Forget Iraq: The Real
Battle is in Turkey
Heather Wokusch explains why.
All eyes are on Iraq these days, but conventional wisdom holds it's just
the first step of the Bush administration's larger push to gain hegemony
over the international oil and gas industry. Two factors could stand in
the way of the US grand plan though: Central Asia and Europe. A
microcosm of this battle is quietly being fought now in Turkey, and in
many ways the outcome could determine the future of the entire region.
Turkey enjoys a uniquely strategic geographical position, smack at the
crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe; more importantly for the Bush
administration, Turkey borders Iraq. Speaking in Ankara recently, US
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said, "Obviously if we are going
to have significant ground forces in the north (of Iraq), this is the
country they have to come through. There is no other option." And it's
clear the US aims for more than simply carrying out air-strikes from
Turkish bases, as it did during the 1991 Gulf War. This time, the
Pentagon wants to dig in deeper, using Turkey as a staging area for
ground attacks into Iraq, and potentially beyond.
Turkey's central role in an attack on Iraq goes a long way in explaining
the massive US military build-up currently taking place in southern
Turkey. It also explains the Bush administration's about-face in dealing
with Turkish AK Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan: after being
unceremoniously snubbed on his first visit to Washington last year,
Erdogan was suddenly given the White House star treatment a few weeks
ago, complete with a presidential press conference and exclusive
meetings with top government brass, not to mention a pledge for billions
more dollars in military and financial aid, and US backing for a new
multibillion dollar International Monetary Fund bailout.
Ironically, this flurry of cash-for-cooperation activity from the States
coincides with the European Union's historic first steps to invite
Turkey into its fold. At a recent EU summit in Copenhagen, the fifteen
EU countries agreed to open membership talks with Turkey in 2005, on the
condition that it clean up its human rights and economic acts in the
meantime. At that point, Turkey would have to begin the mammoth task of
adopting roughly 80,000 pages of EU law, a process that could take at
least a decade and transform every aspect of Turkish society in its wake.
full: http://www.spectrezine.org/war/Wokusch6.htm
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