With the crisis on the Turkish-Iraqi border region at its peak, and amid distinct signs that a large scale Turkish invasion is imminent, eyebrows were raised when Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan left Ankara on Monday and headed for London. Why London?
In another time, in the year 1914, it might have made sense – an Ottoman sultan facing the Arab revolt instigated by Britain, setting out on a voyage from Constantinople, seeking settlement. Of course, analogies from history never quite apply. But there is something extraordinary about these diplomatic activities.
United States President George W Bush revealed on October 17 that he’s "told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon".
Man has never before in his bloody history waged preemptive war against the spread of knowledge. The nearest he came was with the Inquisition when he insisted knowledge was heresy. But when Bush warns of preemptive war, it must be taken seriously. With a world war on its doorstep, Turkey is coming under enormous pressure to take sides.
Erdogan did the right thing visiting Britain. He should check out the thinking in London, pick up signals. The sun may have set on the British Empire, but London still has an enviable say in the affairs of Mesopotamia. The London Times quoted British Defense Ministry sources on Sunday saying that SAS (Special Air Service Regiment) commandos, operating jointly with the US and Australian special forces units, have engaged in at least a dozen intense firefights in the recent weeks with Iranian border guards. The newspaper spoke of British special forces having repeatedly crossed into Iran several times in recent weeks, and of "persistent reports of American special-operations missions inside Iran preparing for a possible attack".
It’s Iran, stupid!It seems a coincidence that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also happened to be visiting London on Monday. Miri Eisin, Olmert’s spokesman, said a meeting with Erdogan had been "added" to the Israeli prime minister’s itinerary, and that they would likely discuss Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the Palestine peace moves. But why the hurry? It is hardly a fortnight since the Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan visited Israel.
Besides, if the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, is to be believed, there is still plenty of time for diplomacy with Iran. He told Le Monde newspaper over the weekend, "I cannot judge their intentions, but, assuming Iran does intend to acquire a nuclear bomb, it would need between another three and eight years to succeed. All the intelligence services agree on that. I want to get people away from the idea that Iran will be a threat from tomorrow, and that we are right now faced with the issue of whether Iran should be bombed or allowed to have the bomb. We are not at all in that situation. Iraq is a glaring example how, in many cases, the use of force exacerbates the problem rather than solving it."
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband left London at the weekend for Washington for consultations over Iraq and Iran, with particular focus on the tensions on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Erdogan himself is traveling to Washington at the beginning of November. And whenever there is criticality in Western strategy in the Middle East, little Jordan gingerly pops up. To be sure, King Abdullah is visiting Turkey next week.
An apparent theme running through all this diplomatic activity is the snowballing crisis in the Turkish-Iraqi border region. But somewhere in the near background, there is the lengthening shadow of the Iran question. Israeli diplomatic activity has picked up sharply. Olmert has just concluded a packed European tour. Israeli intelligence officials and opinion makers in the strategy community are fanning out and are descending on friendly capitals such as New Delhi. They carry fearsome tales about Iran. Israel seems geared up for a big-time role.
The point is, several unanswered questions remain about the sudden eruption of Kurdish violence in Turkey’s eastern provinces bordering Iraq and Iran. Some templates are visible.
The PKK enigmaIt is at once obvious that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is not acting on its own. The PKK cadres are extremely well equipped and far better trained than at any time in their 25-year campaign of violence. Equally, it is common knowledge that the president of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, is playing hide and seek (which comes naturally to a wily Kurd reared in the tough mountains of his homeland) – publicly dissociating from the PKK; pleading inability to curb PKK activities from bases located in territory under his control; but reserving the right to oppose any Turkish cross-border operations in pursuit of the PKK.
There is also much evidence that weapons given by the US to Barzani, ostensibly for fighting al-Qaeda, are finding their way into the PKK’s hands. How this can happen no one cares to explain. Barzani is a staunch ally of the US – and of Israel. The US pleads its forces are overstretched in Iraq and cannot do anything much by way of curbing PKK activities.
Yet nothing much can happen in that region without US acquiescence. It is a region where the US Special Forces have been active in kidnapping visiting Iranian functionaries. They are pretty much clued in on what goes on there. The Kurdish region is a crucial theater of US strategy in Iraq. The US is using northern Iraqi Kurdistan as a launching pad for undertaking covert activities within Iran.
The same is the case with Israel. Israeli businessmen are having a whale of a time in northern Iraq. They are there for the long haul. They have bought up much real estate in and around Suleymaniah. They are traveling in a gravy train with corrupt Kurdish local officials. They have grandiose business plans riveted around the evacuation of northern Iraq’s oil and gas via Turkish pipelines. They are thick with Barzani too.
Northern Iraq is a region where Israel has established a very strong intelligence presence over the past four years. It is a region that is central to Israel