Hey, unintended consequences. Who’d have thought it?
No surprise, Turkey’s parliament has approved Turkish military incursion into Iraq.
This is problematic for the US for several reasons. Firstly, Turkey is in NATO, so the sabre-rattling and quiet conflict with Iran can’t be replicated here. Secondly, Turkey has something of a case; the PKK, an organisation that many countries, including the US, consider to be a terrorist organisation is, by all accounts, operating out of Kurdish Northern Iraq. Thirdly, how can the US sustain a rhetoric of “you can’t do this” against a policy of military incursion into a country that harbours terrorists and pursues them insufficiently vigorously? Of course, it’s embarassing because the country in question is currently occupied by the US military amidst a blaze of anti-terrorism posturing. It’s not just Bush whose caught in a logical tangle, either; presumably Barack Obama can appreciate the Turkish point of view.
This is all happening against the background of a possible vote in the House on the matter of the “Armenian Genocide”, although Speaker Pelosi is perhaps backing off on that. Turkey has muscles to flex, it seems.