Jihadi Du Jour: Manipulating Turkey?

The Counterterrorism Blog had the following by Dr. Wallid Phares:

Are Syria and Iran Manipulating Turkey on Iraq?
By Walid Phares

PKK is the Kurdish Worker’s Party that adopted violence in its struggle against Turkey. As the Turkish Parliament recently voted to authorize a limited invasion into Northern Iraq to fight the PKK militias, one can see the rising shadows of two hostile regimes in the region, eager to see a NATO member, Turkey, eventually clashing with the United States through their local allies in Iraq. Indeed, the Iranian and Syrian regimes have been pushing the precarious mechanisms of a Turkish military intervention into Northern Iraq for a while now. Logically, a collapse of security in the most secure part of Iraq would lead to a crumbling of the military stabilization of the country, a chief objective of US plans in Iraq.

But the Iran plans for Iraq, which I have analyzed in a previous article, consist of three types of destabilization: An Iranian push in the south, a Syrian opening for the Jihadists in the center, and dragging Turkey to a dogfight in the mountains of the north.

In order to launch the third leg preemptively into Iraqi Kurdistan, Tehran and Damascus have been pushing all the right buttons for the confrontation. Iran’s shelling of villages in the northern part of Iraqi Kurdistan over the past months aimed at encouraging Turkey to do the same.

Opening salvos by the Ayatollahs are to test the Kurdish and US reactions. Moreover, Iran’s Pasdaran - the Revolutionary Guard that provides training and support to terrorist groups throughout the region and abroad - is said to have infiltrated some circles within the PKK, since the latter was based in Syria a few years ago. The PKK suddenly has been waging inexplicable operations inside Eastern Turkey with a new energy, after years of calm. Sources believe the PKK was manipulated by both Iran and Syria into these terror acts on Turkish soil while the official bases of the group are on Iraqi soil. Hence the attacks triggering Turkish anger and responses may have been manipulated by the “axis.”

But the Syrian regime has another card it could have played. According to well informed sources in the region, and not to the surprise of experts, the Alawite regime in Syria (Alawites are important to the leadership of Syria, as President Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez are Alawite) has had good relations with Alawite officers inside the Turkish armed forces. The “Alawite connection” may have been activated to encourage a military response and incursion into northern Iraq. But nevertheless, the Assad regime and the Turkish Islamist Government - reinforced by the last Presidential election in Ankara - have a joint objective interest in weakening the US presence in Iraq.

Assad thinks that he can help create a major Turkish-Iranian-Syrian alliance against the Kurds in Northern Iraq. And by the same logic, the Kurds, solid US allies, will be facing another formal ally of Washington on Iraqi soil: Turkey. The plan is to drag the Turkish Army (traditionally not inclined to find itself face to face with its major ally) to enter a territory where “terrorists are based,” but where they could be indistinguishable from those Kurdish Peshmergas who are the backbone of the new post-Saddam Iraq. The rest can be guessed.

As the “axis” is using all its cards to crumble Iraq’s and Lebanon’s democracies, the Kurds in Northern Iraq should have acted quickly and strategically. There shouldn’t have been any PKK bases in their areas because these are a recipe for disaster.

The situation in Iraq as a whole is still complex, precarious and explosive, despite the advances made by the new US military plans, including the surge. The north must remain stable and secure and, above all, at peace with the only “NATO” border it has. The other frontiers Iraqi Kurdistan has are with the Pasdarans and the Syrian Baath. Both want the new Iraq’s head.

Instead of playing charms with Tehran and Damascus, the Kurdistan city of Soleimaniye must reinforce its own deterring force and maintain stability and peace on its northern border with Turkey. Knowing all too well that the new Islamist Government in Ankara is shifting the grounds inside the modernist Kemalist Republic, Iraq’s Kurdish leadership mustn’t offer any reason for a Turkish adventure in their areas.

Hence, it is recommended that the Kurdish leaders of Iraq be the ones to reign in the PKK to avoid having the Turkish Army crossing the borders. The US can - and should - broker arrangements between the Iraqi Kurds and the Turkish military to avoid the rise of an anti-Kurdish Triangle in the region.

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Dr Walid Phares is the director of Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy, and the author of The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy.

Baby Assad, Nanci “The Most Powerful Woman in the World” Pelosi’s dear friend, is in the struggle of his life to save himself from the UN tribunal and at the same time prop himself up in power. With the help of the putrid little maggot, Ahmedinajad, he is trying to forge a powerful tripartite anti American alliance that will include one of our allies, Turkey.

The PKK has a bloody history and long enmity with the Turks, when the latter finally managed to neutralize it, its leadership fled to Syria where they found ready asylum (as did countless other terrorist groups). It was obvious Syria was no friend of Turkey. Yet, considering that politics makes strange bedfellows, suddenly the two countries may find a common interest… While the PKK has been a scourge to Turkey and deserve to be destroyed, the Syrian/Iranian axis is manipulating them into a situation where they may just be intrumental in tearing up the traditional Turkish/American alliance.

Such a breakup would be a powerful boost for Assad Jr. and his puppeteer, Ahmedinajad. It might also explain the timing of the failed congressional non-binding resolution labeling the almost 100 year old events that murdered over a million Armenians, as “genocide.” Does anyone believe that Pelosi et al, do not understand that such a resolution would drive a wedge between the US and one of its most formidable allies in the region? At a time when the Iraq War is draining such tremendous resources from the US, at a time when it needs the friendship of everyone that cares to be on its side, what is the point of antagonizing a friend?

The answer, gentle reader, is blowing in the wind! The answer lies in the malodorous fishy love fest between Pelosi and Assad earlier this year. In an effort to ensure that America does not win in Iraq (ann American victory which would then destroy the Democrat Party) Nanci and Bashaar (they do make such a lovely couple, don’t they?) have united to destabilize Iraq even further. She hailed Assad, at the time, as a someone who wants to bring peace and progress to the region, by raising this political pariah into world statesman class. Pelosi is directly responsible for the sufferings of Lebanese and the systematic murder of its anti-Syrian leadership; she is directly responsible for the sufferings and poverty of the Syrian people controlled by a ruthless dictator. She is also psychologically reinforcing those groups that work hard for chaos in Iraq, those groups that murder Sunnis, that murder Shiites and cause the death of American soldiers there. All for the party, none of it for the good of the country Madame Speaker is an elected official of.

When what is good for America suddenly collides with what is best for one of its political parties, perhaps it is time for the country to unmask a leadership that carouses with internationally known political vermin, whose very agenda is the destruction of America. Americans, regardless of whether they approve or disapprove of the war in Iraq, must realize that today’s Democrat Party does not have the country’s interest at heart.

Nay, the Democrats today are hard at work finding and pursuing every venue that can make the US look bad. Why? So that people disillusioned with the Republicans will instead put the Democrats back in power… regardless of the bloodshed the latter are encouaging and facilitating. The cynicism, the total disregard for America’s interest, the fact that they are hard at work to humiliate our country, should be ample proof of their moral bankruptcy and intellectual dishonesty. Will America wake up in time and deal the Democrats the political death they rightfully earned? Until then, Turkey is being manipulated by Iran and Syria into a confrontation with the US. All this with the tacit support of Pelosi, Reed and the rest of that gang.

Chaim

Labels: Ahmedinajad, Bashir Assad, Democrat Party, Nanci Pelosi, Syria, Turkey