Impending War Against Iraq
"The byword of war is uncertainty and surprise"
By Bruce Fein* - The Government of Turkey holds well founded reservations against the impending liberation of Iraq from the clutches of Saddam Hussein by the United States. But the potential advantages for Turkey of a new Iraqi dispensation friendly to democracy and human rights and stripped of weapons of mass destruction should not be shortchanged in determining the scope of its involvement with the United States war effort. Turkey's calculation will inescapably be bedeviled by imponderables. And human nature instinctively weighs clear and present dangers greater than dimly perceived and remote benefits. As Hamlet observed in his timeless soliloquy, our fervid imaginations make us "rather bear those ills we have, than to fly to others that we know not of."

At present, the status quo in Iraq seems unalarming to Turkey's national security and economic interests. The American-British no-fly zone in the Kurdish north (coupled with a corresponding exclusion of Saddam Hussein in the Shiite south) has created reasonable stability along Turkey's sensitive southeast border. The withered PKK finds little or no refuge there from the likes of Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party or Talibani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Legal and illegal trade flows profitably across the border. With Barzani and Talibani dependent on the United States, a greater Kurdistan state biting into Turkish territory is chimerical. On the other hand, the United States voice has generally been inaudible against the periodic attacks on members of the Iraqi Turkmen Front by Kurds, and the general exclusion of Turkmen from positions of authority in the northern no-fly zone.

Saddam Hussein is a megalomaniac, but not a fanatical religious fundamentalist who might seek to impose an Iranian-like rule of mullahs on Turkey. His support for terrorism is largely directed towards Palestine and internal dissidents. He holds no irredentist claims against Turkish territory. His enmity for Syria reduces the latter's capacity for anti-Turkish mischief over Hatay province or otherwise. His quest for biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons is not immediately threatening to Turkey. Saddam has employed chemical weapons against his own Kurds and Iran during the 1980-88 War; he would keenly relish killing Israelis with weapons of mass destruction. But despite the non-inspections by the United Nations since 1998, the international embargo on Iraq has stunted its effort to develop a serious capacity to conduct biological, chemical, or nuclear warfare.

The byword of war, nevertheless, is uncertainty and surprise. Who would have believed that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 would have culminated in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire? The potential for the United States liberation of Iraq unintentionally spawning problems for Turkey is troublesome.

Amidst the chaos of fighting and the preoccupation of President George W. Bush with ousting Saddam from power, the KDP and PUK, despite their mantra-like pledges to the contrary, might seek to a greater Kurdistan and convulse southeast Turkey. In addition, a flood of refugees might pour over the border as in 1991, and strain Turkey's humanitarian resour-ces and paralyze its fledgling development initiatives in the region. National economic losses could mushroom as trade comes to a standstill, oil prices skyrocket, and investment flees elsewhere. Iraqi Turkmen could be battered both by Kurds and Saddam's Sunni butchers.

Iran might be emboldened by Iraq's weakness to encroach on Iraqi territory and upgrade its efforts to wreak havoc on Turkey's flowering secular democracy. Finally, even if Turkey confines its war contribution to American use of air bases, that collaboration might spark Al Qaeda or its terrorist cousins to retaliate with suicide-murders in Turkish resort areas, as witnessed in Bali and Mombasa.

These fears are not trifles light as air. But all could prove ill-founded. The United States could topple Saddam in hours or days, besting its 1991 seventy two hour triumph. His ungloried Republican Guards are but a shadow of their former self. In 1991, moreover, they were surrendering in droves to newsmen on the heels of the opening of ground hostilities.

The United States is likely to impose direct or indirect military rule indefinitely reminiscent of post-World War II Germany and Japan. Iraq is too important to abandon to a politically droopy figurehead like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. Without a United States military occupation after victory, Iraq would splinter and convulse with Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, monarchists, militarists, and egomaniacs scrambling like jackals to grab the lion's share of the spoils of war. The Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990, would seem a tea party in comparison. Whoever emerged on top would insist on a nuclear program to match that of Iran's, its chronic enemy. The entire region could explode like a cluster bomb.

A military occupation would stymie a "Greater Kurdistan" or oppression of Turkmen. It would forestall refugees or a curtailment of trade. Indeed, economic activity would be fueled by ending the embargo of Iraq, maintaining or increasing its oil supplies, and inaugurating a rule of law.

Further, the prospects are semi-promising of evolving a democracy respectful of human rights and peace in Iraq under United States guidance, like General Douglas MacArthur in Japan. Such a happy development would reinforce Turkey's secular democratic trappings and provide an ally against the chronic villainies or vexations from Iran and Syria.

This checkered matrix of varying and elusive probabilities gives no clear guidance as to whether Turkey's multiple and occasionally competing interests would be more advanced or impaired by enthusiastic support for the inevitable United States liberation of Iraq. But decisions must be made. Hesitation in wartime is characteristically fatal.

*Bruce Fein is an adjunct scholar with ATAA. The views expressed are his own, not those of the organization.