History indeed does repeat
itself and, unfortunately, more so tragically. So
it is profoundly irritating to students of
history, particularly modern US history and
politics, to see that the US government has
committed yet another foreign policy blunder. This
it has done by tacitly consenting to the ongoing
Turkish incursions into northern Iraq in pursuit
of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters.
This vividly reminds one of a similar
blunder in the summer of 2006, when US officials
backed Israel's cross-border incursions into
southern Lebanon with the stated aim of
"neutralizing" a terrorist organization
(Hezbollah) and destroying its
"organizational infrastructure".
The vocabulary used in both occasions, and
the reactions solicited from Washington, are so
strikingly similar that, inevitably, they invite
comparisons between Israel's ultimately futile
misadventure in Lebanon and Turkey's operation
that is already a week long. Despite the US's
prodding to "keep it short", it may end up
approximating Israel's 33-day campaign against
Hezbollah. This is particularly so since the
Turkish army has to endure harsh winter conditions
in addition to a resilient foe of about 3,000 or
so PKK fighters.
In both cases, Israeli
and Turkish leaders have tried to elicit world
sympathy by stressing their "rightful cause", and
in the expressions of "understanding" by both the
US and the European Union seen at the beginning of
both conflicts, one can detect the undercurrents
of a failed Western policy that simply does not
learn from history.
There are important
differences between the two cases, but the
similarities are unmistakable. This is
particularly so in the area of asymmetrical
warfare and the not-so-declared motives of the
invading armies, ie, in Lebanon for Israel to
fight a proxy war with Iran and in Iraq for Turkey
to undermine the Kurdish path toward greater
autonomy and, perhaps, eventual independence,.
While it is still too early to tell
whether or not Turkey has just carved itself a
mini quagmire in Iraq, or whether it can achieve
all its objectives in a speedy and relatively
expense-free and harmless (to civilians) fashion,
it is already abundantly clear that the US has
played its cards wrong: it has not denounced
Turkey's violation of Iraq's sovereignty and
territorial integrity, just as the Iraqi
government has done.
Instead, it is
vesting its hope in the mirage of a quick and
decisive victory by the Turkish army to devastate
the PKK forces with the help of its combined air
and ground assault. Indeed, who can forget the
major blunder of US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, who in the summer of 2006 constantly bought
more time for the Israeli assault on Lebanon with
the lame excuse that Israel "has the right to
defend itself".
Today, however, Rice is
comparatively quiet, letting other US officials,
including the US ambassador in Ankara, do the
talking, such as of a short campaign that is
fueled in part by the faulty rationalization on
the part of certain neo-conservative pundits in
the US who cite the necessity of a shifting US
policy away from the Kurds, whose help is no
longer needed, that is, they can be discarded as
useless allies. Call it a mini-betrayal, not far
removed from post-World War I, when the US
initially backed and then reneged on its promises
to the Kurds - who are now viewed with suspicion
by Washington as being unduly "pro-Iran".
That is not true, given the context of
post-Saddam Hussein power politics in Iraq, with
the US and Iran both backing the same horses. Are
respected US neo-cons ready to sell out the
Baghdad government, about to play host to Iran's
president, as well? And if so, what really will
remain of the US's Iraq policy, one that, at least
officially, has been anchored in the commitment to
Iraq's integrity and sovereignty?
The
answer is that the US has now made a bad joke of
its Iraq policy by not even paying lip service to
Iraq's sovereignty in the wake of Turkey's
aggressive violation of Iraq's territorial
integrity, with so many Turkish pundits openly
wishing for a Turkish "buffer" inside Iraq,
ostensibly to prevent the PKK access to
southeastern Turkish towns and villages. This
error in judgment on Washington's part is a
serious one that could come to haunt its
policy-makers, who have opted to pawn the US's
Iraq policy into Turkey's hands, just as they did
with respect to Israel in Lebanon two years ago.
Much has been said about the potential for
a regional flare-up caused by Turkey's move inside
Iraq, and it is precisely here that Turkey's close
Israel connection, most recently highlighted by
Ankara's bid to export Central Asian oil to India
via Israel [1], may prove a decisive contributing
factor in not only causing a major dent, if not
irreparable harm, to Ankara's relations with
Tehran, but also with the Arab-led Middle East.
In turn, this could sour the US-Israel bid
to form an anti-Iran alliance in the Arab world.
Rather, the chances are Iran will forge closer
ties to the Arab world, via Iran-friendly Baghdad,
against Israel-backed Turkish influence and power
projection - which many Israelis see as a
potential counterweight to Iran. And this is an
Iran that is poised to take its bilateral
relations with the new Iraq to the "next level",
per a statement by Iran's Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki.
Hence, it is a sure
bet that come next week, when Iran's President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad makes his historic visit to
Iraq, should the Turkish forces still be present
in northern Iraq, it will be difficult for Iran to
resist Baghdad's demand for a firm stance on this
subject. So far, Iran, cautious of avoiding any
unwanted damage to its hitherto cordial ties with
Turkey, has opted for self-restraint. That may
unravel shortly, and Ahmadinejad is reportedly
even interested in going to Irbil in Kurdish
northern Iraq.
This raises questions about
the timing of Turkey's military move inside Iraq,
just a few days ahead of Ahmadinejad's trip,
seeing how Turkey had refrained for months from
committing to such a large-scale military
operation, bound to sour Tehran-Ankara relations.
Have the US's "chess-players", who are
forced to play at multiple strategic chess sets in
the Middle East these days, cooked up something
here? Or should we rely on the public information
that the US is simply caught between two allies -
Iraq and Turkey unable to play much of a role
beyond that of a disquieted observer?
It
is highly improbable that Turkey has gone into
Iraq without prior discussions with the US, and
one may even include the recent US trip of Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an
important catalyst for the current pro-Turkey
stance of the White House. Lest we forget, unlike
the US, Israel has no loyalty to the notion of a
unified, integrated Iraq and may consider that as
a sort of nightmare scenario in light of the
pro-Iran sentiments of Iraq's political leaders.
Little surprise, then, that known
pro-Israel voices in American politics have been
vocal critics of Iraqi Kurds and they have
supported Turkey's military gambit in Iraq, where
the tragedy of force of arms over dialogue is
unfolding once again. However, as stated above,
Turkey is likely not fated to any better prospect
in northern Iraq than Israel has managed in
southern Lebanon.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi,
PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview
Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's
Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs,
Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa
Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear
potential latent", Harvard International Review,
and is author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus
Fiction.
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