Even Closer to the Brink
Oct 23, 2007
Editorial
The news out of Iraq just keeps getting worse. Now Turkey is threatening to send troops across the border to wipe out Kurdish rebel bases, after guerrillas killed at least a dozen Turkish soldiers. This latest crisis should have come as no surprise. But it is one more widely predicted problem the Bush administration failed to plan for before its misguided invasion — and one more problem it urgently needs to deal with as part of a swift and orderly exit from Iraq.
Turkey’s anger is understandable. Guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the P.K.K., have been striking from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan with growing impunity and effect, using plastic explosives, mines and arms that are far too readily accessible in Iraq. The death toll for Turkish military forces is mounting.
Turkey’s civilian leaders are feeling strong popular pressure to lash back. The leadership should realize that the conflict is providing a dangerous opening for Turkey’s generals. The military is determined to regain the upper hand over Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom they detest for his party’s roots in Islamic politics.
Ankara needs to know that an invasion would not only add to Iraq’s chaos and raise the specter of a regional war, it would also do major damage to Turkey’s international standing and finish off its prospects for joining the European Union.
Following a personal appeal from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Erdogan’s government delayed retaliating and announced that all political means would be tried before launching a military operation into Iraq. But there is not a lot of time.
Washington should also explain the dangerous facts of life to the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan, who have done nothing to rein in the guerrillas or drive them out of their territory. Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, did no good Sunday when he first said he wanted “to solve problems peacefully,” but then declared that Iraq would not even turn over “a Kurdish cat” to Turkey.
The Kurds will find it much easier to prosper if they can live in peace with Turkey, whose businessmen already invest heavily in their region. And Mr. Talabani and other Iraqi Kurds need to understand that their enclave of comparative peace and prosperity will not survive a regional war.
Washington must now try to walk both sides back from this brink. It then should make a serious and sustained effort to broker a long-overdue political agreement between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. There is much distrust on both sides. But there is also a lot to talk about. Iraqi Kurds want access routes to sell goods to Europe. Turkey needs a secure border with Iraq.
With so many other problems in Iraq, the Bush administration apparently thought it could ignore this one. It can’t. If it doesn’t now move quickly, Iraq’s disastrous civil war could spiral into an even bigger disaster — a regional war.
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