.
This crisis is unwelcome by, and potentially risky, for both heads of state. Erdogan is under strong pressure by the population in general, and TSK and the opposition parties in particular, to send troops to northern Iraq and crush the PKK. His preference, however, has throughout his tenure as PM been to find a negotiated solution.
Paradoxically, his followers, including influential members of the Justice and Development (AK) Party, which he chairs, favor a show of might, regardless of its possible length and cost.
Bush is also in an unenviable position on this. As occupation of Iraq becomes a long term endeavor, he cannot forego the support of Kurds, who are influential in Iraqi politics – the country's President, Jalal Talibani is a Kurd – and control about a third of the country's territory, including rich oil fields. His strategy is, therefore, likely to maintain their loyalty while accommodating Turkish nationalism by letting Erdogan save face with his people.
The first moves in this direction became visible just hours before the Turkish PM's visit to the Oval Office. During the weekend, Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki solemnly declared that his government will take all necessary steps to stop PKK activities in Turkish border areas.
His intent was shortly thereafter confirmed by the closing of a number of the organization's offices, and tighter control of the crossing points between the two countries in order to limit guerrilla movements. Then, miraculously, eight Turkish soldiers, abducted in October by PKK, were released.
The suspicion for the sudden change of Iraqi attitude naturally falls on Washington. Erdogan was deprived from arguments which would have given him a stronger negotiating position in his talks with Bush. He had, therefore, to leave the initiative for resolution of the crisis to Washington and its Iraqi friends, letting a threat of incursion float, for the principle.
Carpet selling, however, is not yet over. Each one of the allies, Turkey and the United States, possesses something the other party wants.
Ankara needs to secure stability on its southeastern flank at a time of unprecedented economic growth and growing demand for energy. In addition, it is betting on the Bush administration's support to scrap the US House of Representatives' plan to declare as genocide the 1915-1916 massacres of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkey.
Washington, on the other hand, wants to keep its supply routes to Iraq open, and also convince Turkey to abstain from developing a close relationship with Iran. So, some bargaining has already started.
The meeting on Sunday probably marked its kick-off. For the moment, however, the most likely US course of action seems to be to tolerate a few rounds to be fired by TSK at the borderline mountains, already vacated by PKK, and persuading Erdogan's government and Massoud Barzani's northern Iraqi autonomous authority to put aside bitterness and find a creative compromise.
There are other factors that neither Bush nor Erdogan can overlook. For instance, the Arab states are becoming increasingly suspicious of Turkey's real motives to attack northern Iraq, whose ownership of oil fields it has claimed in the past.
The Arabs, who endured a 500-year long Ottoman rule until the end of World War I, see the development of Turkey into a regional military and economic power as a bad sign, and even fear a Turkish permanent occupation of other Iraqi provinces. Only the US can convince both camps to abstain from any initiatives that might be detrimental to the regional balance of power.
But right now, Iran is at the center of interest, both for Ankara and Washington. The former has in recent months set the stage for a rapprochement with the Shi'ite state. This looks part of a larger plan by Turkey to become a significant player in the Muslim world and particularly in the Middle East.
As negotiations with the European Union for membership are stalling, common citizens and think-tanks alike are pleading for a change of direction as a suitable alternative to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's doctrine of looking towards the West. Ataturk was the founder of the Turkish republic.
In July, Turkey and Iran signed, against protests by the US, a memorandum of understanding that would pave the way to 3.5 billion dollars of Turkish investment in Iran's South Pars gas field.
Iran, in return, has given proof of its friendship by clamping down on PKK separatists living in the country, and by offering mediation in the northern Iraqi crisis. This proposal was politely turned down by Ankara on Saturday, after a quick visit there by Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Mottaki has on occasion accused the US and Israel of conspiring to form an independent Kurdistan, uniting around 25 to 30 million ethnic Kurds living in Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.
Although the plans of the United States on this are difficult for the moment to fathom, friendly relations with Iranian Kurds are part of the US State Department's strategy to keep Tehran in check.
In spite of the Bush administration's classification of PKK as a terrorist group and its promotion on Monday to "common enemy for the US and Turkey", Washington has stopped short of outlawing the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), an extension of the PKK based in Iran. Turkish Kurds fleeing northern Iraq will, in the minds of US strategists, gross up PJAK's ranks and give a hard time to the Iranian regime.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Kurdish Crisis Boxes In Neocons
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach, Global Research - November 2, 2007
When Secretary of State Condi Rice descended the stairs of her plane in Ankara on November 2, she must have been thanking her lucking stars that her security detail was shielding her from the massive groups of Turkish demonstrators, who were wielding aggressive signs, some showing her face as the backdrop for a target practicer's bulls-eye, and others saying, "Terrorist Condi: Hands Off Turkey." Condi may have been spared the embarrassment, but the signs and pickets were prominently shown on international television news stations. And public opinion polls reported that the popularity of the US among the Turks is about as low as that of the US Congress among American voters.
The reason for the rising tide of anti-Americanism in Turkey is simple: Washington is seen as the sponsor of the Kurdish terrorists who have been killing Turkish soldiers, from their safe haven in US-occupied northern Iraq.
Turkey is a long-term US ally and staunch NATO member, whose Incirlik military base has functioned as a vital launching pad for US operations into Afghanistan and Iraq. Thanks to the insanity emanating from the Bush-Cheney cabal in Washington, this crucial regional ally has turned into not only a leading critic of their botched Iraq policy, but potentially also a "break-away ally" who will challenge the US in the region, in pursuit of aims it rightly defines as in its own vital national self-interest.
"Kurdistan"
The name of the game is "Kurdistan." Since the terrorist Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK, has recently initiated a new wave of attacks against Turkish targets, killing dozens of soldiers in southeastern Turkey and abducting others, the conflict between the Kurdish insurgents, who aim at establishing an independent "Kurdistan" in a region overlapping Turkey, Iran and Syria, on the one hand, and the sovereign Turkish nation, on the other, has reached such a point that memories of the tragic 23-year-long struggle and its 30,000 dead, have been vividly awakened. No one in Turkey wants that deadly process to be repeated.
This time around, however, the conflict takes on a strategic dimension: it is not "only" Turkey vs. a domestic insurgent force--the PKK--, but, potentially, a new conflict in Southwest Asia as a whole, vectored on war-torn Iraq. For, the PKK, which has recently raised its ugly head again, is operating not out of Turkey, but out of northern Iraq, in what is known as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). And this region, which enjoys relative autonomy, is under the control of the United States, the occupying power. Thus, since the PKK renewed its terrorist attacks against Turkish military targets, {from inside Iraq}, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the military establishment, have demanded that the US intervene to disarm the PKK, apprehend its leading figures and extradite them to Turkey. Paying demonstrative lip service to the fable that the Iraqi government be "sovereign," Ankara has also pressed the government of Nouri al-Maliki to move against the PKK.
The crisis reached an initial climax in mid-October, when, following PKK killings of Turkish troops, the Turkish parliament voted to approve a government plan to organize cross-border incursions into northern Iraq, in hot pursuit of the terrorists. Impetus for the vote had been provided by passage of a resolution in the US House Foreign Relations Committee, on October 10, which acknowledged the 1915 massacres of Armenians in Turkey as "genocide." Turkey saw the committee vote as an affront, as demonstrating an "irresponsible attitude" which could jeopardize US-Turkish relations, and responded by recalling its ambassador from Washington. Furthermore, it was mooted that Turkey could close the vital Incirlik base to US operations.
After another 17 Turkish soldiers were killed by PKK terrorists on October 21, the Turkish cabinet went into emergency session. Prime Minister Erdogan, under tremendous domestic pressure to move against the threat, told the London {Times} on October 22, that his country would move to smash the PKK in northern Iraq. "The target of this operation," he explained, "is definitely not Iraq's territorial integrity or its political unity. The target of this operation is the terror organization based in the north of Iraq" which "must be driven out ... its training camps ... dismantled and its leaders ... handed over." Erdogan minced no words regarding the US reponsibility. "In northern Iraq," he said, "we feel that both the terrorist organization and the [Kurdish regional] administration there are sheltering behind America." He went on to speak about a "trilateral mechanism" which had been discussed, among the US, Iraq and Turkey to deal with the problem, but lamented that it had led nowhere.
The decision by the Turkish parliament to approve cross-border incursions into northern Iraq, sounded an alarm bell in Washington. The well-grounded fear among government officials was that, if Turkey were to make good on its threats of incursions into northern Iraq, that would provoke a reaction of the part of the Kurds inside Iraq. Not only: Kurds in Iran and Syria (as well as Turkey) could join forces with their compatriots in Iraq, and strive to establish their independent state, Kurdistan. This would be the realization of a nightmare vision hatched by the 1916 British-French deal known as the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which carved up the Ottoman Empire among the imperial powers in the aftermath of World War I. The ethnic Kurdish population, dispersed among the regions to become newly defined "states" of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, would come together in an entity, whose emergence would challenge the very existence of those states.
The Founding Fathers of Kurdistan
If Sykes-Picot were the result of a rotten deal between imperial France and Britain, the threat of a Kurdish entity in the region today must be chalked up to imperial-thinking factions in Britain and the United States. It is now an open secret, which the Bush crowd thought it had been able to keep under wraps, that W. and his crew have been long-term sponsors of the PKK, and worshipped as such by the terrorist group itself. On October 30, the {International Herald Tribune} ran an article reporting on the fact that supplies for the group are allowed to pass through a government checkpoint in Raniya. Former American Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris was quoted saying, "That couldn't have happened without their permitting them to be there. That's their turf. It's as simple as that." The IHT piece went on to report how the PKK-linked Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (KDSP), which operates freely in Raniya and Sulaimaniya, has a leader, Fayik Muhamed Ahmad Golpi, who is an outsp oken fan of George W. Bush. After the 2004 US elections, Golpi sent W. a letter, congratulating him and wishing him luck in his plans for transforming the Middle East. The IHT article also noted the role of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), the branch of the group seeking independence from Iran.
Turkey has long accused the US of supporting the PKK and allied Kurdish separatists, on the obvious grounds that the terrorist group has lived and flourished under American occupation in Iraq. It is a well-documented fact that, since the 1991 Desert Storm war against Iraq, the US had set up the notorious "no fly-zones" in the north (and south), which provided air cover to the Kurds (and the PKK). On July 20 of this year, then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul reported on Turkish television, that PKK terrorists had been arrested in possession of weapons manufactured in the US. Gul said, "US officials told us those were the weapons they handed over to the Iraqi army. 1,260 weapons captured from the PKK," he said, "are American made. We documented it to the US." According to the {New York Times} in August, US Defense Department officials confirmed that weapons provided by the US to Iraqi military and police trainees in 2004 and 2005 had indeed ended up in the hands of the Kurds. On October 28, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki joined with his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babcan, in a press conference, to denounce the foreign sponsors of the Kurdish groups threatening to detonate an explosion in the region. Mottaki cited the PKK, the PJAK (or PEJAK) and the MEK/MKO (Mujahideen e-Khalq), an Iranian terrorist group operating also from Iraqi soil against the Islamic Republic. In November 2006, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh had reported to the {New Yorker} that "In the past six months, Israel and the United States have been working together in support of a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan. The group has also been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran."
Ankara: US, Iraq Must Rein PKK In
The Turks have rightly demanded that the US, as the occupying power in northern Iraq, take action to curb the PKK, and have asked the allegedly sovereign Iraqi government to do the same. They have also stated that the KRG, led by Massoud Barzani, has protected the PKK. Erdogan was quoted by {Hurriyet} as saying outright, "[Barzani] is in a position of aiding and abetting the terrorist organization in that region." For his part, Barzani has repeatedly refused to hand over PKK elements to Turkey, "no matter what the cost." Orders to the KRG to close all PKK offices have been cheerfully ignored.
However, as it became evident in late October, that the Turks would make good on their threats to send some of the 100,000 troops they had amassed on the border, into northern Iraq, to seek out and kill PKK terrorists, the Iraqi Kurdish authorities changed their tune. One reason is that Turkey made good on its threat to impose economic sanctions on northern Iraq. Flights between Istanbul and Irbil were stopped beginning November. As reported by {BBC}, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said after a cabinet meeting October 31, that they had started "military, political and diplomatic measures" against the PKK. "The targets of these measures are the terrorist organization and those groups which are supporting, aiding and abetting it," he said. Though no details were released, the measures could entail a boycott of the Kurdistan Regional Government. This could mean a cutoff of food imports, electricity supplies, and other imports. Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari announced a t the same time, that checkpoints were being set up on the Turkish-Iraqi border to cut off the PKK supply lines.
Not surprisingly, the PKK began to cry uncle. Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of foreign relations for the KRG, said November 2, that he hoped Turkey would "reconsider its position and work for a peaceful solution." He claimed the KRG did not support PKK terrorist activity. On November 2, it was reported that a PKK leader, Abdul Rahman al-Chadirchi, was calling on Turkey to present a peace plan to overcome the crisis. This came after Turkish troops had succeeded in hunting down and killing dozens of PKK elements in Turkey.
Whether or not Turkey will move militarily into northern Iraq, will be decided officially, only following talks that Prime Minister Erdogan will hold with President Bush in Washington on November 5. Statements made by Rice, as well as US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, on November 2, stressed Washington's desire that the Turks desist from any such military cross-border incursions. Ankara, however, has argued: if the US waged war on Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, on grounds that elements from those distant countries had been involved in terror attacks against the US, why should Turkey not do the same in a country on its borders? Speaking at a parliamentary group meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the end of October, Erdogan said that he would ask President Bush to "clearly define [the US] road map" to deal with the PKK. He said it was a "test of sincerity, and that if the US failed to act, "we will do our own job" i.e. invade Iraq and mop up the PKK.
Regional Peace Efforts
The dangers inherent in a Turkish military incursion across Iraq's borders, are best appreciated by Turkey's immediate neighbors, Iran, Syria and Iraq itself. These three countries host Kurdish minorities who could be catapulted, by a Turkish attack, into a military campaign to establish an independent Kurdistan, thus detabilizing all three nations. It is for this reason, that the three have taken steps to defuse the crisis before it blows up. In a coordinated effort, Syria and Iran have been consulting to eliminate the PKK threat, preferably without Turkish military action inside Iraq.
On October 28, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan was in Tehran to discuss his country's option of invading Iraq to pursue the PKK. The Iranians told him they did {not} support such a military move. This was an important move, since Tehran had earlier supported Turkey's military moves, and even participated in joint attacks against the Kurdish terrorists. On October 29, Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki visited Damascus for talks with President Bashar al-Assad, and his counterpart Walid Muallem. The latter stated after the talks, "The Iranians have initiated efforts which complement those of Syria, because we want to give a political solution a chance." Mottaki was quoted by the {Turkish Daily News} saying, "The PKK terrorists threaten not only Turkey but also Iran and Syria," and added, "The terrorist operations from the north of Iraq create a destabilizing effect throughout the region." Mottaki went on to Baghdad, for talks there. A meeting was held in Istanbul November 2-3, of the foriegn ministers of the region, and included all Iraq's neighbors, plus the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and some G8 members. It is in this context that Condi Rice travelled to Turkey. As of this writing, the meeting is taking place, and no results have been announced yet. However, it was expected that Iran could play a major role. Mottaki had announced that Iran would present a plan to solve the c risis. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, after meeting with Mottaki in Baghdad October 31, "urged Iran to help defuse the border crisis between Turkey and the PKK and to give its entire support at the Istanbul conference," according to a statement from his office, reported by {Tehran Times}. At the same time, Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari said he and Mottaki agreed that the conference should not be "highjacked" by this issue, and should address Iraq's security overall.
Significantlz, Zebari also called on the US and Iran to continue the tripartite (Iran, Iraq, US) talks which had taken place in Baghdad at the ambassadorial level. Mottaki, according to a report in the Lebanese paper {Daily Star}, said the reported "readiness of the Americans for a new round of talks" was something Iran did "consider positively." It was in this congtext that Mottaki announced that Iran would "deliver a plan regarding the situation in Iraq," at the Istanbul meeting.
This would be key, since the US is the occupying power and chief ally of the Kurds. If the Kurdish terrorist threat is to be eliminated and therefore a Turkish military move prevented, the US must shift gears and move credibly against the PKK. Thus far, the US has merely claimed it is "sharing intelligence" with Ankara. On November 1, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morell was quoted by the IHT saying, "The key for any sort of military response, by the Turks or anybody else, is actionable intelligence. We are making efforts to help them get actionable intelligence." But such claims lack credibility, given past performance. As Erdogan complained in an interview to the {Times} of London on October 22, a "trilateral mechanism" had been set up among the US, Iraq and Turkey to deal with the problem, but it "yielded absolutely no results." Essentially the same point was made by former NATO supreme commander in Europe Ralston, who said on October 29, that a diplomatic effort which h e had led, to stop the terrorist PKK, had failed. During his one-year tenure functioning as special envoy on the PKK issue, Ralston had tried to set up such a tripartitie mechanism, but failed, and this prompted his resignation. Iranian sources have told me that intelligence Tehran had supplied to Baghdad, on the PKK (presumably "actionable") had been welcomed, but that the Iraqis had been prevented by the US from acting on it.
Thus, the key to defusing the Kurdish crisis, which threatens to blow up the entire region, lies in Washington, and in US willingness to cooperate with Iran, the regional power with considerable influence in Iraq as well as Turkey. The simmering Kurdish crisis, therefore, is putting the neocon cabal in Washington on the spot. It cannot have its cake and eat it too. It cannot maintain the PKK and the entire Kurdish separatist apparatus as an asset, and at the same time ask Turkey to continue its role as a regional ally. It cannot pretend that Iraq be stabilized, and at the same time demonize and threaten military action against Iran, the key regional power capable of contibuting to stability. In Washington, the chickens have come home to roost.
When Secretary of State Condi Rice descended the stairs of her plane in Ankara on November 2, she must have been thanking her lucking stars that her security detail was shielding her from the massive groups of Turkish demonstrators, who were wielding aggressive signs, some showing her face as the backdrop for a target practicer's bulls-eye, and others saying, "Terrorist Condi: Hands Off Turkey." Condi may have been spared the embarrassment, but the signs and pickets were prominently shown on international television news stations. And public opinion polls reported that the popularity of the US among the Turks is about as low as that of the US Congress among American voters.
The reason for the rising tide of anti-Americanism in Turkey is simple: Washington is seen as the sponsor of the Kurdish terrorists who have been killing Turkish soldiers, from their safe haven in US-occupied northern Iraq.
Turkey is a long-term US ally and staunch NATO member, whose Incirlik military base has functioned as a vital launching pad for US operations into Afghanistan and Iraq. Thanks to the insanity emanating from the Bush-Cheney cabal in Washington, this crucial regional ally has turned into not only a leading critic of their botched Iraq policy, but potentially also a "break-away ally" who will challenge the US in the region, in pursuit of aims it rightly defines as in its own vital national self-interest.
"Kurdistan"
The name of the game is "Kurdistan." Since the terrorist Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK, has recently initiated a new wave of attacks against Turkish targets, killing dozens of soldiers in southeastern Turkey and abducting others, the conflict between the Kurdish insurgents, who aim at establishing an independent "Kurdistan" in a region overlapping Turkey, Iran and Syria, on the one hand, and the sovereign Turkish nation, on the other, has reached such a point that memories of the tragic 23-year-long struggle and its 30,000 dead, have been vividly awakened. No one in Turkey wants that deadly process to be repeated.
This time around, however, the conflict takes on a strategic dimension: it is not "only" Turkey vs. a domestic insurgent force--the PKK--, but, potentially, a new conflict in Southwest Asia as a whole, vectored on war-torn Iraq. For, the PKK, which has recently raised its ugly head again, is operating not out of Turkey, but out of northern Iraq, in what is known as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). And this region, which enjoys relative autonomy, is under the control of the United States, the occupying power. Thus, since the PKK renewed its terrorist attacks against Turkish military targets, {from inside Iraq}, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the military establishment, have demanded that the US intervene to disarm the PKK, apprehend its leading figures and extradite them to Turkey. Paying demonstrative lip service to the fable that the Iraqi government be "sovereign," Ankara has also pressed the government of Nouri al-Maliki to move against the PKK.
The crisis reached an initial climax in mid-October, when, following PKK killings of Turkish troops, the Turkish parliament voted to approve a government plan to organize cross-border incursions into northern Iraq, in hot pursuit of the terrorists. Impetus for the vote had been provided by passage of a resolution in the US House Foreign Relations Committee, on October 10, which acknowledged the 1915 massacres of Armenians in Turkey as "genocide." Turkey saw the committee vote as an affront, as demonstrating an "irresponsible attitude" which could jeopardize US-Turkish relations, and responded by recalling its ambassador from Washington. Furthermore, it was mooted that Turkey could close the vital Incirlik base to US operations.
After another 17 Turkish soldiers were killed by PKK terrorists on October 21, the Turkish cabinet went into emergency session. Prime Minister Erdogan, under tremendous domestic pressure to move against the threat, told the London {Times} on October 22, that his country would move to smash the PKK in northern Iraq. "The target of this operation," he explained, "is definitely not Iraq's territorial integrity or its political unity. The target of this operation is the terror organization based in the north of Iraq" which "must be driven out ... its training camps ... dismantled and its leaders ... handed over." Erdogan minced no words regarding the US reponsibility. "In northern Iraq," he said, "we feel that both the terrorist organization and the [Kurdish regional] administration there are sheltering behind America." He went on to speak about a "trilateral mechanism" which had been discussed, among the US, Iraq and Turkey to deal with the problem, but lamented that it had led nowhere.
The decision by the Turkish parliament to approve cross-border incursions into northern Iraq, sounded an alarm bell in Washington. The well-grounded fear among government officials was that, if Turkey were to make good on its threats of incursions into northern Iraq, that would provoke a reaction of the part of the Kurds inside Iraq. Not only: Kurds in Iran and Syria (as well as Turkey) could join forces with their compatriots in Iraq, and strive to establish their independent state, Kurdistan. This would be the realization of a nightmare vision hatched by the 1916 British-French deal known as the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which carved up the Ottoman Empire among the imperial powers in the aftermath of World War I. The ethnic Kurdish population, dispersed among the regions to become newly defined "states" of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey, would come together in an entity, whose emergence would challenge the very existence of those states.
The Founding Fathers of Kurdistan
If Sykes-Picot were the result of a rotten deal between imperial France and Britain, the threat of a Kurdish entity in the region today must be chalked up to imperial-thinking factions in Britain and the United States. It is now an open secret, which the Bush crowd thought it had been able to keep under wraps, that W. and his crew have been long-term sponsors of the PKK, and worshipped as such by the terrorist group itself. On October 30, the {International Herald Tribune} ran an article reporting on the fact that supplies for the group are allowed to pass through a government checkpoint in Raniya. Former American Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris was quoted saying, "That couldn't have happened without their permitting them to be there. That's their turf. It's as simple as that." The IHT piece went on to report how the PKK-linked Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (KDSP), which operates freely in Raniya and Sulaimaniya, has a leader, Fayik Muhamed Ahmad Golpi, who is an outsp oken fan of George W. Bush. After the 2004 US elections, Golpi sent W. a letter, congratulating him and wishing him luck in his plans for transforming the Middle East. The IHT article also noted the role of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), the branch of the group seeking independence from Iran.
Turkey has long accused the US of supporting the PKK and allied Kurdish separatists, on the obvious grounds that the terrorist group has lived and flourished under American occupation in Iraq. It is a well-documented fact that, since the 1991 Desert Storm war against Iraq, the US had set up the notorious "no fly-zones" in the north (and south), which provided air cover to the Kurds (and the PKK). On July 20 of this year, then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul reported on Turkish television, that PKK terrorists had been arrested in possession of weapons manufactured in the US. Gul said, "US officials told us those were the weapons they handed over to the Iraqi army. 1,260 weapons captured from the PKK," he said, "are American made. We documented it to the US." According to the {New York Times} in August, US Defense Department officials confirmed that weapons provided by the US to Iraqi military and police trainees in 2004 and 2005 had indeed ended up in the hands of the Kurds. On October 28, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki joined with his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babcan, in a press conference, to denounce the foreign sponsors of the Kurdish groups threatening to detonate an explosion in the region. Mottaki cited the PKK, the PJAK (or PEJAK) and the MEK/MKO (Mujahideen e-Khalq), an Iranian terrorist group operating also from Iraqi soil against the Islamic Republic. In November 2006, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh had reported to the {New Yorker} that "In the past six months, Israel and the United States have been working together in support of a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan. The group has also been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran."
Ankara: US, Iraq Must Rein PKK In
The Turks have rightly demanded that the US, as the occupying power in northern Iraq, take action to curb the PKK, and have asked the allegedly sovereign Iraqi government to do the same. They have also stated that the KRG, led by Massoud Barzani, has protected the PKK. Erdogan was quoted by {Hurriyet} as saying outright, "[Barzani] is in a position of aiding and abetting the terrorist organization in that region." For his part, Barzani has repeatedly refused to hand over PKK elements to Turkey, "no matter what the cost." Orders to the KRG to close all PKK offices have been cheerfully ignored.
However, as it became evident in late October, that the Turks would make good on their threats to send some of the 100,000 troops they had amassed on the border, into northern Iraq, to seek out and kill PKK terrorists, the Iraqi Kurdish authorities changed their tune. One reason is that Turkey made good on its threat to impose economic sanctions on northern Iraq. Flights between Istanbul and Irbil were stopped beginning November. As reported by {BBC}, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said after a cabinet meeting October 31, that they had started "military, political and diplomatic measures" against the PKK. "The targets of these measures are the terrorist organization and those groups which are supporting, aiding and abetting it," he said. Though no details were released, the measures could entail a boycott of the Kurdistan Regional Government. This could mean a cutoff of food imports, electricity supplies, and other imports. Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari announced a t the same time, that checkpoints were being set up on the Turkish-Iraqi border to cut off the PKK supply lines.
Not surprisingly, the PKK began to cry uncle. Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of foreign relations for the KRG, said November 2, that he hoped Turkey would "reconsider its position and work for a peaceful solution." He claimed the KRG did not support PKK terrorist activity. On November 2, it was reported that a PKK leader, Abdul Rahman al-Chadirchi, was calling on Turkey to present a peace plan to overcome the crisis. This came after Turkish troops had succeeded in hunting down and killing dozens of PKK elements in Turkey.
Whether or not Turkey will move militarily into northern Iraq, will be decided officially, only following talks that Prime Minister Erdogan will hold with President Bush in Washington on November 5. Statements made by Rice, as well as US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, on November 2, stressed Washington's desire that the Turks desist from any such military cross-border incursions. Ankara, however, has argued: if the US waged war on Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, on grounds that elements from those distant countries had been involved in terror attacks against the US, why should Turkey not do the same in a country on its borders? Speaking at a parliamentary group meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the end of October, Erdogan said that he would ask President Bush to "clearly define [the US] road map" to deal with the PKK. He said it was a "test of sincerity, and that if the US failed to act, "we will do our own job" i.e. invade Iraq and mop up the PKK.
Regional Peace Efforts
The dangers inherent in a Turkish military incursion across Iraq's borders, are best appreciated by Turkey's immediate neighbors, Iran, Syria and Iraq itself. These three countries host Kurdish minorities who could be catapulted, by a Turkish attack, into a military campaign to establish an independent Kurdistan, thus detabilizing all three nations. It is for this reason, that the three have taken steps to defuse the crisis before it blows up. In a coordinated effort, Syria and Iran have been consulting to eliminate the PKK threat, preferably without Turkish military action inside Iraq.
On October 28, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan was in Tehran to discuss his country's option of invading Iraq to pursue the PKK. The Iranians told him they did {not} support such a military move. This was an important move, since Tehran had earlier supported Turkey's military moves, and even participated in joint attacks against the Kurdish terrorists. On October 29, Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki visited Damascus for talks with President Bashar al-Assad, and his counterpart Walid Muallem. The latter stated after the talks, "The Iranians have initiated efforts which complement those of Syria, because we want to give a political solution a chance." Mottaki was quoted by the {Turkish Daily News} saying, "The PKK terrorists threaten not only Turkey but also Iran and Syria," and added, "The terrorist operations from the north of Iraq create a destabilizing effect throughout the region." Mottaki went on to Baghdad, for talks there. A meeting was held in Istanbul November 2-3, of the foriegn ministers of the region, and included all Iraq's neighbors, plus the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and some G8 members. It is in this context that Condi Rice travelled to Turkey. As of this writing, the meeting is taking place, and no results have been announced yet. However, it was expected that Iran could play a major role. Mottaki had announced that Iran would present a plan to solve the c risis. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, after meeting with Mottaki in Baghdad October 31, "urged Iran to help defuse the border crisis between Turkey and the PKK and to give its entire support at the Istanbul conference," according to a statement from his office, reported by {Tehran Times}. At the same time, Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari said he and Mottaki agreed that the conference should not be "highjacked" by this issue, and should address Iraq's security overall.
Significantlz, Zebari also called on the US and Iran to continue the tripartite (Iran, Iraq, US) talks which had taken place in Baghdad at the ambassadorial level. Mottaki, according to a report in the Lebanese paper {Daily Star}, said the reported "readiness of the Americans for a new round of talks" was something Iran did "consider positively." It was in this congtext that Mottaki announced that Iran would "deliver a plan regarding the situation in Iraq," at the Istanbul meeting.
This would be key, since the US is the occupying power and chief ally of the Kurds. If the Kurdish terrorist threat is to be eliminated and therefore a Turkish military move prevented, the US must shift gears and move credibly against the PKK. Thus far, the US has merely claimed it is "sharing intelligence" with Ankara. On November 1, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morell was quoted by the IHT saying, "The key for any sort of military response, by the Turks or anybody else, is actionable intelligence. We are making efforts to help them get actionable intelligence." But such claims lack credibility, given past performance. As Erdogan complained in an interview to the {Times} of London on October 22, a "trilateral mechanism" had been set up among the US, Iraq and Turkey to deal with the problem, but it "yielded absolutely no results." Essentially the same point was made by former NATO supreme commander in Europe Ralston, who said on October 29, that a diplomatic effort which h e had led, to stop the terrorist PKK, had failed. During his one-year tenure functioning as special envoy on the PKK issue, Ralston had tried to set up such a tripartitie mechanism, but failed, and this prompted his resignation. Iranian sources have told me that intelligence Tehran had supplied to Baghdad, on the PKK (presumably "actionable") had been welcomed, but that the Iraqis had been prevented by the US from acting on it.
Thus, the key to defusing the Kurdish crisis, which threatens to blow up the entire region, lies in Washington, and in US willingness to cooperate with Iran, the regional power with considerable influence in Iraq as well as Turkey. The simmering Kurdish crisis, therefore, is putting the neocon cabal in Washington on the spot. It cannot have its cake and eat it too. It cannot maintain the PKK and the entire Kurdish separatist apparatus as an asset, and at the same time ask Turkey to continue its role as a regional ally. It cannot pretend that Iraq be stabilized, and at the same time demonize and threaten military action against Iran, the key regional power capable of contibuting to stability. In Washington, the chickens have come home to roost.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Former envoy: U.S. driving Turkey, Iran together
Gen. Joseph W. Ralston in 1999, now retired.by Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers - Nov 2, 2007
The retired general who served as President Bush's special envoy to deal with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said the United States has failed to keep its promises to Turkey to confront the Kurdish terrorist group, and Turkey may feel that it has no choice but to attack the PKK's sanctuary in northern Iraq.
Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, in a brief interview, declined to say why he stepped down several weeks ago. But published reports have said that he was frustrated by the Bush administration's failure to act against the PKK.
In his first extended comments since his departure, Ralston told McClatchy Newspapers that the United States is unwittingly "driving, strategically, the Turks and the Iranians together" because both nations share concerns about violent Kurdish separatist groups.
"The U.S. government should make good on the commitments they have made to the Turks," Ralston said.
Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States, while the United States and Iran are increasingly in confrontation across a range of issues.
The White House and the U.S. military have appeared leery about opening a new front in the war in Iraq — particularly in generally stable northern Iraq — by launching assaults against the PKK. Neither the U.S.-backed Iraqi government nor the semiautonomous Kurdish Regional Government has shown any inclination to go after the group.
The officer who commands U.S. forces in northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Nixon, last week said he planned to do "absolutely nothing" to curb PKK activities.
Ralston, a vice chairman of the Washington-based Cohen Group, a consulting firm, said the statement was "directly opposite" promises Bush has made to Turkey.
Asked whether the Turkish military would invade northern Iraq, which PKK fighters use to launch attacks into Turkey, Ralston said: "They're going to have to, in the absence of the U.S. doing anything."
Crisis of opportunity for Iran and the US
by Kaveh L Afrasiabi - Nov 2, 2007
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has stated his determination to turn "the present threats into opportunities" for Iran and, by all indications, the brewing crisis between Turkey and Iraq represents precisely such a scenario, in light of Iran's excellent relations with all the parties involved and its ability to play an effective crisis-prevention role.
On the eve of the much-anticipated high-level summit on Iraq and its neighbors in Istanbul, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was due in Ankara on Friday, coinciding with the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveled to Syria and Iraq. And while on a stopover in Baghdad, he was urged by the Iraqi leadership to mediate the "border crisis" with Turkey.
The Istanbul summit, which includes the foreign ministers of Iraq and its neighbors, plus the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the Group of Eight, is due to start on Friday night and continue into Saturday.
A litmus test of Iranian diplomacy, Mottaki's ability to deliver the goods on this front will undoubtedly help Iran's own crisis with the US and Israel on the nuclear issue. The big question is, of course, whether or not the US, which has reportedly sent signals to Tehran regarding a fourth round of bilateral Iran-US dialogue on Iraq's security [1], will tolerate Iran's mediation in the Kurdish crisis. More importantly, can anyone prevent the outbreak of the present Kurdish crisis from developing into a full-blown crisis, given the admission by various top Turkish government officials and experts that Turkey's invasion of northern Iraq, to deal with the menace of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), is irreversible.
Indeed, so much rides on the flurry of diplomatic transactions, ie, the Istanbul meeting bound to be dominated by the growing tensions between Turkey and Iraq and the November 5 White House visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has stated, "I will only tell him [President George W Bush] that we expect concrete, immediate steps against the terrorists," and the PKK itself, one of whose leaders, Abdulrahman Alchaderchi, has asked Ankara to come up with a "peace proposal".
According to Alchaderchi, the Turkish military has recently conducted 24 military operations inside Iraq and Turkey is known to have massed more than 100,000 troops and several mechanized divisions consisting of tanks and armored vehicles at the border with Iraq. Depending on the outcome of the Istanbul meeting and the US visit of Erdogan, by mid-November we may be witnessing a whole new chapter in Iraq. This could destabilize not only Iraq but also the larger region, given Iran's opposition to any violation of Iraq's territorial integrity and the likely negative impact on hitherto amicable Iran-Turkish relations.
Consequently, a number of security experts in the region have concluded that the US is playing "both sides of the fence" and that it is not in the US interest to cap the Kurdish crisis, especially through any Iranian effort that would enhance Iran's regional influence and may come at the US's cost.
The meager steps on the part of the US, which from the Turkish point of view has ignored the evolving problem for several years, may be a remedy too late and a Turkish invasion and (indefinite occupation of) parts of northern Iraq may be a fait accompli.
Again, much depends on the US's approach, presently wanting in logic, except in the context of US-Iran competition in Iraq. This is reflected in a statement by US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, not only rebuffing Baghdad's bid to get the US military directly involved in patrolling the troubled borders with Turkey, but also adding salt to the wound by hurling the responsibility on the weak shoulders of Iraqi government.
He stated, "We are looking to the Iraqi government to act, to act to prevent terrorist attacks, and ultimately to dismantle that terror group that is operating on their territory." Clearly, the Kurdish crisis is also a crisis of opportunity not only for Iran, but also for the US, which can fish in the muddied waters, with calculated risk no doubt, since this crisis could easily get out of hand and facilitate Iraq's disintegration, much to the chagrin of Iran and its allies controlling the central government in Baghdad today.
Thus while there are opportunities, the inherent danger remains that of a full-scale regional conflagration that will further complicate the US mission in Iraq. And the very mix of incentives and disincentives connected to the multi-dimensional aspects and side-effects of the Kurdish crisis may result in politics of ambiguity in Washington and Tehran that, in the end, fuel this crisis.
Kurdish crisis and Iran's nuclear crisis
The timing of the Kurdish crisis with the escalating Iran crisis over its nuclear program is a complicating factor. But Tehran is pleased with the widening gap between Ankara, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conduit for the Middle East, and Washington as it represents a national security plus for Iran. Indeed, so much can be garnered from a two-day international conference on NATO held in Tehran this week. Its concluding statement reiterated Iran's opposition to any NATO expansion in the region as "foreign to the region's environment".
However, as former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani has warned, the "regional environment is polluted" and the Iranian government must act prudently to neutralize the threats against it. A number of Iranian pundits, such as Mohsen Aminzadeh, affiliated with the pro-reform moderates, has written an article on Iran's foreign policy and threats to national (security) interests, accusing the Ahmadinejad government of "adventurist" and "provocative" actions benefiting Iran's enemies. But, Aminzadeh may be overstating his case and, looking back at the Iran moderates' overall record on national-security issues, it leaves a lot to be desired.
With the Iranian debate on nuclear diplomacy on-going, several developments have made it likely that the month of November will be filled with newsbreaking stories, not only with respect to the crisis over northern Iraq but also on the Iran nuclear standoff, in light of the mid-November report due by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) chief, Mohamad ElBaradei.
This week, ElBaradei's deputy, Olli Heinonen, was in Tehran finalizing the Iran-IAEA recent agreement with respect to "outstanding questions" and nuclear transparency. For all practical purposes, Iran considers the nuclear issue "closed" and ripe for being treated as "normal", away from the United Nations Security Council and in the hands of the IAEA, its proper format.
Yet, given the new "Five plus One" meeting in London on Friday, discussing further sanctions on Iran, the prospects of new UN actions against Iran as a result of Iran's defiance of the resolutions calling for a suspension of uranium-enrichment activities, can hardly be discounted by Tehran. (The Five plus One includes the Security Council's permanent five - the US, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom - plus Germany).
Nor can Iran count on Russia and China's veto of further sanctions, irrespective of China's official rebuffing of Israeli lobbying, or Moscow's stated opposition to new sanctions, reiterated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his surprise visit to Tehran this week. Reports from Tehran indicate that Lavrov in his meeting with Ahmadinejad pushed for Iran's acceptance of a proposal by President Vladimir Putin, which he submitted recently to Iran's spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Although the details of Putin's proposal are undisclosed, various unofficial reports from Tehran suggest that Putin has called on Iran to agree to the "time-out" proposal by ElBaradei. Regarding the latter, in a recent interview, ElBaradei was more time-specific and stated that a "six-month suspension" by Iran to give diplomacy a chance is what he means by 'time-out".
Time-out or not?
This is, indeed, the million-dollar question pondered by Iranian officials, some of whom rightly argue that Iran complied with a prior "time-out" when it agreed to suspend for nearly two years the nuclear fuel cycle, per the terms of the October 2004 Paris Agreement.
What then? That is the key question posed by various Iranian officials, who openly wonder what the time-out option will achieve, other than a stop-gap measure that is bound to raise the crisis anew once the window of time closes and Iran restarts enrichment-related activities.
This is a question that needs to be addressed now. After all, the Security Council resolutions are not time-specific, nor do those resolutions call for the termination of Iran's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty right to produce nuclear fuel, instead of relying on foreign sources.
Therefore, as this author has repeatedly stated, a temporary suspension, no matter how long, will likely appease the UN and expedite Iran's nuclear diplomacy. Iran's new ambassador to the UN, Dr Mohammad Khazaee, has recently written a letter of complaint to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, complaining of the US's "unilateral and illegal" steps against Iran. This is all the more reason for the Iranian government to show more respect toward the UN and its various institutions.
In fact, the Iranian statement at the above-mentioned conference on NATO begins by confirming the role of the UN in global peace and security. Deflecting the US-Israeli war drive against Iran, this may be the biggest advantage of Iran's compliance with the time-out proposal by the IAEA chief.
In the most recent US presidential debate, Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton, under much pressure from her colleagues for voting for an anti-Iran congressional measure, stated that it is no longer a question of "if but when and with what weapons" the Bush administration will attack Iran.
This is ominous news not only for Iran, but also for the world facing record oil prices approaching US$100 a barrel without even one bullet being fired on the Iran-US front, and enough warning for all sides to put in overdrive their efforts at war-prevention. The irony, however, is that the prospects of a regional flareup in the Kurdish crisis may prove to be the fire extinguisher on the other war.
Note1. For more on the need for US and Iran to broaden their dialogue, see the author's Time to broaden the dialogue San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 2007.
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has stated his determination to turn "the present threats into opportunities" for Iran and, by all indications, the brewing crisis between Turkey and Iraq represents precisely such a scenario, in light of Iran's excellent relations with all the parties involved and its ability to play an effective crisis-prevention role.
On the eve of the much-anticipated high-level summit on Iraq and its neighbors in Istanbul, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was due in Ankara on Friday, coinciding with the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveled to Syria and Iraq. And while on a stopover in Baghdad, he was urged by the Iraqi leadership to mediate the "border crisis" with Turkey.
The Istanbul summit, which includes the foreign ministers of Iraq and its neighbors, plus the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the Group of Eight, is due to start on Friday night and continue into Saturday.
A litmus test of Iranian diplomacy, Mottaki's ability to deliver the goods on this front will undoubtedly help Iran's own crisis with the US and Israel on the nuclear issue. The big question is, of course, whether or not the US, which has reportedly sent signals to Tehran regarding a fourth round of bilateral Iran-US dialogue on Iraq's security [1], will tolerate Iran's mediation in the Kurdish crisis. More importantly, can anyone prevent the outbreak of the present Kurdish crisis from developing into a full-blown crisis, given the admission by various top Turkish government officials and experts that Turkey's invasion of northern Iraq, to deal with the menace of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), is irreversible.
Indeed, so much rides on the flurry of diplomatic transactions, ie, the Istanbul meeting bound to be dominated by the growing tensions between Turkey and Iraq and the November 5 White House visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has stated, "I will only tell him [President George W Bush] that we expect concrete, immediate steps against the terrorists," and the PKK itself, one of whose leaders, Abdulrahman Alchaderchi, has asked Ankara to come up with a "peace proposal".
According to Alchaderchi, the Turkish military has recently conducted 24 military operations inside Iraq and Turkey is known to have massed more than 100,000 troops and several mechanized divisions consisting of tanks and armored vehicles at the border with Iraq. Depending on the outcome of the Istanbul meeting and the US visit of Erdogan, by mid-November we may be witnessing a whole new chapter in Iraq. This could destabilize not only Iraq but also the larger region, given Iran's opposition to any violation of Iraq's territorial integrity and the likely negative impact on hitherto amicable Iran-Turkish relations.
Consequently, a number of security experts in the region have concluded that the US is playing "both sides of the fence" and that it is not in the US interest to cap the Kurdish crisis, especially through any Iranian effort that would enhance Iran's regional influence and may come at the US's cost.
The meager steps on the part of the US, which from the Turkish point of view has ignored the evolving problem for several years, may be a remedy too late and a Turkish invasion and (indefinite occupation of) parts of northern Iraq may be a fait accompli.
Again, much depends on the US's approach, presently wanting in logic, except in the context of US-Iran competition in Iraq. This is reflected in a statement by US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, not only rebuffing Baghdad's bid to get the US military directly involved in patrolling the troubled borders with Turkey, but also adding salt to the wound by hurling the responsibility on the weak shoulders of Iraqi government.
He stated, "We are looking to the Iraqi government to act, to act to prevent terrorist attacks, and ultimately to dismantle that terror group that is operating on their territory." Clearly, the Kurdish crisis is also a crisis of opportunity not only for Iran, but also for the US, which can fish in the muddied waters, with calculated risk no doubt, since this crisis could easily get out of hand and facilitate Iraq's disintegration, much to the chagrin of Iran and its allies controlling the central government in Baghdad today.
Thus while there are opportunities, the inherent danger remains that of a full-scale regional conflagration that will further complicate the US mission in Iraq. And the very mix of incentives and disincentives connected to the multi-dimensional aspects and side-effects of the Kurdish crisis may result in politics of ambiguity in Washington and Tehran that, in the end, fuel this crisis.
Kurdish crisis and Iran's nuclear crisis
The timing of the Kurdish crisis with the escalating Iran crisis over its nuclear program is a complicating factor. But Tehran is pleased with the widening gap between Ankara, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conduit for the Middle East, and Washington as it represents a national security plus for Iran. Indeed, so much can be garnered from a two-day international conference on NATO held in Tehran this week. Its concluding statement reiterated Iran's opposition to any NATO expansion in the region as "foreign to the region's environment".
However, as former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani has warned, the "regional environment is polluted" and the Iranian government must act prudently to neutralize the threats against it. A number of Iranian pundits, such as Mohsen Aminzadeh, affiliated with the pro-reform moderates, has written an article on Iran's foreign policy and threats to national (security) interests, accusing the Ahmadinejad government of "adventurist" and "provocative" actions benefiting Iran's enemies. But, Aminzadeh may be overstating his case and, looking back at the Iran moderates' overall record on national-security issues, it leaves a lot to be desired.
With the Iranian debate on nuclear diplomacy on-going, several developments have made it likely that the month of November will be filled with newsbreaking stories, not only with respect to the crisis over northern Iraq but also on the Iran nuclear standoff, in light of the mid-November report due by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) chief, Mohamad ElBaradei.
This week, ElBaradei's deputy, Olli Heinonen, was in Tehran finalizing the Iran-IAEA recent agreement with respect to "outstanding questions" and nuclear transparency. For all practical purposes, Iran considers the nuclear issue "closed" and ripe for being treated as "normal", away from the United Nations Security Council and in the hands of the IAEA, its proper format.
Yet, given the new "Five plus One" meeting in London on Friday, discussing further sanctions on Iran, the prospects of new UN actions against Iran as a result of Iran's defiance of the resolutions calling for a suspension of uranium-enrichment activities, can hardly be discounted by Tehran. (The Five plus One includes the Security Council's permanent five - the US, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom - plus Germany).
Nor can Iran count on Russia and China's veto of further sanctions, irrespective of China's official rebuffing of Israeli lobbying, or Moscow's stated opposition to new sanctions, reiterated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his surprise visit to Tehran this week. Reports from Tehran indicate that Lavrov in his meeting with Ahmadinejad pushed for Iran's acceptance of a proposal by President Vladimir Putin, which he submitted recently to Iran's spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Although the details of Putin's proposal are undisclosed, various unofficial reports from Tehran suggest that Putin has called on Iran to agree to the "time-out" proposal by ElBaradei. Regarding the latter, in a recent interview, ElBaradei was more time-specific and stated that a "six-month suspension" by Iran to give diplomacy a chance is what he means by 'time-out".
Time-out or not?
This is, indeed, the million-dollar question pondered by Iranian officials, some of whom rightly argue that Iran complied with a prior "time-out" when it agreed to suspend for nearly two years the nuclear fuel cycle, per the terms of the October 2004 Paris Agreement.
What then? That is the key question posed by various Iranian officials, who openly wonder what the time-out option will achieve, other than a stop-gap measure that is bound to raise the crisis anew once the window of time closes and Iran restarts enrichment-related activities.
This is a question that needs to be addressed now. After all, the Security Council resolutions are not time-specific, nor do those resolutions call for the termination of Iran's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty right to produce nuclear fuel, instead of relying on foreign sources.
Therefore, as this author has repeatedly stated, a temporary suspension, no matter how long, will likely appease the UN and expedite Iran's nuclear diplomacy. Iran's new ambassador to the UN, Dr Mohammad Khazaee, has recently written a letter of complaint to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, complaining of the US's "unilateral and illegal" steps against Iran. This is all the more reason for the Iranian government to show more respect toward the UN and its various institutions.
In fact, the Iranian statement at the above-mentioned conference on NATO begins by confirming the role of the UN in global peace and security. Deflecting the US-Israeli war drive against Iran, this may be the biggest advantage of Iran's compliance with the time-out proposal by the IAEA chief.
In the most recent US presidential debate, Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton, under much pressure from her colleagues for voting for an anti-Iran congressional measure, stated that it is no longer a question of "if but when and with what weapons" the Bush administration will attack Iran.
This is ominous news not only for Iran, but also for the world facing record oil prices approaching US$100 a barrel without even one bullet being fired on the Iran-US front, and enough warning for all sides to put in overdrive their efforts at war-prevention. The irony, however, is that the prospects of a regional flareup in the Kurdish crisis may prove to be the fire extinguisher on the other war.
Note1. For more on the need for US and Iran to broaden their dialogue, see the author's Time to broaden the dialogue San Francisco Chronicle, July 19, 2007.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Turkey: US stance on PKK will determine future ties
by Agence France Presse - Oct 31, 2007
Smoke from artillery fire could be seen above the rugged hills while at least one Sikorsky transport helicopter dropped off troops and a convoy of military trucks headed for the Iraqi border.
The fighting comes after about 100 members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were surrounded Monday in neighboring Hakkari Province after the army blocked their escape routes to Iraq.
And on the weekend one soldier was killed during a large-scale crackdown on the rebels in Tunceli Province to the north. The army has not confirmed reports that 15 PKK militants were also killed in the clashes.
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the United States that its failure to help end the PKK safe haven in northern Iraq would harm the relationship between the two long-standing NATO allies.
Scheduled to meet US President George W. Bush at the White House on November 5, Erdogan called for "concrete, urgent steps" against the PKK, which Washington, like most of the international community, considers a terrorist group.
"The problem of the PKK terrorist organization is a sincerity test for everybody," Erdogan said. "I will tell him [Bush] this test carries great importance for the region and in determining the fate of our future relations."
He said he would discuss "the groups on which the terrorist organization relies" - an apparent reference to the Iraqi Kurds, who administer northern Iraq and are accused by Ankara of tolerating and even supporting the PKK.
"Our talks [with Bush] will make them better understand Turkey's patience has run out and that we are determined to unhesitatingly take all the steps to finish off terrorism," he said.
The Turkish Army has reportedly massed about 100,000 troops along the Iraqi border after Parliament gave approval for a military incursion into northern Iraq to root out the militants.
Tensions at the frontier escalated after October 21 when PKK rebels, who Turkey says infiltrated from northern Iraq, ambushed a military unit and killed 12 soldiers. Eight troops were captured.
The army has confirmed killing 65 rebels since then.
The crisis will enter a crucial diplomatic stage Friday when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets Turkish leaders in Ankara before Erdogan's Washington visit.
She will hold talks with Erdogan, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and President Abdullah Gul, a US Embassy official said. The State Department had initially said she would be in Ankara Thursday.
Rice will then participate in a multilateral conference on Iraq in Istanbul on Friday evening and Saturday, which Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari will also attend.
Washington is stuck in an awkward position between two key allies - NATO member Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds.
Defying Turkish pressure, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, said he would take no "orders" from Ankara to crack down on the PKK bases.
"I am a friend of Turkey but I am not taking orders from Turkey or anyone else," he told Turkey's Milliyet newspaper in an interview published Tuesday.
He urged the PKK to lay down arms and called on Turkey to consider a political solution to the Kurdish problem, including a general amnesty for the rebels.
Smoke from artillery fire could be seen above the rugged hills while at least one Sikorsky transport helicopter dropped off troops and a convoy of military trucks headed for the Iraqi border.
The fighting comes after about 100 members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were surrounded Monday in neighboring Hakkari Province after the army blocked their escape routes to Iraq.
And on the weekend one soldier was killed during a large-scale crackdown on the rebels in Tunceli Province to the north. The army has not confirmed reports that 15 PKK militants were also killed in the clashes.
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the United States that its failure to help end the PKK safe haven in northern Iraq would harm the relationship between the two long-standing NATO allies.
Scheduled to meet US President George W. Bush at the White House on November 5, Erdogan called for "concrete, urgent steps" against the PKK, which Washington, like most of the international community, considers a terrorist group.
"The problem of the PKK terrorist organization is a sincerity test for everybody," Erdogan said. "I will tell him [Bush] this test carries great importance for the region and in determining the fate of our future relations."
He said he would discuss "the groups on which the terrorist organization relies" - an apparent reference to the Iraqi Kurds, who administer northern Iraq and are accused by Ankara of tolerating and even supporting the PKK.
"Our talks [with Bush] will make them better understand Turkey's patience has run out and that we are determined to unhesitatingly take all the steps to finish off terrorism," he said.
The Turkish Army has reportedly massed about 100,000 troops along the Iraqi border after Parliament gave approval for a military incursion into northern Iraq to root out the militants.
Tensions at the frontier escalated after October 21 when PKK rebels, who Turkey says infiltrated from northern Iraq, ambushed a military unit and killed 12 soldiers. Eight troops were captured.
The army has confirmed killing 65 rebels since then.
The crisis will enter a crucial diplomatic stage Friday when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets Turkish leaders in Ankara before Erdogan's Washington visit.
She will hold talks with Erdogan, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and President Abdullah Gul, a US Embassy official said. The State Department had initially said she would be in Ankara Thursday.
Rice will then participate in a multilateral conference on Iraq in Istanbul on Friday evening and Saturday, which Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari will also attend.
Washington is stuck in an awkward position between two key allies - NATO member Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds.
Defying Turkish pressure, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, said he would take no "orders" from Ankara to crack down on the PKK bases.
"I am a friend of Turkey but I am not taking orders from Turkey or anyone else," he told Turkey's Milliyet newspaper in an interview published Tuesday.
He urged the PKK to lay down arms and called on Turkey to consider a political solution to the Kurdish problem, including a general amnesty for the rebels.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Who's Behind the PKK? In a word: Washington
by Justin Raimondo - Oct 29, 2007
The recent threat by the Turks to invade Iraq in hot pursuit of PKKterrorists has the administration scrambling to appease Ankara and stave off a major blow to its claim that the U.S. occupation has provided "stability" to the region. Kurdistan, after all, has been touted up until now as a model of peace, prosperity, and unalloyed happiness – a foretaste of the country's golden future, provided "defeatists" in the U.S. don't pull the rug out from under our imminent victory. To see this veritable utopia smashed by Turkish force of arms would be a disaster for Washington – but even worse would be the revelation of how we got ourselves into this wholly untenable position to begin with. Worse, that is, for whoever would be indicted and prosecuted for pulling off what may turn out to be one of the most ambitious, and dangerous, "rogue" operations since Iran-Contra.
The serial numbers of arms captured from PKK fighters have been traced back to U.S. shipments to Iraqi military and police units. Responding to Turkish complaints, the Americans claim these arms were diverted by the Iraqis – presumably the Kurdish regional government – but the Turks aren't buying it: if the large quantity of U.S.-made arms (1,260 seized so far) turns out to have been directly provided to the PKK by the Americans, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned, U.S.-Turkish "relations would really break apart." U.S. diplomats immediately rebuffed this suggestion, and Washington dispatched the Pentagon's general counsel, William J. Haynes, to the scene, where he met with top Turkish military leaders. According to at least one report, "The meeting discussed an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Defense into reports that U.S. arms were being sold by U.S. troops in Iraq."
Another clue to what is really going on here is provided by the news that the FBI has volunteered to help the Turks find out where the PKK is getting its funding and weapons – and doesn't that strike you as odd? FBI director Robert Mueller said, "We are working with our counterparts elsewhere in Europe and in Turkey to address the PKK and work cooperatively, to find and cut off financing to terrorist groups, be it PKK, al-Qaeda," or whatever. Yet why would the FBI get involved at all, unless, of course, Americans were somehow involved? Foreign Minister Gul confirmed this to the Turkish media, stating:
"1,260 weapons captured from the PKK are American-made. We documented it to the U.S. These are of course not given directly to the PKK by the U.S. These are the ones that were given to the Iraqi army. Unfortunately some U.S. officers were corrupt. The Department of Defense informed us that a serious investigation is underway."
Is it that a few bad apples are "corrupt" – or something else?
As Seymour Hersh has reported, the U.S. and Israel are financing and otherwise aiding the Kurdish Party of Life, otherwise known as "Pejak," founded to "liberate" western Iran, which has a large and restive Kurdish population. Furthermore, the ties between the PKK and Pejak are more than merely fraternal: they are basically the same organization, sharing not only bases in the mountainous Quandil region of Kurdistan, but also common personnel and leadership.
The sudden outbreak of PKK violence – two spectacular ambushes, one of which resulted in the killing of 12 Turkish soldiers and the capture of eight, who are now being used as bargaining chips – also requires some explanation. Up until this point, the PKK had carried out low-level operations, with groups of six to eight militants planting bombs and generally harassing the Turks on a small scale. In recent months, however, the overall level of attacks has undergone a radical increase, with hundreds of PKK fighters deployed in a single attack and a new sophistication in terms of both firepower and the technical equipment required to pull off complex operations such as the recent ambush-and-capture.
Ever since the Syrians stopped supporting the PKK in the late 1990s, the group was largely incapable of launching major operations and had to content itself with terrorist actions directed at tourist facilities. Membership was down, cut virtually in half, and the capture of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, demoralized large sections of the PKK, amid reports of splits. The revival of the group's fortunes coincided with news of the Pejak-U.S. connection and – tellingly – the disappearance of U.S. munitions and other equipment from Iraq.
Nearly one out of every 25 weapons provided to the Iraqis by the U.S. has disappeared. Furthermore, the system for tracing them never functioned. 370,000 light weapons have been sent to Iraq by the U.S. since 2003, yet just 3 percent had their serial numbers recorded by the U.S. Defense Department prior to being handed over. For some unfathomable reason, the general who was in charge of that particular task – by the name of Petraeus – has never been held accountable for what is one of the biggest scandals of the war.
The idea that "corrupt" U.S. soldiers sold weapons on the black market to PKK guerrillas is not all that far-fetched, but the absence of any system to account for all these guns invites larger-scale suspicions. Could it have been set up that way precisely because the Pentagon – or someone else – wanted to make sure the weapons couldn't be traced? This would certainly facilitate the arming of groups like Pejak, to put pressure on the Iranians and give the serial regime-changers in the Pentagon a huge weapons cache from which to draw at will.
We know that both the U.S. and Israel have been aiding Pejak, and surely this allowed the PKK to feed off of the arms pipeline, albeit "indirectly." The Israeli factor is yet another angle to this story: Seymour Hersh also reported that the Israelis have taken out a rather large stake in Kurdistan, not only investing in several major business operations but also involving themselves in the training of Kurdish "commandos." Could some of these commandos possibly be PKK operatives?
Both Iran and Turkey have pledged to cooperate in eradicating the Kurdish threat, and this cooperation is yet another reason for the general decline in relations between Ankara on the one hand and Washington and Tel Aviv on the other. What was once a tight alliance started to unravel when the Turks refused to let the U.S. use their territory as a launching pad for the invasion of Iraq, and things have gone rapidly downhill since. The regime-changers inside the administration, centered around Dick Cheney's office and the civilian upper reaches of the Pentagon, may have decided that the Turks have to be thrown overboard now that the campaign to target Tehran is going full-gear. If the Kurds' price for subverting the Iranian regime is covert aid for their continuing assault on Turkey, then it hardly beggars belief that the War Party is willing to pay it: loyalty is not one of their strong suits, as Iraq's Shi'ites can readily attest.
I have a great deal of difficulty believing that the large number of confiscated American weapons that apparently found their way into the hands of PKK fighters just happened to show up on the black market, without any knowledge or complicity by higher authorities. How high the "corruption" goes, remains to be seen. What we do know is this: the War Party isn't shy about engaging in "rogue" operations and doing end-runs around the properly constituted authorities when it suits their purposes.
A recent demonstration by Turkish students against PKK terrorism had the protesters denouncing both the Kurds and the U.S. government: "Down with the PKK!" – they shouted – "Down with the U.S.!" In Turkey, at least, they seem to know who and what is behind the wave of terrorism that has shaken the country.
In America, however, it's a different story altogether: the "news" media hasn't really said anything about the FBI investigation and the possible involvement of Americans, nor do we hear much about the U.S. – or Israeli – connection to the Kurdish "liberation" groups, such as Pejak, except from Hersh and a few others. As far as the "mainstream" media is concerned, what's going on between the Turks and the Kurds is just another of those ancient, endless Middle Eastern blood feuds. No one bothers to ask: Why is this old problem escalating now?
That the PKK and Pejak have turned themselves into pawns of the War Party is quite understandable: after all, they want to liberate their people and unite them in the age-old dream of a "Greater Kurdistan." Like Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, they are ready, willing, and able to use the Americans in order to advance their own agenda. The question for the U.S. Congress, however, is whether the American taxpayers are now subsidizing terrorism directed at the Turks in order to further the War Party's agenda.
The recent threat by the Turks to invade Iraq in hot pursuit of PKKterrorists has the administration scrambling to appease Ankara and stave off a major blow to its claim that the U.S. occupation has provided "stability" to the region. Kurdistan, after all, has been touted up until now as a model of peace, prosperity, and unalloyed happiness – a foretaste of the country's golden future, provided "defeatists" in the U.S. don't pull the rug out from under our imminent victory. To see this veritable utopia smashed by Turkish force of arms would be a disaster for Washington – but even worse would be the revelation of how we got ourselves into this wholly untenable position to begin with. Worse, that is, for whoever would be indicted and prosecuted for pulling off what may turn out to be one of the most ambitious, and dangerous, "rogue" operations since Iran-Contra.
The serial numbers of arms captured from PKK fighters have been traced back to U.S. shipments to Iraqi military and police units. Responding to Turkish complaints, the Americans claim these arms were diverted by the Iraqis – presumably the Kurdish regional government – but the Turks aren't buying it: if the large quantity of U.S.-made arms (1,260 seized so far) turns out to have been directly provided to the PKK by the Americans, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned, U.S.-Turkish "relations would really break apart." U.S. diplomats immediately rebuffed this suggestion, and Washington dispatched the Pentagon's general counsel, William J. Haynes, to the scene, where he met with top Turkish military leaders. According to at least one report, "The meeting discussed an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Defense into reports that U.S. arms were being sold by U.S. troops in Iraq."
Another clue to what is really going on here is provided by the news that the FBI has volunteered to help the Turks find out where the PKK is getting its funding and weapons – and doesn't that strike you as odd? FBI director Robert Mueller said, "We are working with our counterparts elsewhere in Europe and in Turkey to address the PKK and work cooperatively, to find and cut off financing to terrorist groups, be it PKK, al-Qaeda," or whatever. Yet why would the FBI get involved at all, unless, of course, Americans were somehow involved? Foreign Minister Gul confirmed this to the Turkish media, stating:
"1,260 weapons captured from the PKK are American-made. We documented it to the U.S. These are of course not given directly to the PKK by the U.S. These are the ones that were given to the Iraqi army. Unfortunately some U.S. officers were corrupt. The Department of Defense informed us that a serious investigation is underway."
Is it that a few bad apples are "corrupt" – or something else?
As Seymour Hersh has reported, the U.S. and Israel are financing and otherwise aiding the Kurdish Party of Life, otherwise known as "Pejak," founded to "liberate" western Iran, which has a large and restive Kurdish population. Furthermore, the ties between the PKK and Pejak are more than merely fraternal: they are basically the same organization, sharing not only bases in the mountainous Quandil region of Kurdistan, but also common personnel and leadership.
The sudden outbreak of PKK violence – two spectacular ambushes, one of which resulted in the killing of 12 Turkish soldiers and the capture of eight, who are now being used as bargaining chips – also requires some explanation. Up until this point, the PKK had carried out low-level operations, with groups of six to eight militants planting bombs and generally harassing the Turks on a small scale. In recent months, however, the overall level of attacks has undergone a radical increase, with hundreds of PKK fighters deployed in a single attack and a new sophistication in terms of both firepower and the technical equipment required to pull off complex operations such as the recent ambush-and-capture.
Ever since the Syrians stopped supporting the PKK in the late 1990s, the group was largely incapable of launching major operations and had to content itself with terrorist actions directed at tourist facilities. Membership was down, cut virtually in half, and the capture of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, demoralized large sections of the PKK, amid reports of splits. The revival of the group's fortunes coincided with news of the Pejak-U.S. connection and – tellingly – the disappearance of U.S. munitions and other equipment from Iraq.
Nearly one out of every 25 weapons provided to the Iraqis by the U.S. has disappeared. Furthermore, the system for tracing them never functioned. 370,000 light weapons have been sent to Iraq by the U.S. since 2003, yet just 3 percent had their serial numbers recorded by the U.S. Defense Department prior to being handed over. For some unfathomable reason, the general who was in charge of that particular task – by the name of Petraeus – has never been held accountable for what is one of the biggest scandals of the war.
The idea that "corrupt" U.S. soldiers sold weapons on the black market to PKK guerrillas is not all that far-fetched, but the absence of any system to account for all these guns invites larger-scale suspicions. Could it have been set up that way precisely because the Pentagon – or someone else – wanted to make sure the weapons couldn't be traced? This would certainly facilitate the arming of groups like Pejak, to put pressure on the Iranians and give the serial regime-changers in the Pentagon a huge weapons cache from which to draw at will.
We know that both the U.S. and Israel have been aiding Pejak, and surely this allowed the PKK to feed off of the arms pipeline, albeit "indirectly." The Israeli factor is yet another angle to this story: Seymour Hersh also reported that the Israelis have taken out a rather large stake in Kurdistan, not only investing in several major business operations but also involving themselves in the training of Kurdish "commandos." Could some of these commandos possibly be PKK operatives?
Both Iran and Turkey have pledged to cooperate in eradicating the Kurdish threat, and this cooperation is yet another reason for the general decline in relations between Ankara on the one hand and Washington and Tel Aviv on the other. What was once a tight alliance started to unravel when the Turks refused to let the U.S. use their territory as a launching pad for the invasion of Iraq, and things have gone rapidly downhill since. The regime-changers inside the administration, centered around Dick Cheney's office and the civilian upper reaches of the Pentagon, may have decided that the Turks have to be thrown overboard now that the campaign to target Tehran is going full-gear. If the Kurds' price for subverting the Iranian regime is covert aid for their continuing assault on Turkey, then it hardly beggars belief that the War Party is willing to pay it: loyalty is not one of their strong suits, as Iraq's Shi'ites can readily attest.
I have a great deal of difficulty believing that the large number of confiscated American weapons that apparently found their way into the hands of PKK fighters just happened to show up on the black market, without any knowledge or complicity by higher authorities. How high the "corruption" goes, remains to be seen. What we do know is this: the War Party isn't shy about engaging in "rogue" operations and doing end-runs around the properly constituted authorities when it suits their purposes.
A recent demonstration by Turkish students against PKK terrorism had the protesters denouncing both the Kurds and the U.S. government: "Down with the PKK!" – they shouted – "Down with the U.S.!" In Turkey, at least, they seem to know who and what is behind the wave of terrorism that has shaken the country.
In America, however, it's a different story altogether: the "news" media hasn't really said anything about the FBI investigation and the possible involvement of Americans, nor do we hear much about the U.S. – or Israeli – connection to the Kurdish "liberation" groups, such as Pejak, except from Hersh and a few others. As far as the "mainstream" media is concerned, what's going on between the Turks and the Kurds is just another of those ancient, endless Middle Eastern blood feuds. No one bothers to ask: Why is this old problem escalating now?
That the PKK and Pejak have turned themselves into pawns of the War Party is quite understandable: after all, they want to liberate their people and unite them in the age-old dream of a "Greater Kurdistan." Like Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, they are ready, willing, and able to use the Americans in order to advance their own agenda. The question for the U.S. Congress, however, is whether the American taxpayers are now subsidizing terrorism directed at the Turks in order to further the War Party's agenda.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The collapse of Bush's foreign policy
From Turkey to Iraq to Pakistan, the mounting chaos proves the White House is just winging it.
by Juan Cole - Oct 24, 2007
The Bush administration once imagined that its presence in Afghanistan and Iraq would be anchored by friendly neighbors, Turkey to the west and Pakistan to the east. Last week, as the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, the anchors themselves also came loose.
On Sunday, just days after the Turkish Parliament authorized an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish guerrillas ambushed and killed 17 Turkish soldiers inside Turkey. In Karachi, Pakistan, a massive bomb nearly killed U.S.-backed Benazir Bhutto, who was supposed to help stabilize the country. The Bush administration's entire Middle East policy is coming undone -- if it even has a policy left, other than just sticking its fingers in the multiple, and multiplying, holes in the dike.
In Iraq, the Kurds of the north are the United States' most reliable allies. In addition to the 5.5 million Kurds in Iraq, however, persons speaking dialects of Kurdish constitute around 11 million of neighboring Turkey's 70 million citizens. There are another 4 million Kurds next door in Iran, and up to 2 million in Syria. All three of Iraq's northern neighbors fear that Kurdish nationalism, which has been fostered by the U.S. occupation of Iraq, could tear them apart. Opposition to that nationalism could provide a platform for an alliance of Syria, Turkey and Iran -- a nightmare for the Bush administration. Washington had hoped to isolate Syria, an ally of both Iran and of Hezbollah in Lebanon. That's not how it is turning out.
Even after Turkey declined to sign on to the Iraq war, then U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz praised it in April 2003 as a dependable ally and secularizing model for the Muslim world. Since then, however, Washington's relationship with Ankara has turned increasingly sour over U.S. favoritism toward the Kurds.
The Turkish Parliament late last week passed a resolution permitting the military to make incursions into Iraq in order to chase down guerrillas operating on both sides of the border. Syria's Bashar al-Assad piled on, appearing to support the Turkish move, though under pressure from Baghdad he denied he had urged an invasion. Iran also fears Kurdish terrorism and has shelled Kurdish villages in Iraq in reprisal for guerrilla attacks in Iranian Kurdistan. Perhaps as a quid pro quo for Syrian support against the Kurds, Turkey offered this weekend to broker an agreement between Syria and Lebanon. Bush's partiality to the Kurds has provided Damascus an opening for newly warm relations with Ankara.
On Sunday, guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) ambushed a Turkish military convoy, killing 17 soldiers. The Turkish military counterattacked, killing 32 persons it said were guerrillas. In Istanbul on Sunday, a thousand demonstrators came out to denounce the PKK. In the two weeks prior to Sunday, the PKK had killed 28 Turkish soldiers. The mustachioed president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, a member of the Islamist-leaning AK Party, vowed that his country would "pay any price" to protect itself. The new tensions have roiled the world petroleum markets, hurt the Turkish economy, and further destabilized an already violent Iraq.
The Iraqi leadership, already presiding over a failed state, agonized at being caught in the crossfire. The Iraqi president, the avuncular Kurd Jalal Talabani, hypocritically condemned al-Assad for urging a foreign military invasion of an Arab country, even though he himself had supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Massoud Barzani, the pudgy turbaned leader of the Kurdistan Regional Authority, warned that his government would defend its citizens and not sit idly by if Turkish troops rolled through Kurdish cities in Iraq. On Sunday, the Iraqi Parliament, having been unable to agree on virtually any internal issue or enact any benchmark legislation, promptly passed a resolution condemning the Turkish Parliament.
The ratcheting up of tensions between Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Authority threatens to throw the last relatively quiet and prosperous corner of Iraq into turmoil. The turmoil is likely only beginning. The Iraqi Kurds are seeking to incorporate the oil-rich province of Kirkuk into their confederacy, and there is strong popular support for seceding from Iraq altogether. Turkish officials have repeatedly said that either move would set off a Turkish invasion.
As usual, the Bush administration has reacted to these predictable problems in a purely ad hoc manner. There is no evidence that anyone in the administration has crafted a policy for dealing with tensions between Ankara and America's Kurdish allies. The U.S. State Department has designated the PKK a terrorist group, but the PKK is given safe harbor by the Kurdistan Regional Authority of northern Iraq. What will Bush do about having wound up as the de facto protector of a radical peasant guerrilla group that is attacking the troops of a NATO ally? If the United States acts against the PKK, it risks alienating the Iraqi Kurds, whose pro-American peshmerga fighters perform security duties and enlist as troops in the new Iraqi army. If Bush does not restrain the PKK, then he is playing Mullah Omar to its al-Qaida and "harboring" terrorists, which he trumpeted six years ago as grounds for war.
Meanwhile, to the east, another supposed bulwark against terror is wobbling. The Bush administration had lovingly brokered the deal whereby Bhutto was allowed to return to Pakistan by military dictator Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf lacks grassroots support and has been shaken by powerful challenges from the country's supreme court, by his brutal crackdown on Muslim militants at the Red Mosque last summer, and by his continued inability to subdue the tribal forces and al-Qaida remnants in Waziristan and other rugged provinces along the Afghan border.
Washington therefore became convinced that Bhutto, who heads the popular Pakistan People's Party, might be able to come back as prime minister and cohabit with Musharraf, who was recently elected president by the Parliament and who has pledged to take off his uniform and rule as a civilian. Bhutto was elected prime minister twice, serving from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996, but both stints ended amid charges of corruption. She had lived in exile since 1999, when a military coup brought Musharraf to power. There are open cases against her in both Pakistan and Switzerland, and Interpol put her on an international wanted list in 2006 at the Musharraf regime's prompting. Washington persuaded Islamabad to drop the charges against her so that she could return.
The huge explosion that greeted Bhutto in her home turf of Karachi, however, suggests that her arrival is hardly the remedy for Pakistan's instability. Bush administration officials were dismayed when some in Bhutto's circle, such as still-exiled husband Asif Ali Zardari, initially accused the Musharraf government of being implicated in the bombing. The prospect of peace between the Bhutto camp and Musharraf's authoritarian military has been put into question.
Bhutto herself was quick to fix the blame on al-Qaida and militants in the tribal areas of the north. More dispassionate observers, such as Afghanistan expert Barnett Rubin, have also suggested that the Karachi bombing may well have been planned by militants in northern Pakistan, where the remnants of al-Qaida are thought to be hiding out. Those areas are ethnically and politically linked to southern Afghanistan, which has seen a resurgence of guerrilla violence.
And in Afghanistan itself, the situation is in a similar downward spiral. More than 5,000 Afghans have been killed in political violence so far this year, 600 of them members of the police. The United States and its NATO allies in Afghanistan allege that a revived Taliban has taken the city of Musa Qala in Helmand province. This weekend, major gun battles in that vicinity left 50 guerrillas dead. Farther to the east in Kunar province, Afghan and NATO troops engaged Pushtun guerrillas, killing 20, with one civilian dead and six wounded. Just last Thursday, a Taliban ambush near Kandahar wounded 6 NATO soldiers.
The U.S. and NATO military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeill, has said that between 40 and 60 percent of the Pushtun guerrilla movement is funded by opium poppies, the source of most of Western Europe's heroin. The dilemma for the Americans and NATO is that eradicating the lucrative poppy crops in southern Pushtun provinces such as Helmand appears to be driving more villagers into the ranks of the revived Taliban. Afghanistan has only some 30,000 poorly trained troops, less than half the 70,000 that NATO had planned on by this point, and the government of Hamid Karzai shows little prospect of being able to stand against insurgents for years to come.
Along with the failed state in Iraq, which has neglected to use any decrease in violence temporarily provided by the recent U.S. troop escalation to effect political reconciliation, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan raises the specter of a collapse of both of Bush's major state-building projects. The turmoil in Turkey and Pakistan damages U.S. relations with two allies that are key to shoring up the countries under American occupation.
After Sept. 11, when the Bush administration launched its global "war on terror," the United States enjoyed some clear assets in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network. In the Middle East, the United States had the support of secular Turkey, a NATO member. The long relationship of the powerful Pakistani military with that of the United States enabled Bush to turn the military dictator Musharraf against the Taliban, which Pakistan had earlier sponsored. Shiite Iran announced that it would provide help to the United States in its war on the hyper-Sunni Taliban regime. Baathist Syria and Iraq, secular Arab nationalist regimes, were potential bulwarks against Sunni radicalism in the Levant.
Like a drunken millionaire gambling away a fortune at a Las Vegas casino, the Bush administration squandered all the assets it began with by invading Iraq and unleashing chaos in the Gulf. The secular Baath Party in Iraq was replaced by Shiite fundamentalists, Sunni Salafi fundamentalists and Kurdish separatists. The pressure the Bush administration put on the Pakistani military government to combat Muslim militants in that country weakened the legitimacy of Musharraf, whom the Pakistani public increasingly viewed as an oppressive American puppet. Iraqi Kurdistan's willingness to give safe haven to the PKK alienated Turkey from both the new Iraqi government and its American patrons. Search-and-destroy missions in Afghanistan have predictably turned increasing numbers of Pushtun villagers against the United States, NATO and Karzai. The thunder of the bomb in Karachi and the Turkish shells in Iraqi Kurdistan may well be the sound of Bush losing his "war on terror."
by Juan Cole - Oct 24, 2007
The Bush administration once imagined that its presence in Afghanistan and Iraq would be anchored by friendly neighbors, Turkey to the west and Pakistan to the east. Last week, as the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, the anchors themselves also came loose.
On Sunday, just days after the Turkish Parliament authorized an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish guerrillas ambushed and killed 17 Turkish soldiers inside Turkey. In Karachi, Pakistan, a massive bomb nearly killed U.S.-backed Benazir Bhutto, who was supposed to help stabilize the country. The Bush administration's entire Middle East policy is coming undone -- if it even has a policy left, other than just sticking its fingers in the multiple, and multiplying, holes in the dike.
In Iraq, the Kurds of the north are the United States' most reliable allies. In addition to the 5.5 million Kurds in Iraq, however, persons speaking dialects of Kurdish constitute around 11 million of neighboring Turkey's 70 million citizens. There are another 4 million Kurds next door in Iran, and up to 2 million in Syria. All three of Iraq's northern neighbors fear that Kurdish nationalism, which has been fostered by the U.S. occupation of Iraq, could tear them apart. Opposition to that nationalism could provide a platform for an alliance of Syria, Turkey and Iran -- a nightmare for the Bush administration. Washington had hoped to isolate Syria, an ally of both Iran and of Hezbollah in Lebanon. That's not how it is turning out.
Even after Turkey declined to sign on to the Iraq war, then U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz praised it in April 2003 as a dependable ally and secularizing model for the Muslim world. Since then, however, Washington's relationship with Ankara has turned increasingly sour over U.S. favoritism toward the Kurds.
The Turkish Parliament late last week passed a resolution permitting the military to make incursions into Iraq in order to chase down guerrillas operating on both sides of the border. Syria's Bashar al-Assad piled on, appearing to support the Turkish move, though under pressure from Baghdad he denied he had urged an invasion. Iran also fears Kurdish terrorism and has shelled Kurdish villages in Iraq in reprisal for guerrilla attacks in Iranian Kurdistan. Perhaps as a quid pro quo for Syrian support against the Kurds, Turkey offered this weekend to broker an agreement between Syria and Lebanon. Bush's partiality to the Kurds has provided Damascus an opening for newly warm relations with Ankara.
On Sunday, guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) ambushed a Turkish military convoy, killing 17 soldiers. The Turkish military counterattacked, killing 32 persons it said were guerrillas. In Istanbul on Sunday, a thousand demonstrators came out to denounce the PKK. In the two weeks prior to Sunday, the PKK had killed 28 Turkish soldiers. The mustachioed president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, a member of the Islamist-leaning AK Party, vowed that his country would "pay any price" to protect itself. The new tensions have roiled the world petroleum markets, hurt the Turkish economy, and further destabilized an already violent Iraq.
The Iraqi leadership, already presiding over a failed state, agonized at being caught in the crossfire. The Iraqi president, the avuncular Kurd Jalal Talabani, hypocritically condemned al-Assad for urging a foreign military invasion of an Arab country, even though he himself had supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Massoud Barzani, the pudgy turbaned leader of the Kurdistan Regional Authority, warned that his government would defend its citizens and not sit idly by if Turkish troops rolled through Kurdish cities in Iraq. On Sunday, the Iraqi Parliament, having been unable to agree on virtually any internal issue or enact any benchmark legislation, promptly passed a resolution condemning the Turkish Parliament.
The ratcheting up of tensions between Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Authority threatens to throw the last relatively quiet and prosperous corner of Iraq into turmoil. The turmoil is likely only beginning. The Iraqi Kurds are seeking to incorporate the oil-rich province of Kirkuk into their confederacy, and there is strong popular support for seceding from Iraq altogether. Turkish officials have repeatedly said that either move would set off a Turkish invasion.
As usual, the Bush administration has reacted to these predictable problems in a purely ad hoc manner. There is no evidence that anyone in the administration has crafted a policy for dealing with tensions between Ankara and America's Kurdish allies. The U.S. State Department has designated the PKK a terrorist group, but the PKK is given safe harbor by the Kurdistan Regional Authority of northern Iraq. What will Bush do about having wound up as the de facto protector of a radical peasant guerrilla group that is attacking the troops of a NATO ally? If the United States acts against the PKK, it risks alienating the Iraqi Kurds, whose pro-American peshmerga fighters perform security duties and enlist as troops in the new Iraqi army. If Bush does not restrain the PKK, then he is playing Mullah Omar to its al-Qaida and "harboring" terrorists, which he trumpeted six years ago as grounds for war.
Meanwhile, to the east, another supposed bulwark against terror is wobbling. The Bush administration had lovingly brokered the deal whereby Bhutto was allowed to return to Pakistan by military dictator Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf lacks grassroots support and has been shaken by powerful challenges from the country's supreme court, by his brutal crackdown on Muslim militants at the Red Mosque last summer, and by his continued inability to subdue the tribal forces and al-Qaida remnants in Waziristan and other rugged provinces along the Afghan border.
Washington therefore became convinced that Bhutto, who heads the popular Pakistan People's Party, might be able to come back as prime minister and cohabit with Musharraf, who was recently elected president by the Parliament and who has pledged to take off his uniform and rule as a civilian. Bhutto was elected prime minister twice, serving from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996, but both stints ended amid charges of corruption. She had lived in exile since 1999, when a military coup brought Musharraf to power. There are open cases against her in both Pakistan and Switzerland, and Interpol put her on an international wanted list in 2006 at the Musharraf regime's prompting. Washington persuaded Islamabad to drop the charges against her so that she could return.
The huge explosion that greeted Bhutto in her home turf of Karachi, however, suggests that her arrival is hardly the remedy for Pakistan's instability. Bush administration officials were dismayed when some in Bhutto's circle, such as still-exiled husband Asif Ali Zardari, initially accused the Musharraf government of being implicated in the bombing. The prospect of peace between the Bhutto camp and Musharraf's authoritarian military has been put into question.
Bhutto herself was quick to fix the blame on al-Qaida and militants in the tribal areas of the north. More dispassionate observers, such as Afghanistan expert Barnett Rubin, have also suggested that the Karachi bombing may well have been planned by militants in northern Pakistan, where the remnants of al-Qaida are thought to be hiding out. Those areas are ethnically and politically linked to southern Afghanistan, which has seen a resurgence of guerrilla violence.
And in Afghanistan itself, the situation is in a similar downward spiral. More than 5,000 Afghans have been killed in political violence so far this year, 600 of them members of the police. The United States and its NATO allies in Afghanistan allege that a revived Taliban has taken the city of Musa Qala in Helmand province. This weekend, major gun battles in that vicinity left 50 guerrillas dead. Farther to the east in Kunar province, Afghan and NATO troops engaged Pushtun guerrillas, killing 20, with one civilian dead and six wounded. Just last Thursday, a Taliban ambush near Kandahar wounded 6 NATO soldiers.
The U.S. and NATO military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeill, has said that between 40 and 60 percent of the Pushtun guerrilla movement is funded by opium poppies, the source of most of Western Europe's heroin. The dilemma for the Americans and NATO is that eradicating the lucrative poppy crops in southern Pushtun provinces such as Helmand appears to be driving more villagers into the ranks of the revived Taliban. Afghanistan has only some 30,000 poorly trained troops, less than half the 70,000 that NATO had planned on by this point, and the government of Hamid Karzai shows little prospect of being able to stand against insurgents for years to come.
Along with the failed state in Iraq, which has neglected to use any decrease in violence temporarily provided by the recent U.S. troop escalation to effect political reconciliation, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan raises the specter of a collapse of both of Bush's major state-building projects. The turmoil in Turkey and Pakistan damages U.S. relations with two allies that are key to shoring up the countries under American occupation.
After Sept. 11, when the Bush administration launched its global "war on terror," the United States enjoyed some clear assets in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network. In the Middle East, the United States had the support of secular Turkey, a NATO member. The long relationship of the powerful Pakistani military with that of the United States enabled Bush to turn the military dictator Musharraf against the Taliban, which Pakistan had earlier sponsored. Shiite Iran announced that it would provide help to the United States in its war on the hyper-Sunni Taliban regime. Baathist Syria and Iraq, secular Arab nationalist regimes, were potential bulwarks against Sunni radicalism in the Levant.
Like a drunken millionaire gambling away a fortune at a Las Vegas casino, the Bush administration squandered all the assets it began with by invading Iraq and unleashing chaos in the Gulf. The secular Baath Party in Iraq was replaced by Shiite fundamentalists, Sunni Salafi fundamentalists and Kurdish separatists. The pressure the Bush administration put on the Pakistani military government to combat Muslim militants in that country weakened the legitimacy of Musharraf, whom the Pakistani public increasingly viewed as an oppressive American puppet. Iraqi Kurdistan's willingness to give safe haven to the PKK alienated Turkey from both the new Iraqi government and its American patrons. Search-and-destroy missions in Afghanistan have predictably turned increasing numbers of Pushtun villagers against the United States, NATO and Karzai. The thunder of the bomb in Karachi and the Turkish shells in Iraqi Kurdistan may well be the sound of Bush losing his "war on terror."
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Report: Israel marring Turkey-US ties
Press TV News - Oct 24, 2007
The recent crisis in US-Turkish relations is embedded in the Israeli lobby's concern over Turkey's closer ties with Iran and Syria.
According to a report carried on the Rense website Wednesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Turkey's other erstwhile friends, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), are concerned about its amicable ties with the mentioned countries.
The report adds that the Israeli lobby, withdrawing support for their former allies in Turkey, have pushed for the approval of the Armenian genocide resolution.
Turkey, Syria, and Iran are cooperating in battling PKK forces on their respective territories. It appears that Israel is willing to sacrifice its past close relations with Turkey in its support for the Kurds.
Israel's Mossad has re-established close links with the Kurds in the region and is creating tension between Iran, Turkey, and the Kurds, the report notes.
The election of an Islamic-minded government in Turkey has been another reason for AIPAC, the ADL, and the neocons in Washington to turn up the heat on Ankara.
Adding to the anger of the Israel lobby was the recent natural gas deal inked between Syria, Iran, and Turkey. Iran will provide Syria with Iranian gas via Turkish pipelines.
Turkey has already blamed Israel for the passage by the US House International Relations Committee of the Armenian genocide resolution.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan reportedly told Israeli president Shimon Peres earlier this month that since Israel ultimately controls Jewish-American organizations like the ADL, Turkey held Israel partly responsible for the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution.
The recent crisis in US-Turkish relations is embedded in the Israeli lobby's concern over Turkey's closer ties with Iran and Syria.
According to a report carried on the Rense website Wednesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Turkey's other erstwhile friends, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), are concerned about its amicable ties with the mentioned countries.
The report adds that the Israeli lobby, withdrawing support for their former allies in Turkey, have pushed for the approval of the Armenian genocide resolution.
Turkey, Syria, and Iran are cooperating in battling PKK forces on their respective territories. It appears that Israel is willing to sacrifice its past close relations with Turkey in its support for the Kurds.
Israel's Mossad has re-established close links with the Kurds in the region and is creating tension between Iran, Turkey, and the Kurds, the report notes.
The election of an Islamic-minded government in Turkey has been another reason for AIPAC, the ADL, and the neocons in Washington to turn up the heat on Ankara.
Adding to the anger of the Israel lobby was the recent natural gas deal inked between Syria, Iran, and Turkey. Iran will provide Syria with Iranian gas via Turkish pipelines.
Turkey has already blamed Israel for the passage by the US House International Relations Committee of the Armenian genocide resolution.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan reportedly told Israeli president Shimon Peres earlier this month that since Israel ultimately controls Jewish-American organizations like the ADL, Turkey held Israel partly responsible for the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
PM Erdoğan to press Olmert to give up supporting Iraqi Kurds
Today's Zaman - Oct 23, 2007
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will bring the issue of Israeli experts' training of military forces in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq to the agenda in his talks with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Olmert, scheduled to take place today in the British capital.
A spokesperson for Olmert, who arrived in Paris on Sunday, announced on Monday that he will meet with Erdoğan today in London. Erdoğan departed yesterday from Ankara for London for an official visit during which he will also have talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Although Olmert's spokesperson said in Paris that talks between the Israeli and Turkish leaders would focus on Iran's nuclear ambitions and Israeli-Palestinian peace moves, a senior Turkish governmental official, speaking with Today's Zaman on Monday on condition of anonymity, said Erdoğan was carrying Turkish intelligence reports concerning Israeli activity in northern Iraq -- where Israeli experts have been training Iraqi Kurdish military forces -- to London. He will urge Olmert to put an end to these activities, at a time when Turkey intends to launch a military operation into northern Iraq to tackle the presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) there.
In November 2006, Pulitzer Prize-winning, leading American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that the PKK's Iranian offshoot, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which has been behind a string of deadly attacks on security forces in northwestern Iran in recent months, received support from the US as well as Israel, which fears Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will bring the issue of Israeli experts' training of military forces in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq to the agenda in his talks with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Olmert, scheduled to take place today in the British capital.
A spokesperson for Olmert, who arrived in Paris on Sunday, announced on Monday that he will meet with Erdoğan today in London. Erdoğan departed yesterday from Ankara for London for an official visit during which he will also have talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Although Olmert's spokesperson said in Paris that talks between the Israeli and Turkish leaders would focus on Iran's nuclear ambitions and Israeli-Palestinian peace moves, a senior Turkish governmental official, speaking with Today's Zaman on Monday on condition of anonymity, said Erdoğan was carrying Turkish intelligence reports concerning Israeli activity in northern Iraq -- where Israeli experts have been training Iraqi Kurdish military forces -- to London. He will urge Olmert to put an end to these activities, at a time when Turkey intends to launch a military operation into northern Iraq to tackle the presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) there.
In November 2006, Pulitzer Prize-winning, leading American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that the PKK's Iranian offshoot, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which has been behind a string of deadly attacks on security forces in northwestern Iran in recent months, received support from the US as well as Israel, which fears Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Yet another Pelosi stumble
Can't this speaker do anything right?
by DAN K. THOMASSON - Oct 17, 207
It is not unusual for members of Congress to put their own political welfare above the nation's interests. It happens all the time to one degree or another. But every time it occurs, it punctuates the fallibility of the system.
Take the current brouhaha over a congressional resolution that would declare 92 years after the fact that the death of a million Armenians at the hands of what was then the Ottoman Empire was genocide, as if anyone who was aware of the 1915 slaughter had any doubts about it. After all, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a sure bet it's a duck. But what might seem like a harmless gesture to appease Armenian Americans by officially declaring it so all these decades later is threatening to cause a serious break in relations with Turkey, an ally we can't afford to lose.
One expects the Speaker of the House to be far more responsible, particularly when it comes to dealing with irresponsible, emotional demands of constituents. But what Nancy Pelosi seems to have forgotten is that her position makes her the next in line to be president of the United States after the vice president and that at times that may require putting the national interests ahead of political expediency no matter how many Armenian Americans are in her district.
So ignoring the possible consequences of a diplomatic break, which both Turkish and U.S. authorities warn is a real possibility, Pelosi has allowed the politically mischievous resolution to be voted out of committee and has further inflamed the situation by promising the issue would be taken up by the full House. The result of this, among other things, has been to increase the possibility of a Turkish invasion of Northern Iraq to quell Kurdish separatists who Turks regard as terrorists and the cutting off of vital supply lines and bases for U.S. troops.
Short of calling for actual reparations to the descendents of the 1915 victims at the threat of bombing Istanbul and sending a nasty letter to every Turk over there and here, Pelosi and the resolution's sponsors couldn't have done more to undercut American interests. Nothing apparently said by a desperate White House backed up by the last nine secretaries of state has so far been able to dissuade the speaker who came to the high office promising to quell the incivility of a place that often more resembles a juvenile detention center than a legislature. Well, how does one spell bipartisanship now that it is needed. No wonder the only approval rating lower than Bush's belongs to Congress.
Even if the process were halted now, experts believe, the committee vote alone has caused severe harm to relations between the two countries. There are, they say, enormous hard feelings among Turks who increasingly believe that the United States is a one-way ally. As a result U.S. influence over actions that could be devastating to this nation's interests has diminished dramatically. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan already is taking considerable heat from his own military over what is seen as acquiescence to Washington over the Kurdish situation and now he faces a public that is enormously angry over the genocide resolution. A recent poll shows that Turks are more and more hostile toward the United States.
What seems terribly disappointing here is that the speaker's extreme partisanship continues to pervade the atmosphere in the House. She cut her teeth on the partisan ward politics of Baltimore where her father was mayor and has shown that side of her nature throughout her congressional career, especially when she was Democratic leader before ascending to House Speaker. If ever there were a time to put that aside, it is now. She is a smart, capable politician who certainly knows the consequences of such an irresponsible action.
That is why it seems inconceivable that she would allow it to go forward. The only explanation seems to be that she is concerned about her own reelection in an extremely liberal district where there is a strong Armenian American presence. Her inability to change the direction of the war in Iraq has been criticized by liberals. Her San Francisco opponent is Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist whose son was killed in Iraq, and whose shrill campaigning has made some inroads on Pelosi's popularity.
Even if that is her worry, it is time for her and those with similar concerns to dump this resolution in the Potomac and pray it is not too late to put things right with a much -needed ally. Hopefully, there are a few statesmen left in Congress.
by DAN K. THOMASSON - Oct 17, 207
It is not unusual for members of Congress to put their own political welfare above the nation's interests. It happens all the time to one degree or another. But every time it occurs, it punctuates the fallibility of the system.
Take the current brouhaha over a congressional resolution that would declare 92 years after the fact that the death of a million Armenians at the hands of what was then the Ottoman Empire was genocide, as if anyone who was aware of the 1915 slaughter had any doubts about it. After all, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a sure bet it's a duck. But what might seem like a harmless gesture to appease Armenian Americans by officially declaring it so all these decades later is threatening to cause a serious break in relations with Turkey, an ally we can't afford to lose.
One expects the Speaker of the House to be far more responsible, particularly when it comes to dealing with irresponsible, emotional demands of constituents. But what Nancy Pelosi seems to have forgotten is that her position makes her the next in line to be president of the United States after the vice president and that at times that may require putting the national interests ahead of political expediency no matter how many Armenian Americans are in her district.
So ignoring the possible consequences of a diplomatic break, which both Turkish and U.S. authorities warn is a real possibility, Pelosi has allowed the politically mischievous resolution to be voted out of committee and has further inflamed the situation by promising the issue would be taken up by the full House. The result of this, among other things, has been to increase the possibility of a Turkish invasion of Northern Iraq to quell Kurdish separatists who Turks regard as terrorists and the cutting off of vital supply lines and bases for U.S. troops.
Short of calling for actual reparations to the descendents of the 1915 victims at the threat of bombing Istanbul and sending a nasty letter to every Turk over there and here, Pelosi and the resolution's sponsors couldn't have done more to undercut American interests. Nothing apparently said by a desperate White House backed up by the last nine secretaries of state has so far been able to dissuade the speaker who came to the high office promising to quell the incivility of a place that often more resembles a juvenile detention center than a legislature. Well, how does one spell bipartisanship now that it is needed. No wonder the only approval rating lower than Bush's belongs to Congress.
Even if the process were halted now, experts believe, the committee vote alone has caused severe harm to relations between the two countries. There are, they say, enormous hard feelings among Turks who increasingly believe that the United States is a one-way ally. As a result U.S. influence over actions that could be devastating to this nation's interests has diminished dramatically. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan already is taking considerable heat from his own military over what is seen as acquiescence to Washington over the Kurdish situation and now he faces a public that is enormously angry over the genocide resolution. A recent poll shows that Turks are more and more hostile toward the United States.
What seems terribly disappointing here is that the speaker's extreme partisanship continues to pervade the atmosphere in the House. She cut her teeth on the partisan ward politics of Baltimore where her father was mayor and has shown that side of her nature throughout her congressional career, especially when she was Democratic leader before ascending to House Speaker. If ever there were a time to put that aside, it is now. She is a smart, capable politician who certainly knows the consequences of such an irresponsible action.
That is why it seems inconceivable that she would allow it to go forward. The only explanation seems to be that she is concerned about her own reelection in an extremely liberal district where there is a strong Armenian American presence. Her inability to change the direction of the war in Iraq has been criticized by liberals. Her San Francisco opponent is Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist whose son was killed in Iraq, and whose shrill campaigning has made some inroads on Pelosi's popularity.
Even if that is her worry, it is time for her and those with similar concerns to dump this resolution in the Potomac and pray it is not too late to put things right with a much -needed ally. Hopefully, there are a few statesmen left in Congress.
Cold Turkey: Neocon Ignorance Reaps Another Disaster
by Christopher Manion - Oct 16, 2007
As usual, the left-right neocon sites are full of self-righteous puffing again. This time around, they’re blaming Nancy Pelosi for losing our "good ally" Turkey in the middle of their little war to export democracy. Pelosi, it appears, is prepared to allow a House vote condemning Turkey for the "Armenian genocide" that wiped out countless Armenians about a century ago. And Turkey is decidedly unhappy about it.
As usual, the neocons are outraged that foreign countries might actually act based on their assessment of how the U.S. government has acted towards them. This simple fact of human reality was famously denied by debater Rudy Giuliani when he feigned amazement when Ron Paul made reference to it. Giuliani bristled at Paul’s observation that the behavior of Islamic countries might indeed be influenced by the way the U.S. government has acted towards them.
Giuliani, like Bush, is ignorant of foreign affairs (unless one considers the Upper East Side to be foreign territory). That should constitute a mortal wound to any serious candidacy. In today’s world of spin, alas, it threatens instead a mortal wound to our country’s well-being, if Giuliani’s ignorance is catapulted into the White House after the 2008 elections. Sadly, Giuliani’s ignorance of the world is shared by most of the candidates of both parties (naturally, with the exception of Congressman Ron Paul).
Twenty years ago I was in Turkey, observing an election as a senate foreign policy staffer. Instead of staying in major cities, I asked my hosts to head out to the middle of nowhere, asking them to turn here, then there, as we drove for hours visiting random towns and villages in the middle of the Anatolian plain. After driving for a while on the afternoon of election day, on a whim, I directed the driver (who spoke excellent German: he had worked as a foreign worker in Germany for several years) to turn up a dirt road to a village I could see in the distance.
Clearly, the villagers did not know we were coming. Their village was a clutch of huts and one-story brick buildings that might have comprised a population of perhaps five hundred people. The villagers gathered around our car, all smiles, and someone ran to get the mayor. He arrived quickly, and escorted us into a room with a long, rough-cut table. Twenty or thirty men crowded into the room, and perhaps half of them sat on hand-hewn benches, while the others stood along the wall. They gave me and my government escort-interpreter the only chairs.
Tea was served – strong stuff. Courtesy and elegance abounded in these country farmers, who were a lot like the ones I grew up with in the Midwest. We were given a genuine welcome.
The mayor gave a little speech of welcome. "We welcome our American friend," he said. "We love America. America is a good friend and ally of Turkey."
I smiled diplomatically, trying to conjure up a proper response – but I didn’t have a chance to deliver it. One of the elders sitting near the mayor broke into his speech. He brought his fist down sharply on the wooden table, shaking the small teacups all around. "But what’s this about the Armenian Resolution in your Congress," he roared.
So much for my travels. But it was clear to me that this sentiment was genuine, and evidently quite strongly held not only by these men, but by other Turks as well, in thousands of other villages I might have visited at random.
The Turks then are like the Turks now. They are not ignorant, and they are not idiots. Nancy Pelosi should be well aware of how deeply those sentiments run, twenty years after I saw them first-hand. And undoubtedly they will run deep twenty years from now.
Pelosi’s maneuver is deft and calculated, all too true. But when the neocons blame Pelosi for threatening to "alienate Turkey," they are wrong. President Bush and Proconsul Dick Cheney have already alienated the Turks – major league, big time.
The Turks have long memories. Turkey is a democracy. And in 2003, Bush fatuously assumed he could bribe these proud, independent people with dollars – admittedly, a lot of them – $35 BILLION to be exact. After all, the neocons at DoD convinced Cheney that they could "handle" Turkey. But Bush failed. Rumsfeld failed. Turkey’s democratic government would not allow US forces to invade Iraq from the north. They were not bribed by the U.S. government’s $35 billion; they were offended, even outraged. (By the way, $35 billion was a lot of money back then.)
The neocons were incensed. After all, hadn’t Richard Perle’s firm once "represented" Turkey? Hadn’t Perle gotten Israel to help Turkey get their number-one most-wanted terrorist, Ocalan? Hadn’t Israel tracked Ocalan down in Kenya so he could be captured? And wasn’t Ocalan the founder of the Turkish Workers Party (PKK)? And isn’t the PKK the very "terrorist organization" that today harasses the Turkish army from its hideout in Iraqi "Kurdistan"?
In short, wasn’t Turkey safely "bought" back when Ocalan was captured in 1999? And yet these ignorant, ungrateful Turks actually turned down a $35-billion-dollar bribe in 2003! Ingrates! And now they’re mad as blazes that Pelosi might pass the Armenian resolution (which, by the way, never passed back in 1987). There is no justice! Those barbarians!
Naturally, when Turkey refused to be bought in 2003, the Cheney crowd heaped abuse on it – while championing "democracy" for Iraq (war war war). Bush wouldn't know Anatolia from Anacostia, of course, but the Turks were well aware of the daggers drawn to "tame" it in return for its entry into the EU (truly a dead letter today – but not so in 2003). Their outrage at a "simple harmless congressional resolution" is real and far from harmless. Symbols speak volumes to civilized peoples.
In 2003 the Cheney-neocon "pro-democracy" crowd tried to overturn the decision of Turkey's democratic government and failed; now they are faced with the reality on the ground, and, naturally, they tremble at the disaster they have wrought: an increasingly anti-American Turkey that won't buy the neocon palaver of Bush, Perle, or of the neocons who are desperate to find another scapegoat whom they can blame for their own bungling.
Ron Paul is right, of course: foreign countries and foreign people are not barbarians, nor are they simpletons who "hate us because we are free." There are millions of intelligent and cultured people in the world who watch what our government does. And they act accordingly. In seven years of occupying the Oval Office, Mr. Bush has not yet learned this simple lesson that any high-school kid who didn’t go to Andover could teach you in ten minutes on the playground.
The U.S. government, speaking in our name, has slapped Turkey around so much that the Turks are fed up. What the Turks will do is up to them: but watch the neocons play their dialectical games, as they transform our "solid NATO ally" into just another bunch of barbarian boobs who "hate us because we are free," and thus actually react when we insult, demean, and try to bribe them.
Yes, the ignoramuses running this war have unwrapped one Pandora's box after another. Turkey is just the latest. They have been consistently startled when the natural consequences have followed. How to cover up their mistakes? Blame Pelosi. Blame the Turks. And, of course, there’s always that neocon face-card: start another war.
On to Iran! For Bush, that's the real "Way Forward."
As usual, the left-right neocon sites are full of self-righteous puffing again. This time around, they’re blaming Nancy Pelosi for losing our "good ally" Turkey in the middle of their little war to export democracy. Pelosi, it appears, is prepared to allow a House vote condemning Turkey for the "Armenian genocide" that wiped out countless Armenians about a century ago. And Turkey is decidedly unhappy about it.
As usual, the neocons are outraged that foreign countries might actually act based on their assessment of how the U.S. government has acted towards them. This simple fact of human reality was famously denied by debater Rudy Giuliani when he feigned amazement when Ron Paul made reference to it. Giuliani bristled at Paul’s observation that the behavior of Islamic countries might indeed be influenced by the way the U.S. government has acted towards them.
Giuliani, like Bush, is ignorant of foreign affairs (unless one considers the Upper East Side to be foreign territory). That should constitute a mortal wound to any serious candidacy. In today’s world of spin, alas, it threatens instead a mortal wound to our country’s well-being, if Giuliani’s ignorance is catapulted into the White House after the 2008 elections. Sadly, Giuliani’s ignorance of the world is shared by most of the candidates of both parties (naturally, with the exception of Congressman Ron Paul).
Twenty years ago I was in Turkey, observing an election as a senate foreign policy staffer. Instead of staying in major cities, I asked my hosts to head out to the middle of nowhere, asking them to turn here, then there, as we drove for hours visiting random towns and villages in the middle of the Anatolian plain. After driving for a while on the afternoon of election day, on a whim, I directed the driver (who spoke excellent German: he had worked as a foreign worker in Germany for several years) to turn up a dirt road to a village I could see in the distance.
Clearly, the villagers did not know we were coming. Their village was a clutch of huts and one-story brick buildings that might have comprised a population of perhaps five hundred people. The villagers gathered around our car, all smiles, and someone ran to get the mayor. He arrived quickly, and escorted us into a room with a long, rough-cut table. Twenty or thirty men crowded into the room, and perhaps half of them sat on hand-hewn benches, while the others stood along the wall. They gave me and my government escort-interpreter the only chairs.
Tea was served – strong stuff. Courtesy and elegance abounded in these country farmers, who were a lot like the ones I grew up with in the Midwest. We were given a genuine welcome.
The mayor gave a little speech of welcome. "We welcome our American friend," he said. "We love America. America is a good friend and ally of Turkey."
I smiled diplomatically, trying to conjure up a proper response – but I didn’t have a chance to deliver it. One of the elders sitting near the mayor broke into his speech. He brought his fist down sharply on the wooden table, shaking the small teacups all around. "But what’s this about the Armenian Resolution in your Congress," he roared.
So much for my travels. But it was clear to me that this sentiment was genuine, and evidently quite strongly held not only by these men, but by other Turks as well, in thousands of other villages I might have visited at random.
The Turks then are like the Turks now. They are not ignorant, and they are not idiots. Nancy Pelosi should be well aware of how deeply those sentiments run, twenty years after I saw them first-hand. And undoubtedly they will run deep twenty years from now.
Pelosi’s maneuver is deft and calculated, all too true. But when the neocons blame Pelosi for threatening to "alienate Turkey," they are wrong. President Bush and Proconsul Dick Cheney have already alienated the Turks – major league, big time.
The Turks have long memories. Turkey is a democracy. And in 2003, Bush fatuously assumed he could bribe these proud, independent people with dollars – admittedly, a lot of them – $35 BILLION to be exact. After all, the neocons at DoD convinced Cheney that they could "handle" Turkey. But Bush failed. Rumsfeld failed. Turkey’s democratic government would not allow US forces to invade Iraq from the north. They were not bribed by the U.S. government’s $35 billion; they were offended, even outraged. (By the way, $35 billion was a lot of money back then.)
The neocons were incensed. After all, hadn’t Richard Perle’s firm once "represented" Turkey? Hadn’t Perle gotten Israel to help Turkey get their number-one most-wanted terrorist, Ocalan? Hadn’t Israel tracked Ocalan down in Kenya so he could be captured? And wasn’t Ocalan the founder of the Turkish Workers Party (PKK)? And isn’t the PKK the very "terrorist organization" that today harasses the Turkish army from its hideout in Iraqi "Kurdistan"?
In short, wasn’t Turkey safely "bought" back when Ocalan was captured in 1999? And yet these ignorant, ungrateful Turks actually turned down a $35-billion-dollar bribe in 2003! Ingrates! And now they’re mad as blazes that Pelosi might pass the Armenian resolution (which, by the way, never passed back in 1987). There is no justice! Those barbarians!
Naturally, when Turkey refused to be bought in 2003, the Cheney crowd heaped abuse on it – while championing "democracy" for Iraq (war war war). Bush wouldn't know Anatolia from Anacostia, of course, but the Turks were well aware of the daggers drawn to "tame" it in return for its entry into the EU (truly a dead letter today – but not so in 2003). Their outrage at a "simple harmless congressional resolution" is real and far from harmless. Symbols speak volumes to civilized peoples.
In 2003 the Cheney-neocon "pro-democracy" crowd tried to overturn the decision of Turkey's democratic government and failed; now they are faced with the reality on the ground, and, naturally, they tremble at the disaster they have wrought: an increasingly anti-American Turkey that won't buy the neocon palaver of Bush, Perle, or of the neocons who are desperate to find another scapegoat whom they can blame for their own bungling.
Ron Paul is right, of course: foreign countries and foreign people are not barbarians, nor are they simpletons who "hate us because we are free." There are millions of intelligent and cultured people in the world who watch what our government does. And they act accordingly. In seven years of occupying the Oval Office, Mr. Bush has not yet learned this simple lesson that any high-school kid who didn’t go to Andover could teach you in ten minutes on the playground.
The U.S. government, speaking in our name, has slapped Turkey around so much that the Turks are fed up. What the Turks will do is up to them: but watch the neocons play their dialectical games, as they transform our "solid NATO ally" into just another bunch of barbarian boobs who "hate us because we are free," and thus actually react when we insult, demean, and try to bribe them.
Yes, the ignoramuses running this war have unwrapped one Pandora's box after another. Turkey is just the latest. They have been consistently startled when the natural consequences have followed. How to cover up their mistakes? Blame Pelosi. Blame the Turks. And, of course, there’s always that neocon face-card: start another war.
On to Iran! For Bush, that's the real "Way Forward."
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution?
by Xymphora - Oct 14, 2007
Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution? Tom Lantos (D-Tel Aviv) is involved, so you could take a wild guess. We’re told it has something to do with the strength of the Armenian Lobby! Juan Cole says its the pro-Kurdish branch of the Israeli Lobby winning out over the pro-Turkish branch of the Israeli Lobby. He lost me there. On its face, it looks like a big Lobby loss, as the Lobby protects Israeli ally Turkey, and has its own reasons for downplaying the importance of any holocaust that doesn’t involve the Chosen People. There’s a sort of holocaust beauty contest going on, and other genocidal mass murders diminish the beauty of the winner.
Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution? Its pretty simple, isn’t it? It is the timing that is odd, so the timing should tell us something. Why stir up this issue and cause problems with Turkish-American relations at this particular time, when Iraq is a mess and the Kurds are making the Turks very nervous? The keystone to the Zionist Plan for the Middle East is breaking Iraq into three parts. The rupture was supposed to occur almost immediately after the American attack. Since that didn’t happen, the 'surge’ was created to cause massive additional violence with the idea that the country couldn’t hold together under the strain.
Unfortunately for the Zionists, the 'surge’ has actually made the Iraqis even more united, as they don’t want to give the Jews the pleasure of seeing Iraq destroyed. State Department diplomacy is the only thing calming the Turks down enough to keep them from a full-fledged attack on Kurdistan. The resolution has so enraged the Turks that it is the Zionist hope that the State Department will no longer be able to stop the Turks from attacking. Putting Kurdistan into play is intended to cause Iraq to fall apart. The Israelis have decided to instruct their American operatives that breaking Iraq up is so important to Zionist colonialism that Israel is prepared to sell out both its supposed allies, the Turks and the Kurds (not to mention the Americans!).
The resolution has nothing to do with appeasing the powerful (!) Armenian lobby, and does no favors to either the Turks or the Kurds. The only beneficiaries are Zionists who want to use a Turkish attack on Kurdistan to break up Iraq.
Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution? Tom Lantos (D-Tel Aviv) is involved, so you could take a wild guess. We’re told it has something to do with the strength of the Armenian Lobby! Juan Cole says its the pro-Kurdish branch of the Israeli Lobby winning out over the pro-Turkish branch of the Israeli Lobby. He lost me there. On its face, it looks like a big Lobby loss, as the Lobby protects Israeli ally Turkey, and has its own reasons for downplaying the importance of any holocaust that doesn’t involve the Chosen People. There’s a sort of holocaust beauty contest going on, and other genocidal mass murders diminish the beauty of the winner.
Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution? Its pretty simple, isn’t it? It is the timing that is odd, so the timing should tell us something. Why stir up this issue and cause problems with Turkish-American relations at this particular time, when Iraq is a mess and the Kurds are making the Turks very nervous? The keystone to the Zionist Plan for the Middle East is breaking Iraq into three parts. The rupture was supposed to occur almost immediately after the American attack. Since that didn’t happen, the 'surge’ was created to cause massive additional violence with the idea that the country couldn’t hold together under the strain.
Unfortunately for the Zionists, the 'surge’ has actually made the Iraqis even more united, as they don’t want to give the Jews the pleasure of seeing Iraq destroyed. State Department diplomacy is the only thing calming the Turks down enough to keep them from a full-fledged attack on Kurdistan. The resolution has so enraged the Turks that it is the Zionist hope that the State Department will no longer be able to stop the Turks from attacking. Putting Kurdistan into play is intended to cause Iraq to fall apart. The Israelis have decided to instruct their American operatives that breaking Iraq up is so important to Zionist colonialism that Israel is prepared to sell out both its supposed allies, the Turks and the Kurds (not to mention the Americans!).
The resolution has nothing to do with appeasing the powerful (!) Armenian lobby, and does no favors to either the Turks or the Kurds. The only beneficiaries are Zionists who want to use a Turkish attack on Kurdistan to break up Iraq.
Turkish army chief says U.S. ties at serious risk
Reuters - Oct 14, 2007
Turkey's military chief said on Sunday that if the U.S. Congress approved a bill branding the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks genocide ties between the NATO allies would never be the same again.
"If the resolution that has passed in the U.S. committee is accepted by the assembly of the House of Representatives our military relations with the United States can never be the same again," chief of General Staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, told newspaper Milliyet.
"We could not explain this (keeping ties as normal) to Turkish opinion," he said in remarks published on Sunday.
Last week, a U.S. House committee approved the non-binding resolution, brushing aside White House warnings that it would do great harm to ties with NATO ally Turkey.
The Armenian resolution now goes to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrat leaders say there will be a vote next month.
Ankara recalled its ambassador from the United States for consultations after the U.S. vote, which was strongly condemned in predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey.
Turkey rejects the Armenian position, backed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments, that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
Turkey says many Muslim Turks died alongside Christian Armenians in inter-ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cautioned on Friday that relations between Ankara and Washington were in danger.
"I'm the chief of General Staff. I deal with security issues, I'm not a politician ... in this respect the United States has shot itself in the foot," Buyukanit said.
The United States relies heavily on Turkish bases to supply its war effort in Iraq.
Turkey's military chief said on Sunday that if the U.S. Congress approved a bill branding the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks genocide ties between the NATO allies would never be the same again.
"If the resolution that has passed in the U.S. committee is accepted by the assembly of the House of Representatives our military relations with the United States can never be the same again," chief of General Staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, told newspaper Milliyet.
"We could not explain this (keeping ties as normal) to Turkish opinion," he said in remarks published on Sunday.
Last week, a U.S. House committee approved the non-binding resolution, brushing aside White House warnings that it would do great harm to ties with NATO ally Turkey.
The Armenian resolution now goes to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democrat leaders say there will be a vote next month.
Ankara recalled its ambassador from the United States for consultations after the U.S. vote, which was strongly condemned in predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey.
Turkey rejects the Armenian position, backed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments, that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
Turkey says many Muslim Turks died alongside Christian Armenians in inter-ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cautioned on Friday that relations between Ankara and Washington were in danger.
"I'm the chief of General Staff. I deal with security issues, I'm not a politician ... in this respect the United States has shot itself in the foot," Buyukanit said.
The United States relies heavily on Turkish bases to supply its war effort in Iraq.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Turkish ire may affect Iraq war
This is what happens when the agenda of the Israel Firsters and Christian and Jewish Zionists in Congress - to create tension and separation between America and her traditional Muslim allies - is allowed to play out. In the end, there will be only America and Israel standing against the big bad Muslim world - just the way Israel wants it.
by Scott Peterson - Oct 12, 2007
Two obsessions in Turkey may appear unrelated – a recent surge in Kurdish militant attacks and the mass killing of Armenians nearly a century ago – but they are swiftly combining as a strategic tipping point in US-Turkey relations that could affect American forces in Iraq.
Amid widespread calls for revenge after the killing of some 30 Turkish soldiers and civilians in two weeks by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) – and the failure of US and Iraqi forces to curb the attacks from bases in Iraq – the Turkish parliament is expected next week to authorize cross-border operations into northern Iraq.
Turkish warplanes and artillery are reportedly already targeting PKK camps, but an incursion could destabilize the one area of Iraq that has been relatively peaceful since the US invasion in 2003.
And complicating the situation is a US congressional committee's approval Wednesday of a resolution calling the 1915 massacres by Ottoman Turks a "genocide." Turkey called the decision "unacceptable," after warning that the vote could jeopardize US access to a military airbase crucial to resupplying US troops in Iraq.
President Bush said the non-binding resolution "would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," echoing a letter from all eight living former secretaries of state opposing the resolution.
Turkey accuses the US and Iraqi Kurdish forces in northern Iraq of providing safe haven and military support for an estimated 3,000 PKK rebels, and not doing enough to stop cross-border attacks. US commanders and Iraqi Kurdish officials say they are doing all they can to stamp out PKK activity, but their reach is limited in the remote mountains along the border.
The US has "been caught between their tactical alliance with the Kurds in Iraq, and their strategic alliance – at least what it used to be – with Turkey," says Bulent Aliriza, a Turkey analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"The reality is that the US relies to an incredible extent on the Iraqi Kurds … and any meaningful action by the Turks would annoy the Iraqi Kurds and change the balance in Iraq against the US in this war," says Mr. Aliriza. "The worst thing that could happen, from the point of view of the [White House] is for the Turks to intervene, creating an even bigger mess in Iraq."
Analysts say a large incursion is not likely, though domestic pressure is growing on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to act against the PKK. A spike in attacks this spring prompted the top brass of Turkey's military – the second largest ground forces of the NATO alliance, after the US – to call for government approval to cross into Iraq.
Turkish troops into Iraq? This week Turkish units have begun deploying along the border, as the Turkish media speaks of a possible incursion of 15,000 soldiers and even creation of a buffer zone 10 to 20 miles deep inside Iraq.
But Turkey has been here before, during an estimated 24 previous cross-border operations against the PKK in the 1980s and 1990s. The two largest took place in 1995 and 1997, the latter with 50,000 troops, but the PKK remained.
The Turkish military is "very well aware of the pros and cons of a cross-border operation into northern Iraq, and everybody knows it wouldn't be an easy task to step there because you could have some losses, you could have some terrible results – you never know," says Metehan Demir, a military specialist in Ankara with the Sabah newspaper.
"When you go there, you will not only be facing the PKK. You don't know what the peshmerga [Iraqi Kurdish militias] will do; you don't know how the Americans will contribute to the peshmerga or PKK behind the scenes," says Mr. Demir. "These are real concerns in the Turkish capital."
A mechanism created in August 2006 to defuse a crisis and prevent a Turkish incursion has brought few results.
President Bush appointed retired Gen. Joseph Ralston, a former NATO supreme allied commander, to be his envoy to counter the PKK. But his mission has been fraught with frustration and his resignation was confirmed this week.
General Ralston's Turkish counterpart was fired several months ago after making comments critical of the US, and in tough words published this week, he said anyone who did not help Turkey fight terror was also guilty.
Effects of US 'genocide' bill"Some people claim the PKK is doing these attacks to pull Turkey into the northern Iraq swamp, in order to harm Turkey's relationship with the US and to isolate Turkey," adds Demir. "If you add an Armenian genocide bill onto this ongoing turmoil over the PKK attacks, it will be terrible for Turkish-American relations."
Already much of that damage is being done, though the vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday – taken in the presence of four Armenian survivors of the World War I-era events – mirrors one passed by a wider margin in 2005 and another in 2000 that were withdrawn. This time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will bring the nonbinding resolution to a vote of the full House, perhaps in mid-November.
Turkish newspapers on Thursday were scathing. The mass-circulation Hurriyet called it "bill of hatred." The daily Vatan gave this front-page headline, about those who voted for it: "27 foolish Americans."
American businessmen in Turkey have also lobbied against the measure, noting how French market share has tumbled by double digits as high as 70 percent in the year since France passed a bill criminalizing Armenian genocide denial.
French exports to Turkey have also fallen by $1 to $2 billion in the past 12 months, by one count, while the value of most other trading partners expanded. Turkey denies that a systematic genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians ever took place – a description and figure accepted by many historians – saying that mass killing was carried out by both sides.
Weighing the pros and consSpeaking about "this enormous blot on human history," congressional committee chairman Tom Lantos (D) of California opened the session this way: "We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people and to condemn the historic nightmare through the use of the word 'genocide,' against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price [in Iraq and Afghanistan] than they are currently paying."
Some congressmen said the Turkish warnings of retaliation were a bluff, with one saying he felt as through a "Turkish sword" was over his head. "We can't provide genocide denial as one of the perks of friendship with the United States," added Rep. Brad Sherman (D) of California.
But others expressed shock. "This is crazy," said Rep. Dan Burton (R) of Indiana. "We're in the middle of two wars and we've got troops over there that are at risk, and we're talking about kicking the one ally that's helping us over there in the face."
Administration officials – and Turkish politicians – pointed out that 70 percent of the US military's air cargo destined for Iraq transits through the US air base at Incirlik in eastern Turkey, and 30 percent of the fuel used by US forces.
"Our most reliable resource of unfettered intelligence that is helping us in the Middle East comes through Turkey," Rep. David Scott (D) of Georgia told the committee.
"The Armenian question is plain as day: What was done to them is wrong. The issue is: What is in the best interest of the national security of the United States?"
by Scott Peterson - Oct 12, 2007
Two obsessions in Turkey may appear unrelated – a recent surge in Kurdish militant attacks and the mass killing of Armenians nearly a century ago – but they are swiftly combining as a strategic tipping point in US-Turkey relations that could affect American forces in Iraq.
Amid widespread calls for revenge after the killing of some 30 Turkish soldiers and civilians in two weeks by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) – and the failure of US and Iraqi forces to curb the attacks from bases in Iraq – the Turkish parliament is expected next week to authorize cross-border operations into northern Iraq.
Turkish warplanes and artillery are reportedly already targeting PKK camps, but an incursion could destabilize the one area of Iraq that has been relatively peaceful since the US invasion in 2003.
And complicating the situation is a US congressional committee's approval Wednesday of a resolution calling the 1915 massacres by Ottoman Turks a "genocide." Turkey called the decision "unacceptable," after warning that the vote could jeopardize US access to a military airbase crucial to resupplying US troops in Iraq.
President Bush said the non-binding resolution "would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," echoing a letter from all eight living former secretaries of state opposing the resolution.
Turkey accuses the US and Iraqi Kurdish forces in northern Iraq of providing safe haven and military support for an estimated 3,000 PKK rebels, and not doing enough to stop cross-border attacks. US commanders and Iraqi Kurdish officials say they are doing all they can to stamp out PKK activity, but their reach is limited in the remote mountains along the border.
The US has "been caught between their tactical alliance with the Kurds in Iraq, and their strategic alliance – at least what it used to be – with Turkey," says Bulent Aliriza, a Turkey analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"The reality is that the US relies to an incredible extent on the Iraqi Kurds … and any meaningful action by the Turks would annoy the Iraqi Kurds and change the balance in Iraq against the US in this war," says Mr. Aliriza. "The worst thing that could happen, from the point of view of the [White House] is for the Turks to intervene, creating an even bigger mess in Iraq."
Analysts say a large incursion is not likely, though domestic pressure is growing on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to act against the PKK. A spike in attacks this spring prompted the top brass of Turkey's military – the second largest ground forces of the NATO alliance, after the US – to call for government approval to cross into Iraq.
Turkish troops into Iraq? This week Turkish units have begun deploying along the border, as the Turkish media speaks of a possible incursion of 15,000 soldiers and even creation of a buffer zone 10 to 20 miles deep inside Iraq.
But Turkey has been here before, during an estimated 24 previous cross-border operations against the PKK in the 1980s and 1990s. The two largest took place in 1995 and 1997, the latter with 50,000 troops, but the PKK remained.
The Turkish military is "very well aware of the pros and cons of a cross-border operation into northern Iraq, and everybody knows it wouldn't be an easy task to step there because you could have some losses, you could have some terrible results – you never know," says Metehan Demir, a military specialist in Ankara with the Sabah newspaper.
"When you go there, you will not only be facing the PKK. You don't know what the peshmerga [Iraqi Kurdish militias] will do; you don't know how the Americans will contribute to the peshmerga or PKK behind the scenes," says Mr. Demir. "These are real concerns in the Turkish capital."
A mechanism created in August 2006 to defuse a crisis and prevent a Turkish incursion has brought few results.
President Bush appointed retired Gen. Joseph Ralston, a former NATO supreme allied commander, to be his envoy to counter the PKK. But his mission has been fraught with frustration and his resignation was confirmed this week.
General Ralston's Turkish counterpart was fired several months ago after making comments critical of the US, and in tough words published this week, he said anyone who did not help Turkey fight terror was also guilty.
Effects of US 'genocide' bill"Some people claim the PKK is doing these attacks to pull Turkey into the northern Iraq swamp, in order to harm Turkey's relationship with the US and to isolate Turkey," adds Demir. "If you add an Armenian genocide bill onto this ongoing turmoil over the PKK attacks, it will be terrible for Turkish-American relations."
Already much of that damage is being done, though the vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday – taken in the presence of four Armenian survivors of the World War I-era events – mirrors one passed by a wider margin in 2005 and another in 2000 that were withdrawn. This time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will bring the nonbinding resolution to a vote of the full House, perhaps in mid-November.
Turkish newspapers on Thursday were scathing. The mass-circulation Hurriyet called it "bill of hatred." The daily Vatan gave this front-page headline, about those who voted for it: "27 foolish Americans."
American businessmen in Turkey have also lobbied against the measure, noting how French market share has tumbled by double digits as high as 70 percent in the year since France passed a bill criminalizing Armenian genocide denial.
French exports to Turkey have also fallen by $1 to $2 billion in the past 12 months, by one count, while the value of most other trading partners expanded. Turkey denies that a systematic genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians ever took place – a description and figure accepted by many historians – saying that mass killing was carried out by both sides.
Weighing the pros and consSpeaking about "this enormous blot on human history," congressional committee chairman Tom Lantos (D) of California opened the session this way: "We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people and to condemn the historic nightmare through the use of the word 'genocide,' against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price [in Iraq and Afghanistan] than they are currently paying."
Some congressmen said the Turkish warnings of retaliation were a bluff, with one saying he felt as through a "Turkish sword" was over his head. "We can't provide genocide denial as one of the perks of friendship with the United States," added Rep. Brad Sherman (D) of California.
But others expressed shock. "This is crazy," said Rep. Dan Burton (R) of Indiana. "We're in the middle of two wars and we've got troops over there that are at risk, and we're talking about kicking the one ally that's helping us over there in the face."
Administration officials – and Turkish politicians – pointed out that 70 percent of the US military's air cargo destined for Iraq transits through the US air base at Incirlik in eastern Turkey, and 30 percent of the fuel used by US forces.
"Our most reliable resource of unfettered intelligence that is helping us in the Middle East comes through Turkey," Rep. David Scott (D) of Georgia told the committee.
"The Armenian question is plain as day: What was done to them is wrong. The issue is: What is in the best interest of the national security of the United States?"
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