Turkey, Iran set sights on Northern Iraq

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | March 20, 2003 | Bob Novak

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Robert Novak

Turkey, Iran set sights on Northern Iraq

March 20, 2003

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement

On Wednesday last week, a special envoy of the president of Iran traveled to Ankara for talks with Turkish leaders. What business did America's enemy (and ''axis of evil'' member) have with America's ally in NATO? The informed suspicion is that they were dividing up northern Iraq between them in advance of an anticipated U.S. military victory.

That runs against American war aims. The day after the Iranian-Turkish meeting, President Bush sent a letter to Ankara that, in reportedly blunt language, told the Turks to keep hands off Iraq. As he closed the door on diplomacy Monday, Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed that Turkey had been informed of the U.S. commitment to maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity.

Actually, Iraq is an artificial country, created by the British Colonial Office after World War I by combining three provinces of the defeated Ottoman (Turkish) Empire containing antipathetic ethnic groups. Nevertheless, keeping Iraq intact and making it democratic is the first step in George W. Bush's Wilsonian design of transforming the Arab world. A threat from Iran and Turkey would begin multiple reconstruction difficulties even before the shooting ends.

The March 12 visit to Ankara was made by Iranian presidential envoy Behzad Nabavi to senior Turkish officials, including President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Most news reports had Nabavi congratulating the Turks on their refusal to permit U.S. troops to invade Iraq from Turkey. Behind closed doors, however, it is believed they talked more about mutual opposition to the now autonomous Kurds of northern Iraq becoming an independent nation that reaches out to Kurds in Turkey and Iran.

''Cooperation between Tehran and Ankara,'' reports Stratfor, the private intelligence service, ''would further erode the Kurds' limited chances for retaining autonomy and instead may set up de facto Turkish and Iranian rule in northern Iraq.'' That contradicts the conventional wisdom that Tehran dreads a Turkish incursion in Iraq.

On March 13, Bush sent his letter, described as ''harsh'' by the Turkish press, to Turkey's newly elected Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan. While those accounts depicted Bush as mainly interested in gaining access to Turkey for the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, American sources say the president was really pressing a hands-off-Iraq message on Turkey. On Monday, Powell went out of his way to say the U.S. government has ''assured the Turks that in anything the future might hold, we are committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq.''

Bush aide Zalmay Khalilzad was sent to Ankara this week to negotiate. Actually, it was too late to use Turkey as an invasion base. Under discussion was the unspoken Turkish desire to send troops into Iraq. Much as Bush desires a ''coalition of the willing,'' he does not want Turkey's army in Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region. U.S. Special Forces operatives, who slipped into Iraq, are openly working with Kurdish militia.

Stratfor reports that Turkey has already moved 7,000 troops into that region, with several thousand more on the Turkish side of the border. It also indicates Iranian troops are working with their Kurdish allies. The Turkish-Iranian partnership, though odd on its face, is possible and points up the complexity of dealing with ''post-war'' Iraq's problems.

Such problems, Senate Foreign Relations Committee members privately complain, have been taken out of the State Department's jurisdiction and given to the Defense Department. They suggest Gen. Tommy Franks has his hands full as theater commander-in-chief without having to plan his designated assignment as a MacArthur-like proconsul in occupied Baghdad.

Sen. Richard Lugar, the Republican chairman of Foreign Relations, recently convened hearings on whether anybody in the administration is doing such planning. Government witnesses were disappointing--especially Douglas Feith, undersecretary of Defense and the heavy thinker at the Pentagon. Several senators asked about the fate of the Kurds, but he did not give much of an answer.

''It is very hard,'' said Feith at one point, ''to tell you precisely what we plan to do because so much . . . depends on how events unfold.'' He hastened to add, however, that ''a great deal of thought has been given'' to the problems posed by the senators. Hopefully, that includes countering an international power grab in northern Iraq.

[a_Turk]

Hogwash.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

I too have a hard time believing Turkey would co-operate with Iran but Iran is watching their borders being transformed into countries that will be threats to their political system as opposed to threats to them militarily.

Anything is possible when you are put in that box.

[skeeter]

Agreed. Robert Novak is out to lunch on mideast issues.

[a_Turk]

We've been screaming territorial integrity for Irak..

If there was a meeting, the it would have been to tell them that.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[try phecta tom]

Well so far one thread said Iran was allowing some sort of ragtag "rebel" force to cross its border into Iraq. And another thread said the Turks were advancing 20K troops in to Iraq, coincidence?

[dasein64]

About an hour ago, NPR reported that Turkish Troops were moving into northern Iraq. This was followed by a question in this regard by one of the reprters at the daily White House briefing, and Fleisher declined comment.

I don't know what to make of this, but one would think that the press would be giving it much more play if these "reports" had been confirmed. If true, this could get messy (or even more messy).

[Salvation]

Send in the French peacekeepers. <sarcams off/

[a_Turk]

>> I don't know what to make of this

Simple.. We've been saying we would for months. It was our military saying we would. Either someone is deaf, or worse, doesn't know enough to take our military seriously. I can see and would agree with anyone who doesn't take our politicians seriously, but our military is a man of his word.

It's the Turkish version of "If you're not with us, you're against us" in northern Irak.. And that's not directed towards you, our faithful ally, but against the terrorist harboring feudal monarchs in northern Irak.

Want links? My fingers are starting to hurt...

[Sabertooth]

On Wednesday last week, a special envoy of the president of Iran traveled to Ankara for talks with Turkish leaders. What business did America's enemy (and ''axis of evil'' member) have with America's ally in NATO? The informed suspicion is that they were dividing up northern Iraq between them in advance of an anticipated U.S. military victory.

That runs against American war aims. The day after the Iranian-Turkish meeting, President Bush sent a letter to Ankara that, in reportedly blunt language, told the Turks to keep hands off Iraq. As he closed the door on diplomacy Monday, Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed that Turkey had been informed of the U.S. commitment to maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity.

< -snip- >

The March 12 visit to Ankara was made by Iranian presidential envoy Behzad Nabavi to senior Turkish officials, including President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Most news reports had Nabavi congratulating the Turks on their refusal to permit U.S. troops to invade Iraq from Turkey. Behind closed doors, however, it is believed they talked more about mutual opposition to the now autonomous Kurds of northern Iraq becoming an independent nation that reaches out to Kurds in Turkey and Iran.

''Cooperation between Tehran and Ankara,'' reports Stratfor, the private intelligence service, ''would further erode the Kurds' limited chances for retaining autonomy and instead may set up de facto Turkish and Iranian rule in northern Iraq.'' That contradicts the conventional wisdom that Tehran dreads a Turkish incursion in Iraq.

Turkey and Iran are going in to prevent any possibility of Kurdish independence. The usually ignored commodity in any discussion of Kurdistan is water.

The snowpack of the Fertile Crescent melts in Kurdistan, and is the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates. You think Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran can or will give that up willingly? Can you imagine the commitment that would be required of us to maintain an independent Kurdistan?

[dasein64]

I understand that Turkey has said that it would invade northern Iraq. It remains unclear whether they have. The Turkish Ambassador to the United Sates has just indicated that the Turkish Parliament has authorized the dispatch of troops to northern Iraq, but insisted that they had not already invaded. He also said that no action would be taken apart from coordination with the "Coalition of the Willing."

Clearly, Turkey has the right to defend itself. How it goes about doing so is the issue. It clearly presents an exacerbation of an already tense situation for them to interject themselves unilaterally. Isreal, for instance has the right to defend itself, but if they get bombed again, the United Sates would not find an invasion of their troops helpful.

[MeekOneGOP]

bttt

[a_Turk]

There's a news blackout.. Keep in mind, though, that Turkey has an airbase, a bit less than a thousand tanks and howitzers, and more than 10,000 troops in northern Irak already, where they've been for years.

[The Old Hoosier]

Well, you don't have to use the word "Wilsonian," but that's what it is.

[Happy2BMe]

Turkey prepares to stake claim in Iraq's oil fields - (It's the oil, stupid.)

Top Turkish General Fears: Kurds Will Ally With The United States

[AmericanVictory]

The catch phrase echoed here, namely, "Iraq is an artificial country," assumes a racially based concept of nationhood that may no longer operate in the present situation.