Turkish MPs back attacks in Iraq

Turkish MP's have voted overwhelmingly to give the government permission to invade Northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels who have recently killed 13 Turkish soldiers and have killed 97 soldiers in 2007 alone.

Turkish MPs backed him overwhelmingly, by 507 votes to 19.

As the vote was being counted, US President George W Bush strongly urged Turkey, a key ally, not to carry out the threatened action.

He said Washington was "making it clear to Turkey it is not in their interest to send more troops in... there is a better way to deal with the issue".

Now I, for once, happen to agree with Bush that there are better ways to deal with this than for the Turks to invade Northern Iraq, after all the last thing we need is for all Hell to break loose in the only part of Iraq that could ever be labelled a success.

However, it's interesting to note that Bush never advises such caution when we are talking about the Gaza Strip and Israel. Were 97 Israeli soldiers to have been killed by Hamas, Bush would be shouting about Israel's right to defend herself and refusing to call for any ceasefire if the IDF charged into Gaza; nor would he even bother himself with civilian deaths, as he would deem this to be a byproduct of Palestinian terrorism.

Indeed, the capture of three Israeli soldiers led to Beirut being bombed out of existence, so it boggles the brain to imagine what would have been permitted had 97 Israeli soldiers been killed in the last ten months.

Bush has, of course, sought to lay the blame for all of this at the door of the Democrats:

President Bush, speaking during a press conference, criticised the US Congress for jeopardising US relations with Turkey with a planned vote to recognise the mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman times as genocide.

"One thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire," he said.

And, whilst I will agree that the timing of that resolution is odd, I also happen to feel that the deaths of 97 Turkish soldiers, 13 of them within the last fortnight, might have more to do with the Turkish anger surrounding this than any American resolution.

97 troops in 2007 alone...

How should Turkey respond? I remember the days when Israeli troops sat outside Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah casually deciding whether or not to kill him for failing to prevent acts of terrorism. Bush appeared to have no difficulty with that response to acts of terror.

Indeed, he held Arafat personally responsible:

All of the leaders in the world must stand up against terror and must do everything in their power to cut off funding to terrorist organizations, to prevent terrorist organizations from finding safe haven.

And that especially applies to Chairman Arafat. I believe he can do a lot more to prevent attacks, especially the one that just occurred in Tel Aviv.

Surely he, from all of his stances in the past, would welcome Turkish troops sitting outside the offices of Erdogan, engaging in a similar response to terror as those we have routinely seen from Israel?

Or is it all very, very different when it is territory that you are occupying that is being threatened with invasion?

I sincerely hope that the Turkish government do not launch an attack in Northern Iraq. But then, I have always been accused of being weak on terrorism from these right wing nutbags who love nothing more than a good invasion and regard diplomacy as surrender.

I am simply stunned to find them, on this occasion, on my side of the fence.

There is a better way to deal with the issue".

You said it, George. It's just a pity that such pragmatism is usually beyond that boringly thick "with us or against us" mentality of yours.

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Tags: Turkey, Northern Iraq, Kurdistan, Bush, Erdogan