NWoeT
First Osama. Now the NYT ed board:
The news out of Iraq just keeps getting worse.
You’d think, like Osama, whose views NYT ed board generally shares on Iraq, they’re talking about their dismay over the fact that the Americans, the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people are finally prevailing over terrorism, mass murder, chaos.Â
Not at all. NYT ed board is talking about business as usual in northern Iraq/southeastern Turkey. Kurds and Turks fighting with each other across the Iraqi border, as they were doing long before the United States invaded Iraq. NYT ed board appears to think this is a new problem caused by thoughtless Bush’s poor planning, but also suggests no action should be taken in the Middle East unless all future ancillary flareups are anticipated and thwarted in advance.
 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. Â
I didn’t think, based on NYT ed board’s earlier positions, that bigger disasters, regional wars, etc., were that big a concern. Here’s an idea. Withdraw. Cure for all ills.Â
What crime did Bush commit in Kurdistan? Stratfor lays it out. He destroyed the balance of oppression. Stratfor notes that the Kurds were once (more or less*) equally oppressed in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, and that as Saddam was put into the sanctions box after 1991, Turkey was compelled to impose a militarized buffer zone. Stratfor examines why the PKK is provoking Turkey now:
…Â People tend to talk about the Kurds as a single national group — and, linguistically and religiously, they are. But history and current reality have divided them in ways that have generated serious differences in interest and ideology. The territory they occupy is divided among several countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. And for most of the 20th century, Kurds in all of those states were equally oppressed.
However, starting in 1991 and accelerating after 2003, the Iraqi Kurds’ fate has diverged from that of the others. Represented in the Baghdad government, effectively autonomous in their region, protected by a special relationship with the United States, and increasingly prosperous through trade and important deals for developing oil in their region, the Iraq Kurds have become increasingly cautious and increasingly focused on their own interests rather than those of Kurds as a whole. The dream of united and independent Kurdistan isn’t gone by any means, but negotiating oil leases has become a more immediate concern.
From the PKK’s point of view, the increasingly insular focus of the Iraqi Kurds represents a betrayal of the Kurdish nation. Most Kurds live in Turkey. The Iraqi Kurds, rather than preparing for a confrontation with Turkey over Greater Kurdistan, are more interested in keeping the border peaceful so as to reassure investors. The PKK, a Turkish Kurdish group, does not gain anything from the prosperity of Iraqi Kurds. On the contrary, it faces the possibility that the first Kurdish region with substantial autonomy might focus on its own economic interest rather than on pan-Kurdish national goals.
While the Iraqi Kurds want to sign contracts, the PKK wants to wage war. It is in the PKK’s interest to do two things: disrupt the activities of the Iraqi Kurds as far as possible, and make sure that Iraqi Kurds view Turkey as a problem that must be solved before they can enjoy their prosperity. Nothing could suit the PKK’s interests better than having the Turks invade the Iraqi Kurdish region, no matter how shallow and limited that incursion might be. The PKK will do everything it can to draw the Turks further in, in hopes that the confrontation between Turkey and the PKK will become a confrontation between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds — with, as a distant hope, the Americans intervening against the Turks.
That clearly is the intent of the PKK provocations at this point. The interesting question is, why haven’t the Iraqi Kurds acted against the PKK?
A great deal of this rift is ideological. It is one thing to oppose PKK actions. It is another thing to move toward civil war among the Kurds. Also, there is the threat that the PKK could turn its militant talents against the Iraqi Kurds, driving foreign investors and oil companies out of the region. The PKK is prepared to go the limit in a region where everyone else has an incentive to hold back. That gives it a distinct advantage.
* Stratfor states “for most of the 20th century, Kurds in all of those states were equally oppressed.” It’s notable that immediately prior to international intervention in Iraqi affairs in the Gulf War, Saddam was doing his damndest to outpace the competition with poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages. By that measure, the current difficulties are minor, however, NYT ed board has already established that it prefers genocide to the difficulties and frustrations of instituting free, stable and secure societies in troubled regions.
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Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:09 am on Tuesday, October 23, 2007
8 Responses to “NWoeT”
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October 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 am
Web Reconnaissance for 10/23/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:29 am
John Burns aside, I suspect the NTTimes people in Iraq don’t see much beyond the Green Zone and the bar of the hotel where the press chaps spend much of the day.
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
If all the Turks want to do is wax the PKK, they’ll get a free hand from the Kurds and quite possibly some back channel intel assistance. The PKK is a thorn in everyone’s side.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Stupid Infidel.
Even I was astonished the Times could get through an entire op-ed on Turkey without once mentioning that Fool of a Speaker. In the Land of the Blind, the Times could sell sunglasses.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Has the NYT decided to stop using insurgents as stringers yet?
The folk at that organization are less journalist and more black propagandist.
That used to be a hanging offense. But that was back when we still wanted to survive as a nation and a culture.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:26 am
[...] sorts of stories. Unfortunately, the PKK is leading Turkey closer to war every day. Here’s a bit of history why. And here’s what we might consider doing about it. This is a pretty serious [...]
October 24th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Well damn, if it wasn’t Moqtada. Must have been shower day this month, O fat one.
For your own safety, please Lysol your PC’s and Laptops.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Moq, ol’ boy, keep posting. Your comments always give me a giggle. Er… ahem… I mean, phooey on you, Muzzy terrorist scum!
As for Turkey… I spent some time in Munich when Germany was still divided into East and West. Turks were the gastarbeiters, the “guest workers”, despised by the residents who needed their labor, and despising in turn the liberal, democratic society which employed them. At that time they were probably more communist than Islamic fundamentalist, but they uniformly hated the US and all its citizens. I came away with the impression of them as angry, nasty, bitter people with an undefined grudge. If the US loses them as allies now, it might be inconvenient, difficult even, but I don’t think it will be a catastrophic loss, as I don’t think they were ever really in our camp anyway.