Spectator's Journal/Kurds in the Way
Haselkorn, Avigdor
Kurds in the Way by Avigdor Haselkorn I n recent weeks the U.S. State Department has expressed increasing displeasure with the continuing incursion of Turkish forces into northern Iraq. Yet it is...
...April Glaspie, President Bush's ambassador to Iraq, held talks with Hussein regarding Iraq's military build-up along the Kuwaiti border...
...Arabists in the State Department undoubtedly argued that U.S...
...Not only would the country benefit from the huge capital investments required to lay down the pipeline, but as Veysel Atasoy, Turkey's minister of energy and natural resources, has said, commissions on the oil shipments would "bring to our country a revenue figure equal to one-third of Turkey's imports...
...So the oil pipeline can be regarded as an artery...
...Obviously, the Western countries wish to maintain the security of their arteries and are prepared to pay the price...
...In the Turkish case, the issue is the building of a pipeline to carry Kazakh and Azerbaijani oil from the Caspian Sea to the European market...
...Bound by its own oil considerations, Washington gave the Turks an oblique green light for their incursion into Iraq, according to this view, which was bolstered by subsequent events...
...I n late January Marc Grossman, United States ambassador to Turkey, formally announced Washington's support for the Turkish plan...
...She also informed Hussein that the United States "[had] no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait...
...The Turkish press has claimed that, in deciding to support Ankara, the United States has made clear its opposition to the division of Turkish territory, and expressed a de facto wish only that a secure flow of oil be ensured as soon as possible...
...This development has major strategic implications: Relations between Turkey and Russia have already soured...
...The pipeline would have strategic significance, tying the country even more closely to its Turkic brothers in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and Turkish newspapers are already arguing that the project will force the international community—including the U.S.—to focus attention on Turkey's problems, particularly those related to its security and territorial integrity...
...Yet the Turkish plan has one problem: the proposed pipeline crosses eastern Turkey, where guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) have been waging a struggle for secession for the past decade...
...And there can be little doubt that one reason for Moscow's all-out attack on Chechnya was the need to eradicate one source of potential political trouble—trouble that could hamper the flow of oil to the Black Sea...
...Middle East policy is imperialist in all but name...
...The Turkish plan did not please Avigdor Haselkorn is a strategic analyst and defense consultant specializing in CIS and Middle Eastern affairs...
...That is 44 The American Spectator June 1995 clear...
...It is likely that the Kremlin's decision to proceed with its nuclear cooperation deal with Iran, over strong U.S...
...green light, given to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his feud with Kuwait...
...constantly vulnerable to political blackmail...
...then gave its blessing to "resolving" the PKK problem, which amounted to a clear go-ahead to Turkish leaders The American Spectator June 1995 45...
...can be manipulated into supporting—or at least, not obstructing—the political machinations of countries that can play an oil card...
...objections, is in retaliation for Washington's support of the Turkish proposal...
...To argue that the U.S...
...In his zeal to placate the big oil companies and his allies in Ankara, Clinton may well be advancing the date that Iran possesses nuclear weapons, and hence the timing of a possible U.S.-Iranian confrontation...
...Moscow, which believes the strengthening of Turkey could lead to a struggle for influence over a strategically sensitive area of Russia's "near abroad": the former Soviet republics of Central Asia...
...T his episode unhappily recalls the ambiguous messages the United States sent to Saddam Hussein on the eve of his Kuwait invasion...
...The government's position was decided upon in part due to pressure from the big oil companies, which have argued that a Turkish pipeline would be the most economical way of transporting Central Asian oil to Western markets...
...The U.S...
...In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on July 31, 1990, later reported by the BBC World Service, Kelly said, "We have no defense-treaty relationship with any Gulf country...
...Two days later Iraq invaded...
...intelligence services, shows an appalling lack of understanding concerning the intentions, plans, and future actions of the major players in the Middle East, including Moscow...
...By this logic, America's oil interests were threatened by Iraq's growing military power—so it lured Hussein into Kuwait, to justify a massive retaliation...
...Moscow surely cannot be happy at the prospect of a fanatical Muslim country on its doorstep bearing nuclear weapons...
...The White House may be gambling that Moscow will eventually back off, assuming the Russians will realize that relations with America are more important than those with Iran...
...Asked if this meant that the U.S...
...An even more important consideration was the fear of instability in the Caucasus region, especially in light of the war in Chechnya...
...As the Istanbul newspaper Sabah opined in February, "It is a fact that oil contributes to life...
...Yet it is all but certain that Ankara's invasion decision was made only after receiving a green light from Washington—a close parallel to another U.S...
...In both cases one detects the pervasive smell of oil...
...But Washington's decision was also a way to block a third plan suggested by Iran that the oil travel through its territory...
...was not obligated to "engage forces there [if] Iraq, for example, charged across the border into Kuwait," Kelly responded, "That is correct...
...to commit to its pipeline plan and thus to its grand vision of Turkey's role in the region, despite strong Russian misgivings...
...Only when reports surfaced of civilian casualties and talk of establishing a Turkish "security zone" inside Iraq did Washington officially demur.long bent on resolving the Kurdish problem militarily...
...By doing just that, Ankara got the U.S...
...The green lights given to both Iraq and Turkey amply demonstrate how the U.S...
...But the State Department fails to understand how seriously Ankara's pan-Turkic dreams are taken in Moscow...
...Vladimir Y. Titorenko, an adviser to the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, wrote last January, "The creation of a 'Great Turkic Federation' would be just as undesirable for Russia as the creation of [an Islamic] fundamentalist `southern underbelly.'" In the past few years, the struggle for oil and oil routes has spread political instability from the Persian Gulf northward toward the Russian border...
...support for the Russian position on the pipelines would serve only to further enrage the Muslim countries, which already blame Washington for its tacit support of Yeltsin's hard-line policy on Chechnya...
...Already in control of much of the water resources feeding Syria and Iraq, Turkey would become a vital oil junction as well...
...By siding with Ankara, the Clinton administration has convinced Moscow's policymakers that the U.S...
...Many in the Arab world, particularly Iraqis, hold that U.S...
...purposely sought a military conflict with Hussein flies in the face of the historical evidence, particularly Washington's active support for Iraq during its war with Iran, and the prolonged appeasement of the Iraqi dictator in the name of "bringing Saddam into the community of nations...
...Their version of events would go as follows: Ankara's plans for the PKK were well known to the White House—perhaps even from direct information via the Turkish government...
...But those who hold such theories will find support for their view in the current U.S...
...Glaspie told the Iraqi leader that she had "direct instructions from the President to seek better relations with Iraq...
...We have historically avoided taking a position on border disputes or on internal OPEC deliberations...
...Ankara has even begun to discuss publicly the desirability of establishing a security zone inside Iraq to prevent infiltration by PKK guerrillas into eastern Anatolia...
...The Kremlin has insisted that oil from Central Asia and the Caucasus be carried instead through its own territory and on to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk...
...The State Department, aided by the shocking ignorance of U.S...
...The White House initially said it "shared Turkey's concern" over PKK terrorism, refusing to call the Turkish offensive an invasion...
...Soon after the announcement of American support for the Turkish plan, 35,000 Turkish troops were dispatched to destroy PKK bases in northern Iraq...
...Ankara's vision of becoming a regional superpower rests substantially on securing the transportation of oil through its territory, and the Turkish government lobbied hard to have the pipeline run to its oil terminal near Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast...
...0 A more credible interpretation of events is simply that the State Department's oil-driven approach to Middle East policy leaves the U.S...
...behavior regarding Turkey...
...Had the discussions with Glaspie left any doubts in Hussein's mind about Washington's message, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs John Kelly dispelled them...
...is following a deliberate policy designed to weaken Russia still further...
Vol. 28 • June 1995 • No. 6
