June 8, 2007

Absolutely the last thing Iraq needs right now is to have thousands of Turkish troops pour across the border into the country’s one relatively peaceful region - the Kurdish-administered northeast. Turkey’s government needs to know that it will reap nothing but disaster if that happens.

A huge military buildup is already under way on the Turkish side of the border, and Ankara has been issuing a flurry of angry charges that the Iraqi Kurds are providing sanctuary to murderous anti-Turkish guerrillas.

The Bush administration has rightly stepped up its warnings to Turkey not to attack. A Turkish invasion would not only embarrass the United States, which numbers the Kurds among its few allies in Iraq. It would add a whole new and even more dangerous dimension to the mess in Iraq.

It would infuriate Arabs, who would resent any Turkish return to areas once ruled by the Ottoman Empire. It would finish off any remaining hope of Turkey joining the European Union. And it would put a huge strain on Turkey’s fragile democratic politics. In short, it would be a disaster.

Turkey does have a real problem. Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., have been striking into Turkey from their bases in Iraqi Kurdistan with growing impunity and effect, using plastic explosives, mines and arms that are readily accessible in Iraq.

These strikes have roused powerful passions in Turkey, stoked by generals eager to regain their primacy over the civilian government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which military leaders loathe for its roots in Islamic politics. So far, Turkish forces have occasionally chased P.K.K. rebels into Iraq, but they have always withdrawn.

Turkey’s feud with the P.K.K. is inextricably tied to other conflicts and rivalries inside Iraq. The most directly relevant is the tug of war between the Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens over the oil-rich region of Kirkuk. Ankara’s fear of fears is that a quasi-independent, Kurdish statelet on its borders could embolden Turkey’s 15 million-strong Kurdish minority to demand autonomy or independence.

Reining in the Turkish Army will take more than the warnings already issued by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Turkey’s leaders must understand that a major military operation in Iraq could touch off a series of regional wars and realignments that would harm Turkey far more than anything the P.K.K. could possibly cook up.