Turkey, Iraq, PKK, Iran, Cheney and Twelve Captains

Turkey is ready, raring and probably able to go into Iraqi Kurdistan in one more attempt to abate the nuisance called the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

Not surprisingly, this development has heaved Baghdad into a full blown state of panic.

Equally unsurprisingly, the Turkish move is deplored by the current administration.

Ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, the Kurds have been a thorn in the paw of every would be Lion of the Upper Tigris and Euphrates. Ataturk pretended the Kurds didn't really exist. The British, as part of the sporadic Empire Policing Scheme, tried to bomb them into submission.

Later the Shah, Saddam, Assam, and the mullahocracy periodically mounted punitive expeditions against them. The body count varied from minimal to massive, but in the end the Kurds were still there--and still unacceptably uppity from the perspective of Tehran, Baghdad, or Damascus.

In comparison, the Turks were remarkably easy going in the face of PKK provocation. While Ankara's estimate of thirty thousand Turks killed in the past twenty or so years by PKK attacks may err on the side of exaggeration, PKK has inflicted unacceptable damage to the Turkish society, polity, and economy.

Since the American sponsored "regime change" in Iraq and the virtual independence of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR) in that country, PKK has been on the attack with a vengeance. Months ago (with an arguable amount of justification) the Turkish government pointed a finger at the United States as having a (major) share of the responsibility for the rapidly deteriorating situation in southeastern Turkey along the Iraqi border.

The current administration did not make an effective reply. The (covert, so don't say a word about it) introduction of a handful of Special Forces teams into Turkey to work with the local forces in detecting and interdicting PKK squads along with the promise of an investigation to find how weapons transferred by the US to Iraqi security units ended up in the (dead) hands of PKK guerrillas were the main features of the totally ineffectual American response.

The PKK attacks escalated. Finally, they went one bomb over the line. The Turkish Army howled. Given the current internal politics of Turkey with the recent, hotly contested election of a perhaps Islamist leaning president, the protests of the army could not be ignored.

Neither could the implied humiliation of the Turkish government by the brazen PKK strikes. When coupled with the pathetically misguided and mistimed effort on the part of Sten Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats in the House, which was in itself a perceived insult, the vote in the Turkish parliament to authorize raids of undefined size into northern Iraq was drearily predictable.

US military officials on the ground in Iraq as well as in Washington are correct when they aver any Turkish incursion will destabilize the most peaceful portion of Iraq. The band in Baghdad which claims it is the government of Iraq is right when members state (off the record, of course) that the writ of Baghdad does not run to the Kurdish Autonomous Region.

Time to get a grip.

There is not much the US can do about the situation in the KAR. There is not much we can do to stop the PKK using the rugged border territory as a sanctuary. There is not much we can do to enhance stability there or in the rest of Iraq if any Turkish incursion stimulates an uptick in the anti-Occupier, anti-government violence.

There isn't much the US can do to dissuade the Turks from mounting attacks into the KAR. Right now, we need them a lot more than they need us. We are not alone in the lack of influence upon Ankara--particularly if PKK makes another high visibility, high body count hit. In that case, even the EU with its potential for denying Turkey membership in the Union may find that threat insufficient to deter.

Why the impotence?

The short answer is one word long. Iraq.

The long answer isn't all that lengthier. There are not enough boots on the ground in Iraq to deal with the KAR along with all the rest of Iraq.

Grunting and groaning at great economic and greater political cost, the US could, in principle, put enough additional manpower on the ground to provide the necessary combat muscle to stop PKK and assure stability in the KAR. That would take time. Six months would be wildly optimistic. Eight months slightly less so.

The PKK won't wait that long. Neither will the American election cycle.

Imagine for a moment what the effect of adding fifty thousand US personnel to the Iraq TOE would be on the American electorate. Can we say, Republicans go the way of the dinosaur?

The continued effects of the current administration's blundering miscalculations regarding the aftermath of ejecting Saddam Hussein continue to come home to roost. Right now, a bunch of very determined guerrillas and their equally determined opponent have the US caught in the painful vise of reality.

The current administration, which so loudly proclaimed the doctrine of preventative war, unilateralism, and the existence of the US as the world's only Great Power, is utterly dependent upon the good will of a very reluctant ally and the forbearance of a guerrilla entity, which has no history of forbearance. Ironic. heh?

Amazingly, this lesson in impotence has been lost upon Vice President Dick Cheney. Yesterday, he announced to a (small) friendly audience at a think tank in Virginia that the US would not allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapons capability. (It should be noted that he added, presumably sotto voce, other nations in the world agreed with us.)

Get a grip, Veep!

You and the Commander Guy with his World War III comment are in a race with the Iranians for Most Lost In Space Award for overblown rhetoric.

When a mere brigadier in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps boasts of sending "eleven thousand missiles" in the first minute of the war against us, and "grinding (US) noses in the dirt," that is the excusable overstatement of a dude ready to wet his pants.

Better is expected from the President and Vice-President of the United States. Presumably, they have access to both information and expert advice. Presumably, they talk to the realpolitiker, SecDef Gates, even though he is off right now on a damage limitation mission.

If nothing else, they might read the Washington Post.

The other day, midway between the Commander Guy's warning of World War III waiting for the globe in the deserts and ambitions of Iran and the Veep's virtual ultimatum, a letter appeared in the WaPo with a thin, unpleasant, and unheard voice of worst-case realism.

Signed by twelve company grade officers with combat experience in Iraq, the letter maintained correctly that the US had not employed sufficient manpower on the ground to assure an absence of defeat in the country. The letter went on to indicate that there were three options.

The first option was to grind on as we have been with the hope that the apparent progress seen to date would continue. (And, that US combat fatalities would continue to drop.)

The second option was to get out now. Cut our losses. Accept the consequences of our failure. Repent and swear never to do something so half-arsed and foolishly planned again.

The third option was simply to activate the draft. That action would provide a sufficiently large manpower pool to support the necessary greater force presence on the ground in Iraq.

The officers preferred the second option. (The Geek as has been argued in previous posts prefers the first with modifications.)

The invocation of the most feared five letter word in the military vocabulary is the most important part of the letter from twelve captains. It points in a very unpleasant direction.

The direction?

The limits of American military power and what would need to be done to expand those limits. As President Dwight Eisenhower (a man who knew more than most presidents about the requirements of waging war) warned more than a half century ago, (to paraphrase slightly)there is no such thing as absolute security without the odious paraphernalia of the garrison state.

The Geek would add in light of threats which now exist and were undreamed of in Ike's day, "And not even then."

Still, the message is clear. If the US wishes to transmogrify the war of words with Iran into a shooting war, it will need not only to re-institute the draft. It will need to put many of the nasty aspects of total war into effect.

Gas rationing. Price controls. Raw material priority assignments. New "homeland security" procedures. A partial list to be sure, but you get the drift.

Oh. There is one more thing.

The tax cuts for the upper couple of percent of the American public would have to be repealed. Maybe, even the microscopic tax cuts bestowed on all of us unwealthy will have to be revoked as well.

Tax hikes! You gotta be kidding!

No. The Geek never kids. Welcome to the real war, Mac.

Just that the neocon ninnes of the current administration have never fought a real war. They have simply talked about it.