Thursday Editorial: The concern in Northern Iraq that is being ignored

While appearing as a guest on the "Mike Webb Show" about one year ago, I debated a panel of young liberal Democrats on U.S. policy in Iraq.  Among the three other well-educated individuals in the room, I was the only one that did not advocate an immediate pullout of U.S. forces in Iraq.  Instead of giving the "stay the course" argument -- which they probably wanted me to do in order to rhetorically corner me and accuse me of being a closet Republican -- I expressed my deepest concern about the potential fallout in Northern Iraq.  Obviously that caught them off-guard.  Northern Iraq?  How can that be?  The media is not talking about it.  For some reason, the dialogue about the future of military operations in Iraq has been narrowly defined by whether we want our troops to be sitting ducks in the "Sunni Triangle".  If it was just about that, I would say, "Get out now."

But it isn't.  There is a whole other aspect to the Iraqi security situation that, until recently, the media has all but ignored.  If U.S. forces do not manage the Northern Iraqi border, the Turks will -- that is a big problem.  For generations the Turkish government has worried that Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Eastern Turkey will join together and form an independent Kurdistan.  Turkey has routinely engaged in disinformation campaigns to turn Kurdish factions against one another, delaying any political unification in that area.

The recent wave of Kurdish freedom in Northern Iraq following the ouster of Saddam Hussein is sparking a renewed call for an independent Kurdistan.  Last week, during a visit to Iraq, Condoleezza Rice assured Turkey that they would guard the border in Northern Iraq -- a response to Turkey's hint that they would intervene militarily.  The diciest part is the fact that if Turkey were to get involved militarily, we would have to side with them.  Turkey is a NATO ally, meaning we are bound by our treaty obligations to defend any such NATO nation, such as Turkey, whose sovereignty is being violated.

To make matters worse, Time Magazine reported just this morning that the Shiite militia is amassing in the north in order to prevent any sort of political defection from Iraq by the Kurds:

Iraq's Arab majority has long suspected that the Kurds want to break apart their country and take northern Iraq's rich oilfields with them, and that suspicion fueled recent reports that hundreds of Shi'ite Arab militiamen have moved into the northern city of Kirkuk.

What this all boils down to is a potential blood-bath, putting radical Shiites and the Turkish military against the Kurdish population, some of which are still on the Pentagon payroll.  Just yesterday, the rumor that many such as myself had feared became a reality: Turkey is indeed amassing troops on the Iraqi border right now in preparation for a possible assault using both ground and air forces.

With all this said, the U.S. faces two major political challenges:

1. Diplomatic negotiations with Turkey to keep them out of Iraq.
2. Countering the security threat of the Shiite militia, which easily surpasses the strength of the Iraqi military,  in Northern Iraqi towns.

This is also very significant because the Shiite militia is located in the south.  For them to have the troop strength to move all the way up into Northern Iraq says something about the lack of progress on the part of Iraqi security forces.

This Northern Iraq problem is the most significant issue that we may ever face in Iraq.  It's time for the Pentagon to employ both tactically-based military and diplomatic means to prevent an almost imminent border crisis in the north.