Ian Welsh points us towards an analysis of the Turkish problem in Northern Iraq which is fascinating. Under the Bu$h doctrine of pre-emption, Turkey is completely justified in launching a pre-emptive war on Kurdistan, and is actually justified.

The current crisis between Turkey and the Kurds has been building up for decades. In recent weeks, Turkish-Kurdish tensions burst into flames. Marxist-nationalist PKK guerillas fighting for an independent nation for Turkey’s 20 million or so Kurds killed a score of Turkish soldiers and captured eight.

Hundreds more Turkish soldiers have been killed in eastern Anatolia by increasingly effective Kurdish fighters known as `pesh-merga,’ who have been receiving more and better weapons from fellow Iraqi Kurds.

Fiercely nationalist Turks demand their armed forces invade Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish mini-state to destroy PKK bases. The Turks have massed 100,000 troops and armor on their mountainous border with Iraq. Limited Turkish air attacks and ground probes inside Iraq began last week.

A decade ago, I covered the brutal guerilla war in the hills of bleak, windswept Eastern Anatolia between Kurdish PKK guerillas (Turks brand them `terrorists’) and the Turkish Army. At the time, the world ignored this ugly conflict in which 35,000 people had by then died. I came away torn by sympathy for both sides in this tragic conflict.

Unlike the US, Turkey really does have a substantial reason. And you won’t be surprised to learn that oil is a secondary cause here:

If Iraq slides further into the abyss, Turkey and Iran may partition Iraq. Today, Turkey has no oil. Its fragile economy is hammered by having to earn US dollars to buy oil. But if Turkey repossessed Iraq’s northern oil fields, this nation of 70 million with 515,000 men at arms would become an important power that would reassert traditional Turkish influence in the Mideast, Balkans, Caucasus, and Central Asia.

`Pan-Turanism,’ the idea of spreading Turkish influence from its eastern border across the Turkic lands of Central Asia to the Great Wall of China remains dear to the hearts of many Turkish nationalists and far rightists. Iraq’s huge oil reserves are a big temptation Ankara cannot ignore. After all, if the US can invade Iraq for oil, why not neighboring, ex-owner Turkey? [emph added]

Also unsurprising is the fact that the Bu$h (OK, Cheney, actually) foreign policy machinery has created yet another difficulty for itself the country. If Turkey and Iran could somehow manage to create their own spheres of influence in Iraq, Turkey could control the oil-rich North, and Iran would certainly have influence in the Shia South (also awash in oil) leaving the US the Sunni West, which is rich in – sand. Sand is excellent for pounding, you know.

As Ian notes,

[M]ost of the US's air-delivered supplies come through Turkey. And as the Iraqi resistance has been destroying the roads and bridges in Iraq, that percentage has been climbing. Certainly the US can route around, but it will be quite inconvenient. And while the civilian government doesn't want to get involved in Iraq, at the same time, the general population is very angry and would support an attack.

Bonus points to Mr Margolies for acknowledging the Oded Yinon strategy:

The US invasion devastated Iraq and effectively split [it] into three pieces - fulfilling the first step in Israel’s grand strategy of fragmenting Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.