Everyone wants there to be white hats and black hats.  The white hats are the good guys -- which includes us (whomever we consider us to be) plus the folks we identify as friend and allies.  The black hats are the bad guys -- the folks opposed to use and our friends and our values.

So ...

• Turkey is oppressive to its minority Kurd population. 
• Kurdish guerrillas, operating out of northern Iraq, have attacked Turkey, causing problems and bloodshed.
• The Turkish government is sensitive both to its national borders and to popular sentiment within its country, which is largely in favor of doing something about Kurdish guerrillas and against Kurdish minority rights.
• Turkey wants to be in the European Union, badly.
• The EU wants Turkey to respect Kurdish minority rights.
• The US wants Iraq to be internally peaceful, and has a military (and political stake) in having it so.
• Kurdish Iraq has been generally peaceful.
• The Kurdish guerrillas are, as noted, operating out of Kurdish Iraq.
• The US and Turkey are allies.
• The US has used airbases in Turkey.  It's also let Turkey operate out of those airbases in the past to attack Kurdish guerrillas in Kurdish Iraq.
• Iran has a Kurdish population, too, and wants to take steps to keep their Kurds under strict control.
• The Kurds in Iraq want autonomy at least, and independence at most.
• An independent Kurdistan would cause problems for both Turkey and Iran with their own Kurdish populations.  They have indicated they would take preemptive action to stop it.
• While Turkey is a US ally, Iran is a US opponent.

So it's not altogether surprising that, with everything else going on, Turkey is making noises like it's going to invade northern Iraq to root out Kurdish guerrillas.

The question is, what, if anything is the right thing for the US to do?  Support an ally?  Which one?  Protect a realm it has a stake in seeing remain peaceful and stable?  Protect the oppressed?  Promote justice?  Defend the rights of national sovereignty?  And for whom? 

And, as important as the question of what is the right thing to do, what is the most practical thing to do?  Morality and fairness and principles aside, what's most in the US interest to see happen?

And, given our already precarious position, are we in much of a position to do anything about either the right or the practical?

(via BD and Les)

Filed under :: Geopolitical Brouhaha

Good questions, Dave...the same ones we haven't really answered for Iraq, either. What are we trying to accomplish? Destabilize the area, so they can't put their ducks in a row against us? Woot! Job done :)

Blue jeans and penicillin all 'round!