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

UK Telegraph ^ | By Amberin Zaman in Ankara

[Mortimer Snavely]

"... will placing even more Kurds under Turkish control actually solve their own Kurdish problem? Of course not."

Where did you learn to reason like this? Harvard? Princeton? It's frightenting to think that this sort of thinking determines our foreign policy.

[Happy2BMe]

"Where did you learn to reason like this? Harvard? Princeton?"

9/11 Crafter Khalid Sheik Mohammed highly educated in North Carolina - preferred Egyptian-born Americans

[illumini]

My intent was for it to sound more like: "Thanks for nothing Turkey, - we'll work with the Kurds to your dismay".

[justa-hairyape]

Iraq under Saddam was Socialist. This is no Vietnam. Think of what defending the teriritorial rights that arabs have to oil deposits, will do for us in the long run. The Turks stopped us from taking out Saddam in Gulf War 1. They have been allowing their neighbor Saddam to commit genocide on the Kurds.

[Mortimer Snavely]

"The Turks stopped us from taking out Saddam in Gulf War 1."

How so?

[justa-hairyape]

For the same reason they just refused to allow US Land Troops to launch an offensive from Turkey. They do not want the Kurds to live freely or to have even a hint of autonomy. The Turkey/Kurdish issue was one of the items cited as to why President Bush applied the brakes. That along with upsetting the Arab members within the coalition. Now hindsight is 20-20, but those two concerns are why Saddam was left in power. You should never leave a madman like that in power. In this case he plotted revenge and logistically supported anti-western terrorism. Not to mention his attacks on the Shiites and the Kurds

[Mortimer Snavely]

"They do not want the Kurds to live freely or to have even a hint of autonomy."

Marxist Kurdish revolutionaries in Northeren Iraq have killed tens of thousands of Turks. They claim about a third of Anatolia. Allowing them to establish a power base is very ill advised.

[hinckley buzzard]

"The Axis of Weasels, along with merely self-interested parties like Turkey..."

Not so fast. The Axis of Weasels is the core of the EU. Turkey has been grubbing about trying to get admittance to the EU. The Froggies and Krauts want no part of a moslem horde annexing itself to their wonderful sophisticated cultures.(Remember, citizens of EU nations can cross boundaries at will...)

Ah, but what if now come the Turks bearing gifts, such as the Northern Iraqi oilfields-- suddenly the Eurofascists have their very own internal source of oil wealth...

All the euro's have to do is ignore the obscene turkish human rights record, hold their noses, and vote Turkey in as an EU member...and it's a whole new economic ballgame...

[George W. Bush]

All the euro's have to do is ignore the obscene turkish human rights record, hold their noses, and vote Turkey in as an EU member...and it's a whole new economic ballgame...

Can't happen regardless of what they want.

1991: Saddam invades Kuwait, claiming it is a lost province of Iraq, seizes its oil.

2003: Turkey invades Iraq, claiming lost oil revenues from an 80 year old treaty and a dim claim on the Turkomen who reject their presence, seizes the oil.

Same result with Turkey as with Saddam. Turkey bombed back to stone age. Saddam was also our ally until he invaded oil country. Same as Turkey is our ally now.

You understand that everything Bush 1 (Spook Daddy) and Bush 2 (W.) have stood for and fought for in the Gulf would be completely repudiated by letting Turkey do this. Not to mention that the U.N. would be an accessory to it all if they didn't immediately authorize force to dislodge Turkey.

Oh, yes, Turkey would love to do this. They're colonizing Cyprus now. But even they aren't stupid enough to think they'll get away with it in oil country.

[hinckley buzzard]

"I don't think Turkish annexation arrangements will fly."

The Weasels run the EU. Turkey has been begging at the door for admission to the EU. The Frogs and Krauts, wanting no part of a wholesale moslem tidal wave across the now meaningless national borders, have stiffed them.

Let Turkey bring the northern Iraqi oilfields with them and suddenly the EU has it's own internal oil wealth.

All the euroturds will have to do is to hold their noses and vote turkey into the club, and it's a whole new global economic ballgame.

And who is going to protest...the UN?
Russia? China? With the Euro gaining major strength against a crashng dollar, the collective scum of the earth can finally collude to steal the march successfully on those mean old Americans...

[Mr.Clark]

GW and friends have said numerous times that we expect to secure Iraq's national sovereignty, including their current borders. If the Turks come south, they're going to set the area ablaze, because the Kurds will sense an oppurtunity. That will be bad for all parties involved.

[George W. Bush]

They do not want the Kurds to live freely or to have even a hint of autonomy.

A lot of Turks are part Kurd. There are a lot of Kurds who immigrated to Turkey. In '91, Turkey had a Kurd as president (remember him?).

It's complex, not just Kurd vs. Turk. The more radical Kurds in Iraq perceive that everybody is indifferent to their fate and that they need their own country for security. And they see the oil around the ancient Kurd "capital", Kirkuk, as the finance to make it possible. If they could establish a Kurdistan (Turkey's main fear), they could try to reclaim the land their tribes used to run on in large portions of Iran and in Turkey.

It's just not a simple situation ethnically and there really is no good solution at this point. And we can't fight any wars to change the ancient history of these people. Where would we stop?

The Kurds belong in a secure autonomous zone in northern Iraq, in confederation with Shiite and Sunni zones, all under a federal system in Baghdad. We've guaranteed to preserve the boundaries of Iraq and that's what we'll do. There will be no regional disintegration, no Kurdistan. No dinky little radical countries that can't defend themselves and become hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism.

[justa-hairyape]

Allowing them to establish a power base is very ill advised.

There are no 100 % correct answers here. The points you make are probably some of the same ones that led the US to support Saddams Iraq initially. He provided stability even though it was a maniacal iron fisted stability. Just like the former Soviet Union provided stability to many of the nations within this region of the world and prior to them the Ottomon Empire. But what we are doing is denying an entire ethnicities ability to govern itself. In the long run, that cannot be the best solution. It certaintly is not the democratic one. Besides, history has shown that marxism eventually fails, even with oil money to support it.

[justa-hairyape]

There will be no regional disintegration, no Kurdistan. No dinky little radical countries that can't defend themselves and become hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism.

You bring up some very good points. But is not the Middle East already full of 'dinky little radical countries'. Someone needs to keep Iran in check and needs to provide the freedom coalition a base with which to operate to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Kurdistan might actually be more stable then a democratic Iraq, which could end up being as politically reliable as democratic Turkey.

[George W. Bush]

A Kurdistan in northern Iraq would be too weak against Turkey and Iran, both of who have large territories that the Kurds claim as part of their homeland. To establish a Kurdistan is to invite war for many years to come.

Once we have our new bases in the new Iraq, we'll be able to handle some of these security and regional concerns for ourselves.

I don't really think we're just going to leave Iraq. But we'll have isolated bases by treaty, out of contact with the civilian population. Probably rotate staff on 4-month tours, no families.

[Happy2BMe]