Every now and then, even politicians manage to say something in the vernacular of searing depth -- something that reduces the abstractly complex to its most fundamental and material essence.
This happened yesterday. It came not from an American pol, but from a Turk, and his astute reflection on the developing contours of the Bush administration's plucky efforts to remold the Middle East could not have been more philosophically inclusive and properly reductionist: "It's a mess."
Yes, it is indeed a mess, and there is no messier element at the moment than the situation that lies on the Turkish-Iraqi border, a region primed for even greater inflammation by the Bush administration's having eliminated any effective Iraqi government or control. Kurdish terrorists -- our news reports call them "militants," the delicate alternative for quasi- or wannabe friends -- continue to strike inside Turkey, and the Turks have about had enough.
They -- a NATO ally of ours -- now wish to launch military action against the pesky Kurds inside Iraq, the latter's base of operations. Think Taliban; think al Qaeda; think Afghanistan; think not preemption, but justified retaliation against a foreign foe determined to do vast harm to the Turkish homefolks. Think, in short, a Turkish version of the Bush Doctrine in extremis -- a universal, God-given doctrine written in the stars for use by all decent, freedom-loving peoples. Right?
Think again. For the doctrine, it is now clear, comes with a whopper of a stipulation: only the Bush administration is warranted in its use -- ever. Other decent, freedom-loving peoples can shove it, even when terrorist attacks against them are deadly and sustained. Those folks -- the other folks -- should be patient.
Says the latest report: "A brazen ambush by Kurdish militants" -- there's that softener again -- "that left at least 12 Turkish soldiers dead touched off a major escalation in Turkey-Iraq tensions on Sunday, bringing fears that Turkey would retaliate immediately by sending troops across the border into Iraq."
Seems sensible, even ineluctable, by all recent accounts. Territorial integrity is being violated, innocent lives are being ruthlessly taken, national honor and national security and democracy are at stake, a manly and muscular response is the only option -- the world has been force-fed all the immense rationalizations for years, by you-know-who.
"But," continued the report, "Turkey’s prime minister said he delayed a decision, after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice personally intervened."
I (almost) would have given a tour of duty in Iraq to have heard her desperate pleas; to have heard her arguments against herself, and more profoundly, against her own doctrinaire boss. But all I can do is merely imagine the prime minister stuttering his interruptions at a machine-gun pace: "But that's hypocri ...," "Whoa, that's hypocri ...," "Wait a minute! that's hypocrit...."
Meanwhile, our other allies in patience also called for cooler heads. "We are looking for peace, not war," said Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, "and to solve problems peacefully."
Oh, I nearly forgot to mention this little item. Just as the militant Kurds were launching their latest terrorist attack, and just before we urged a peaceful resolution and the need for possibly thoughtless belligerents to seek only a diplomatic endgame, "the U.S. military said its troops killed 49 fighters in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.... Iraqi officials and residents of the vast Shiite enclave ... said 13 people were killed and all of the victims were innocent civilians, including children."
But let us not bother with trying to square the circle. It's just the Bush administration's world-famous hypocrisy in action.
****
to support this site
Recent Comments