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Turkey Threatens To JumpAnkara beat Congress; now it's taking on the Bush administration.

By Shmuel Rosner
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007, at 2:36 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

But it now has a problem, which happens to come from an area controlled by the United States, namely Iraq. The PKK, a Kurdish terror group dedicated to a radically separatist cause, is harassing and killing Turkish soldiers and citizens, and Turkey wants it to stop. In the past couple of weeks, Turkey has muttered threats of invasion, while maintaining talks with American and Iraqi leaders. But talk will not be enough. Washington will have to do something about the PKK.

The problem is that the Iraqi government can make promises, but it can't deliver on them in the difficult northern terrain that's controlled by the Kurds. America might be able to do more, but it is reluctant to use its already strained forces, and it is reasonably afraid of destabilizing the only region in Iraq that has been relatively calm all along.

The Pentagon isn't happy with Turkey, which could have been far more helpful in 2003 and since. Diplomats are also worried, as they see the Islamist government moving away from the West and toward a more regionally focused strategy. Relations with Israel aren't as good as they used to be. Commerce with Syria is well-established. Discussions with Iran are frequent—though Turkey has no desire to hand Tehran a victory. Ankara can even maneuver between the United States and Russia—not that Turkey wants to help Russia, a longtime nemesis.

Turkey, it seems, has more leverage over the United States than the other way around. It can eliminate crucial supply lines for American forces in Iraq. It can invade Iraq. It can destabilize it. These threats were all used by the U.S. administration—backed up by high-ranking military commanders—to persuade Congress to back down on Armenian genocide. These same threats will be now used on the administration and, even more so, against reluctant CENTCOM officials, to make them invest more effort in solving the problem of the PKK attacks.

Iraq is your fault, anyway, the Turks say. They were better off with Saddam Hussein's regime—or, at least, that's what they now claim. Turkey was willing to stay on the sidelines while the United States was messing with the region, but they will not be the ones to pay the price. Not for a country that almost passed a bill condemning their actions nearly 100 years ago.

So, Turkey successfully used its leverage against Pelosi last month, and now—angrier but also more confident in its power to curb American will—it is embarking on another such journey. Presumably, it still needs the United States to deter its powerful neighbors against possible aggression. But if Turkey was threatened by Iran or pressured by Russia, does anyone believe that America would let it fall? Turkey knows that Washington can't afford such a scenario, and Washington knows that Turkey knows it. Through the Middle East and the world, the power of the weaker party is working against countries allied with the United States. It is the not-so-subtle threat of "do what I want or I will fall"—or, in the case of Turkey, jump.

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Shmuel Rosner is a columnist based in Tel Aviv.
Photograph of Recep Tayyip Erdogan by Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images.
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