October 18, 2003

TURKS IN IRAQ: A BAD IDEA

by Srdja Trifkovic

Question: How do you forge the sense of Iraqi national unity among its disparate, antagonistic ethnic and religious groups?

Answer: Tell them that you are bringing Turkish soldiers into the country!

The US plan to bolster its forces in Iraq with Turkish troops has produced a remarkable spectacle of Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites rejecting the plan in complete unison. The Sunnis still carry traumatic collective memories of the Turkish rule prior to 1918, when Ottomans treated Arabs as second-class citizens. They also suspect Turkey of unrelinquished hopes in the oil-rich region of Mosul. The Kurds are unsurprisingly even more vocal: the separatist Kurdish Labor Party of jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan has vowed to attack Turkish troops if they deployed in northern Iraq. Abdullah’s brother, Othman Ocalan, says that the PKK will "step up military resistance and no one will be able to stop us from defending our people." Many Iraqi Kurds also accuse Ankara of trying to stir up ethnic tensions between them and Iraq’s Turkmen minority. The Shiites, over two-thirds of Iraq’s population, are equally wary. One of their leaders told Radio Free Europe (October 17) that the Shia community "can agree to British and American occupation, but not to Turkish." Many Shi’ites additionally distrust Turkey as Sunnite by tradition and secular by constitution. They suspect that Turkey would support their Sunni co-religionists and thus undermine the ambitions of Iraq’s Shia majority.

Those three communities may distrust or even detest each other but they share a deep disdain for their former rulers. Among the two-dozen surviving members of Iraq’s US-appointed Governing Council there is complete unanimity against the proposed Turkish deployment. On October 16 Masoud Barzani, leader of one of the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties and a key member of the Governing Council, threatened to resign over the issue and warned that the presence of Turkish troops in Iraq would have "dire consequences."

Those consequences would be dire indeed, for seven main reasons:

The security situation would deteriorate—Instead of helping pacify Iraq, the presence of Turkish soldiers in the country would fan the spirit and acts of resistance. That presence would be as provocative to the Iraqis—Kurds and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites alike—as that of Russian peacekeepers in Kabul or Kandahar would be to all Afghans, regardless of their tribal affiliation. The Turks will be gleefully targeted for attacks—last week’s bombing of the Turkish embassy in Baghdad is an early omen—and they would retaliate, triggering off a spiral of violence. The Turkish military has already warned that its troops would respond to any attack, and—judging by the Turkish army’s past performance in operations against Kurdish areas of eastern Turkey—that response would be robust in the extreme. That is exactly what those Iraqis who favor armed resistance would like to happen.

The burden on US forces would increase—By definition the objective of bringing foreign soldiers into Iraq is to relieve the heavy burden on US troops there. In the medium to long term that burden would only grow heavier due to Turkish military presence. As the Turks are singled out for attacks, get involved in bloody firefights, die in ambushes and retaliate, the US military will face an impossible dilemma. It will either assume the role of peacekeepers-of-last-resort, separating restive natives and Turkish peacekeepers, or else it will support its Turkish protÙgÙs unreservedly. Either way its commitment—and death toll—will increase, rather decrease.

The transfer of power to the Iraqis will be delayed—The issue of Turkish troops is already becoming a test of strength between Paul Bremer, as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the Governing Council he appointed. Mr. Bremer will have to make the final decision on the deployment of Turkish troops. If he decides to bring them in anyway, that decision will have been made against the Council’s will. It may lead either (a) to the Council’s disintegration, with some or all members resigning, or (b) to the terminal loss of its credibility. Most Iraqis will see the Council as an American lapdog if its members swallow the bitter pill and rubber-stamp Turkish deployment—or else as irrelevant, if the Turks come in spite of its opposition. Either way the goal of turning Iraq into a functioning polity and withdrawing U.S. forces will be more distant than it would have been without the Turks.

Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation will be even less likely—With Mr. Bush’s "Roadmap to Peace" moribund, the President should balance his short-term needs—such as Turkish soldiers who (he hopes) will share the burden with the GIs—with his long-term Middle Eastern strategies that ought to entail some degree of Arab good will. All Arab countries are at best uncomfortable and at worst may be openly hostile to the Turkish role, which they see as not only serving Americans but also Israel interest. Unsurprisingly, the Sharon government favors a Turkish military role in Iraq, and this fact is reflected by the neoconservative consensus in Washington that the Turks should be brought in as soon as possible. Paul Wolfowitz and his ilk want Turkish troops in Iraq in order to alienate it from the European Union and to fans anti-Turkish hostility in the Arab world that would keep its Israeli alliance alive even under the Islamist PKA government.

Last but by no means least, a Turkish military contingent in Iraq almost guarantees that flawed U.S. assessments and policies in the region will continue. When the Turkish parliament voted on October 7 to send the troops, the move was gratefully seized on by the Bush administration. And yet that same parliament voted seven months ago to deny its territory to the U.S., at least temporarily shattering the prevailing dogma in Washington that Turkey would remain "secular" and an American asset come what may. With its 10,000-strong Iraqi contingent Turkey hopes to regain American favors on the cheap (and let the U.S. taxpayers foot the bill). Even at this early stage Turey is already being cocky: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister and AKP leader, wants Turkey to command its own troops within a self-contained region, rather than simply provide reinforcements to the U.S. The Turks also expect to be handsomely rewarded for their contribution, and judging by last February’s haggling, its demands will be steep.

In conclusion, far from favoring the arrival of a Turkish contingent to Iraq, the Administration should discard the idea as detrimental to peace and stability in Iraq, to the establishment of meaningful self-rule in the country, and—most important of all—detrimental to the prospect of an early American withdrawal. That is, and should be, Mr. Bush’s overriding concern.

All rights reserved, ¿ÞÓÛÕÔØ - 2003. ÓÞÔØÝÕ.

Design and maintenance - www.proxy.co.yu     web master