The Blue State

This is anything but a simple war

I have been harping on this point since 2005, and so have other bloggers.  Even if the violence all over Iraq suddenly subsides, we will always deal with a border dispute in the north.  Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Iran all want independence.  Turkey and Iran have been working together over the years to turn the Kurdish population against one another.  But with the fall of Saddam Hussein, and are implementing an even more aggressive policy against this stateless nation.

Thousands of Turkish troops have amassed on the border region.  Within the last few days Iranian forces began shelling Kurdish towns:

Iranian artillery shelled villages in the Qandil mountains that arehome to various Kurdish militant groups, one of which — the Party for aFree Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK) — is waging a guerilla insurgencyagainst the Iranian government. Though hundreds of villagers fled theirhomes and two women were wounded, such cross-border violence isbecoming a regular feature of life in the north. But yesterday's attackcould also be a prelude to a larger struggle.

Iraqi Kurdish media are reporting that the Iranian military is massingat the main border crossing into northern Iraq, possibly for anincursion against PEJAK. Clashes between PEJAK and the Iranians havebeen increasing steadily, and Iraqi Kurdish officials say that about 40Iranian soldiers were killed on Saturday.

The situation in Iraq is extremely complex.  When the Bush Administration determines that the surge is working just by citing events taking place in Anbar Province, it does a disservice to the nuanced situation that we face.  There are so many factors to this war.  Anbar is only one.  Another is the ongoing violence along the Sunn-Shia mixed neighborhoods in and around Baghdad.  Another factor is the chaos in the suburbs of Diyala, which is just a mess.  Another is the battle between Shiite gangs in Basra over the oil wealth.  Another is Moqdada al-Sadr, who is an even bigger player today in Iraqi politics than he was six months ago.  And then we have the security concerns in the north, as I mentioned.

So this is not by any means a cut and dry war.  It is a multi-layered, super-dimensional war within a war.  Different parts of Iraq have their own issues.  Dick Cheney said it himself in 1994:

That's a veryvolatile part of the world, and if you take down the central governmentof Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off:part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it --eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over itfor eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurdsspin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten theterritorial integrity of Turkey.

Good points all around, Cheney.

Spring Break Iraqi Kurdistan

Months after unveiling misleading tourism ads on the three US news channels -- which Arianna Huffington called "sad" -- the government in Northern Iraq is now lobbying airlines to fly into their tourist spots:

The Ministry of Tourism has 417 employees and big  plans: "We need three or four times as many hotels  as we have now," says Nimrud Youkhana, the minister, "and we need to get more airlines to fly here."

Tourism in Iraq? More hotels  in a country whose name evokes images of truck bombs and mayhem, kidnappings and beheaded foreigners?

Arbil is probably the safest city in Iraq, and it is located in the north.  But other than that, you have Mosul, where 28 villagers were killed in a truck bomb earlier this week; or Kirkuk, where the goalie on the Iraqi soccer team was abducted by gunmen on Monday.

But even Arbil is not a place where any of us would want to be.  It is near the border, where thousands of Turkish troops are amassing as they wait for invasion orders. 

They will be hard-pressed to find US and European airlines willing to jeopardize their firm's future.  Give it at least a few more years.

US weapons being used by Northern Iraqi terrorists

This is what happens when you arm guerrilla groups in an unstable country -- those weapons have a tendency to reach enemy hands:

Turkey's ambassador to Washington said Wednesday that U.S. weapons havebeen turning up in the hands of Kurdish guerrillas staging attacks in Turkey .

Nabi Sensoy said that the United States  is not doing enough to influence Kurdish politicians in key positions in the Iraqi government to crack down on the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK ,which has been fighting for an independent Kurdistan within Turkey fordecades. He said that Turkey has been pressing the United States toensure that U.S. weapons supplied to Kurdish forces within the Iraqiarmy are not funneled to the PKK.

Just a little background on the PKK.  They are a militant political party located in Northern Iraq that favors Kurdish independence.  Because of their extreme tactics, such as violence against civilians in Turkey, the Pentagon has tried to distinguish most Kurdish groups with the PKK.  In fact, the US shares intelligence regarding the PKK with the Turkish government.

However, according to a former Pentagon employee, the Kurdish Democratic Party, which has its supporters in the Pentagon, has been selling arms to the PKK.

So yes, those weapons get around.  This is an ugly, ugly war.

Turkey Wants to Invade The Kurds in N. Iraq

A new spin in an already spinning Middle East. Turkey wants to cross the NorthernIraqi border to invade Kurdish guerrillas, and the U.S. is asking Turkey not to,but agrees the guerrillas are terrorists and need to be dealt with. The supportof the Iraqi Kurdish leaders is essential to stabilize Iraq.

WASHINGTON - The United States urged Turkeyon Thursday to refrain from launching cross-border raids against Kurdishguerrilla bases in neighboring Iraq, although it agreed the rebels "need tobe dealt with."

The assistant secretary of state for Europe, Dan Fried, made the appeal in atelephone call to Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy after Turkey's army chiefargued publicly in favor of a military incursion into northern Iraq to crackdown on Kurd rebels there, US officials said.

"The focus should be on trying to resolve this in a cooperative way, ina joint way, rather than to resort to unilateral actions," McCormack said.

But the US spokesman went on to say it was imperative to counter the PKK,which has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's southeastsince 1984, an insurgency that has already claimed about 37,000 lives.

"Clearly the terrorist activities of the PKK are completelyunacceptable," he said. "They are a terrorist group and they need tobe dealt with."

Read the complete story: USurges caution after Turkish army threatens operation into Iraq

This situation will most likely create a whole new batch of issues.

Iran, Iraq and Turkey team up on Kurdish group

The mainstream media has not been following the ongoing conflict in Northern Iraq.  It is a serious area of concern because if the situation continues to escalate, it might require NATO forces to calm regional tensions.

In collaboration with Turkish and Iranian security forces, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has clamped down on a Kurdish political party that wants independence.

The Turkish newspaper Zaman has the details:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliqi called hisTurkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and informed that they hadtaken the decision to enforce the closure of the organization’s officesin Bagdat (Baghdad) and ban all its activities.

“We will not allow the PKK to shelter anywhere in Iraq,”al-Maliki said in the half-an-hour phone conversation from the Iraqicapital.

Expressing that they fully understand Turkey’s demand andsensitivity on this issue, the Iraqi PM emphasized that they will keepworking in cooperation with Turkey and the United States.

So in other words, Turkey is pretty much forcing Iraq to engage in this security offensive.  But sadly enough, as this Turkish article continues, the Turkish government is labeling this Kurdish group a terrorist organization:

Thanking his Iraqi counterpart, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogansaid, “Ankara is determined to fight against terrorism without anyconcessions” and declared that no country should harbor the terrornetwork.

A pro-Kurdistan group issued a rebuttal statement saying that any such operation against their people by the Iraqi government in Northern Iraq would be resisted.  Some believe this might eventually become the second front in Iraq's civil war, which could boil over to more of a regional conflict.

This comes on the heels of conservative Richard Holbrooke's advice to President Bush that it would be smart to redeploy some U.S. troops to Northern Iraq to act as a buffer zone between Kurd and Turkish forces.

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.