BY HASAN UNAL
ZAMAN- At this week’s NATO summit, there were no special points on the official agenda addressing ‘operations,’ ‘cooperation,’ or ‘military transformation.’
NATO’s military transformation has been in the works for more than a decade, responding to the alliance’s changing threat assessment. Operations under the NATO umbrella are currently limited to Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. It was known beforehand that the Bosnia operation would end (to be passed on to the EU) and there would be new military requests from Afghanistan. The various cooperation and dialogue programs have so far failed to achieve a concrete result.
It was thought that the Iraq issue would be on the summit’s informal agenda. But NATO becoming formally involved and sending troops there was not likely, as it had been already seen at the recent G-8 summit that this wasn’t in the cards. The only question left was training the Iraqi military to facilitate US forces’ withdrawal from Iraq. Germany and France couldn’t quibble with this, as the US’ absence would leave a power vacuum needing someone to step in and ensure stability.
And this is what NATO decided on the subject. When we look at the declaration on Iraq, it’s not clear whether NATO will handle the situation or settle with making a call to countries which are ready. But it appears that NATO will call on its member countries, and these countries will discuss how, when and where they train the Iraqi military with the country’s new government.
In line with this, some questions spring to mind: Where will the Iraqi military be trained? Will some of its troops be sent to Turkey? If some are sent, we should also consider just which are chosen and whether they will accurately reflect the balance of Iraq’s ethnic makeup.