Iraq And The U.S.

BY TAHA AKYOL

MILLIYET- Columnist Taha Akyol comments on the relationship between Iraq and the US. A summary of his column is as follows:

This week’s suicide bombing outside the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad seems to be the work of ‘radical Arabs.’ The Iraqi Kurdish leaders Barzani and Talabani have peshmerga forces, but they lack the culture, practice or personnel for suicide bombings. The Arabs, however, have all three. This incident caused great excitement among Islamic Arabs who are also secular nationalists. Iraq has seen many such bomb attacks recently, with Tuesday’s attack being only the latest example. Earlier there was an attack against the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which shows that the aim of these attacks is to head off stability in Iraq and to turn the country into a hell of terrorism and anarchy. They must be dreaming of the return of Saddam Hussein and setting up a Sunni or Shiite theocratic regime.
Meanwhile, Turkey is planning to send its soldiers precisely in order to prevent Iraq from becoming a hell of terrorism and anarchy, as this would be a unique opportunity for PKK/KADEK and could also cause an Iraq civil war in Iraq which might engulf the entire region. Turkey wants to prevent this, and therefore it won’t give up just because there was a bomb attack, because the terrorists’ real aim is to scare off and dissuade Turkey. If Turkey retreats now, it will look like a country which has been scared and dissuaded. So is Turkey obliged to send its soldiers to Iraq? No! It can send its soldiers if doing so would protect its military interests. If the US doesn’t support Turkey’s strategic interests, Ankara shouldn’t send its soldiers.
When Turkey passed the deployment motion, shouldn’t the US have started negotiations in Ankara? But they aren’t here yet. ‘The deployment of Turkish soldiers is a sensitive issue,’ said National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice yesterday. ‘We’re meeting with both [Turkish and Iraqi] parties and we’ll see the result.’ I guess they’re looking for a way for Turkey to enter Iraq without bothering Barzani and Talabani. If Turkey assumes the risk of facing attacks, conflicts and sabotage, the only path in would be northern Iraq. Turkish soldiers will use the same road on which food, clothes and fuel for US troops are sent through Turkey. The US considers the Kurds as its only support within Iraq. However, it doesn’t see that its biased stance is causing reaction among the Arabs, alienating Kurds in the country and sowing doubts in countries in the region. The US should be more reasonable and reliable.