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One thing all Turks seem to agree on is continued domination of the Kurds. The Turkish military would intervene if the government seemed too EASY on the Kurdish question, but not because the government was too hard line.

Turkey is violently opposed to a free Kurdistan because the Kurds want part of their new nation to be carved out of today's Turkey. The Kurds have been responsible for various terrorist acts inside Turkey, and the Turks are not amused.

Basically, Turkey and the Kurds have no love for each other, and are ready to fight.

I strongly suspect Turkey intends to invade northern Iraq on its own once the war starts. They will have two objectives: Capture the oil fields and control the Kurds.

Iraq has no military worth mentioning in northern Iraq. The chief opposition to Turkey will come from the Kurds, not the Iraqi army.

Turkey would gladly fight a war if that is what it took to prevent the Kurds from having their own nation. The Kurds will gladly fight the Turks if they invade.

The U.S. is the wild card for each side. Turkey has spit in our eye, the Kurds have welcomed us with open arms. Turkey is one of the most powerful nations in the region, and does not think we will openly fight them even if they attack the Kurds. The Kurds are weak, but eager to be our ally (they need our help to hold off the Turks).

If we side with the Kurds, we may have to fight Turkey. Whatever we do, it must be consistent with our needs in the war against the truly evil Sodamned (first things first). Which side should we take?

Which side should we take?

If we fight Turkey, it would surely spell the end of NATO. Greece and Turkey fought a war in the late 1970s; both are NATO members, but this was on the periphery of Nato concerns.

But for us to cross swords with a NATO member would destroy the trans Atlantic idea of NATO. It seems that Turkey finds its identity more as an Islamic nation than a European nation. The irony is that I'm sure there were back-stage telephone calls from France, Germany and Belgium threatening to pull the plug on EU membership if they didn't vote against aiding the U.S. in Iraq.