[Daughters_of_Ataturk] Turkey, with a side of rich irony, The Orange County Register, Monday, March 3, 2008

Sema Karaoglu <turquiamia2@yahoo.com> wrote:

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 08:34:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Sema Karaoglu <turquiamia2@yahoo.com>
Subject: Turkey, with a side of rich irony, The Orange County Register, Monday, March 3, 2008
To: turquiamia2@yahoogroups.com,
Sema Karaoglu <daughters_of_ataturk@yahoo.com>

Comments should be sent to

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Monday, March 3, 2008
Editorial: Turkey, with a side of rich irony
U.S. lectures the Turks about their quick campaign
against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq
An Orange County Register editorial
Comments 0| Recommend 0

Turkey has pulled its troops out of northern Iraq but
said it was done because the mission was finished, not
because of foreign pressure. The main pressure came
from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, just before
a visit Friday in Turkey. It was a warning loaded with
ironies – even beyond the irony that Secretary Gates,
who, with his globe-trotting and pontificating, sounds
more like a secretary of state than the secretary of
defense. But the urgency of his warning underlined
just how shaky is the limited progress related to
Sunni tribes turning on al-Qaida in Iraq and the
"surge."

The situation that concerned Mr. Gates has been
simmering for several months. Ethnic Kurds live in
northern Iraq and parts of Turkey and Iran but have no
country of their own, although the regional government
in northern Iraq is so effectively independent of the
central government as to constitute a nascent de facto
Kurdistan. Kurdish extremist groups in Turkey had
conducted insurrectionary activities since 1984. The
fighting, at varying levels of intensity, is said to
have killed 40,000 people since then, according to The
Associated Press, but it had simmered down over the
past couple of years.

However, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a guerrilla
group identified as terrorist by the U.S. and most
European countries, has been conducting raids inside
Turkey from remote mountain camps that the Kurdish
regional government cannot (or will not) effectively
control. Turkish troops had crossed the border in a
few "hot pursuit" raids, but last week began a major
military incursion with the object of eliminating the
terrorist bases.

Let us consider the ironies. A representative of a
country that invaded an Iraq that posed nothing
remotely resembling a serious threat to the United
States or its core interests is lecturing one of
Iraq's neighbors about chasing a guerrilla group that
has launched attacks from within Iraq that have killed
hundreds of Turks and threaten to spark a new Kurdish
insurrection. A country that has occupied Iraq for
years beyond the point when every opinion poll shows
most Iraqis would like us out the day before yesterday
is fretting over a limited incursion a little more
than a week old. An administration that has rejected
any talk of timetables for its own operations wants to
impose a timetable on Turkey. And Mr. Gates tells
Turkey to "be mindful of Iraqi sovereignty" when most
U.S. military people say that without U.S., troops the
"sovereign" Iraqi government would collapse into chaos
and befuddlement.

This doesn't mean that the Turkish invasion of Iraqi
territory doesn't pose new dangers – even beyond those
posed by the fact that the Sunni forces that are the
key to whatever success has come with the U.S. "surge"
are losing patience with the U.S., or that the Iraqi
government has just rejected a measure on elections
that the U.S. considers an essential benchmark toward
reconciliation. The Turkish invasion could easily
destabilize what until now has been the most stable
part of Iraq.

Isn't it time to admit that the U.S. has limited power
to micromanage the future of Iraq and start planning
to reduce the U.S. commitment and let Iraqis, for
better and for worse no doubt, manage and mismanage
Iraq?



Sema Karaoglu, Founder of Daughters of Atatürk (http://www.DofA.org) &
Sons of Atatürk (http://www.SonsOfAtaturk.org)
Daughters of Atatürk is proud to promote Turkish Heritage across the globe. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk shaped the legacy we proudly inherited.
His integrity and dynamism and vision constantly inspires us. We are thankful to him for walking the untrodden path, achieving the unimaginable dream, living the eternal vision. We are the Turks, we are the future of Turkey. www.wearetheturks.org


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Sema Karaoglu, Founder               Meltem Birkegren, Director
www.DofA.org

www.wearetheturks.org
Daughters of Atatürk is proud to promote Turkish Heritage across the globe. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk shaped the legacy we proudly inherited.
His integrity and dynamism and vision constantly inspires us. We are thankful to him for walking the untrodden path, achieving the unimaginable dream, living the eternal vision. We are the Turks, we are the future of Turkey.

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Sema Karaoglu, Founder               Meltem Birkegren, Director
www.DofA.org
www.wearetheturks.org

Daughters of Atatürk is proud to promote Turkish Heritage across the globe. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk shaped the legacy we proudly inherited.
His integrity and dynamism and vision constantly inspires us. We are thankful to him for walking the untrodden path, achieving the unimaginable dream, living the eternal vision. We are the Turks, we are the future of Turkey.

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