Angles and tangles

It was interesting to see how the same incident could be approached from entirely different angles. And that is certainly why the Middle East, particularly Iraq, is full of tangles that make life miserable for many in Washington.  

Imagine you are US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. You are making an unannounced visit to Iraq to mark an agreement that postpones a potentially explosive referendum on the status of oil-rich Kirkuk. You are supposed to commend Kurds and Arabs for their reconciliation, no matter how fleeting. By poor luck, your visit coincides with the immediate aftermath of the Turkish military strikes in northern Iraq. Suddenly Kurds in Arbil begin blaming the Arab-dominated government in Baghdad for failing to secure Iraq's borders. Your hopes of reconciliation fade. You come under fire not from Kurds but also Arabs -- Irritation with the Turks, by the way, is a rare topic of mutual reconciliation between them -- for letting the Turks do what they did. On the other hand, you have long been under fire in Turkey for a lack of action and cooperation against the PKK presence in northern Iraq. How would you reconcile this?

Think about Turkey's Turks and Iraq's Kurds. Both have been helping the US in various ways. Without their cooperation, Iraq would definitely be a messier mess. But they usually can't get along with each other. The US does not want to alienate either of them. It wants to dance with both Kurds and Turks. The PKK question -- plus Kirkuk, in a larger sense -- raises the question of who the US ultimately prefers to dance with. Until the day of the last tango in Iraq, no party will be sure who the favorite US partner is. This will continue to create occasional emotional breakdowns on all sides.

Out of fear of an emotional breakdown resulting in a major Turkish unilateral incursion that would substantially complicate US efforts in Iraq, the Bush administration has finally agreed to a limited cross-border Turkish military operation. Following the Erdoğan-Bush meeting in Washington on Nov. 5, a mechanism for military coordination and actionable intelligence-sharing was formed. Turks proudly announce that it was thanks to this mechanism and agreement that the long-desired attack on PKK targets was made possible. In a majority Muslim NATO country with 70 million people who are furious with Washington, mainly for its perceived pro-Kurdish policy, who could ask for more in the way of image-reparing? But due to fear of a backlash among the Kurdish constituency, the US cannot even confirm that they helped the Turkish operations by providing actionable intelligence. American spokespersons have tried to downplay the role the US has played in all this. True, it was a "Turkish decision,' as Rice and others suggested. But without the US playing the facilitator, this would not have been possible at all. Turkish authorities use every opportunity to point out the American connection, primarily because they want to send a signal to Baghdad and Arbil that they are the most preferred dancing partners.

For people on the ground who work with Iraqis on a daily basis, such as the Pentagon's Central Command and the State Department's Near East Bureau, the idea of a Turkish military intervention has never been very pleasant. They have successfully blocked the process for years. They knew they would be the ones who had to control the damage. I wouldn't be surprised if the AP story reporting that anonymous US officials from the State Department and Pentagon were angry with the Turks' lack of timely notification about the operation emanated from those circles. There are many Arabs and Kurds who would be happy to hear that the Americans got angry with the Turks, even if that's not the case.