"For a global intifada against U.S. hegemony!"

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Times which,  despite my premature celebration a week ago, has not given
up hope (although the publishers are very, very nervous) that Washington can
put together an Iraq invasion that will not become a political catastrophe
for the mass murderers, demands in today's editorial that the Turkish
governmnent to drop all conditions for its participation besides the
financial bribe and accept unconditional US  domination in all of Iraq.
They present this, of course, as a defense of the Kurdish people, for whom
the U.S. invasion  will be a national disaster, whether or not the Turks
join in.

Above all, they also want to conceal the real problem that Washington is
having with Turkey, which is not primarily the Turkish rulers'aspirations in
Kurdish Iraq, but the rising desire of the Turkish people of all
nationalities for more freedom from U.S. domination. This is part of what is
beginning to take on some of the proportions of an uprising against the U.S.
war drive in Arab and other predominantly Islamic countries.

A prominent slogan in one of the Turkish antiwar demonstrations  was "For a
Global intifada against U.S. hegemony!" That is a great idea, which we
should take with us into the March 5 student strike and national moratorium,
the March  8 protest in Washington led by women, and the March 15
convergence in Washington against the war.
Fred Feldman

New York Times, March 2
Dangers in Northern Iraq
merica's ability to use Turkish bases during an attack on Iraq seemed in
peril yesterday when Turkey's Parliament refused to approve an agreement
allowing the basing of American troops there. Even the promise of generous
American loans and direct aid was not enough to convince a clear majority of
the legislators that they should ignore the adamant antiwar sentiment of
their constituents.
No matter what the final decision in Ankara, almost everything about
Turkey's role in the Bush administration's plans for Iraq is troubling. If
the Parliament should show itself willing to reconsider, the Bush
administration must be careful that its eagerness to enlist Turkish support
does not lead to a new disaster for the Kurds, a people long abused by their
neighbors and repeatedly befriended and abandoned by Washington.
The Kurds are like canaries in a mine shaft - if they become the victims of
an American showdown with Saddam Hussein, the world will know that President
Bush has betrayed the high-minded principles he frequently invokes in
talking about Iraq. The administration's ardent courtship of Turkey offers a
preview of the complications and horse trading that are likely to accompany
a war and the installation of a new government in Baghdad. Idealism has not
exactly been a hallmark of these efforts.
Ankara has been pressing for approval to pursue its own military agenda in
Kurdish areas of Iraq. That spells trouble for the Kurds. Forcefully
suppressing Kurdish national aspirations has been a central doctrine of the
modern Turkish state since it began some 80 years ago. The old Ottoman
Empire contained Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, Greeks and others. The new
Turkish republic founded by Kemal Ataturk after World War I was built around
Turkish ethnic identity.
Among the biggest losers were the Kurds, more than 25 million people whose
ancient homeland spans the modern borders of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
In recent decades, nearly everyone in the neighborhood has treated the Kurds
badly, especially the Turks and the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Turkey now fears that in the wake of an American military drive through
Iraq, Kurdish militias could grab the nearby oil fields of Kirkuk and Mosul
and use this wealth to finance an independent state, which Turkish Kurds
would then clamor to join. To prevent that, some Turks have suggested that
Ankara might occupy the oil fields itself. Officially, Turkey wants a role
in disarming Kurdish militias and control over a narrow belt of Iraqi
territory along the Turkish border. None of these ideas are acceptable. Any
Turkish troops inside northern Iraq should be under clear and firm American
command. They should not engage Kurdish militias directly, and they should
stay clear of the northern Iraqi oil belt, which Turkey has long coveted.
Since 1991 Iraqi Kurds have been a mainstay of the Iraqi opposition, and
their region the potential nucleus of a free Iraq. The United States can put
Turkey's legitimate anxieties to rest by holding Iraqi Kurdish parties and
militias to their promise not to seek independence. America has rightly
pledged to maintain Iraq's territorial integrity within its current borders.
Iraqi Kurdish aspirations can be satisfied by limited autonomy as well as a
significant role in any postwar national Iraqi government.
In a war with Iraq endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, Turkey
would have less opportunity for pressing its mischievous agenda. In the
absence of that kind of broad international support, it will be Washington's
responsibility to protect the interests of the Iraqi Kurds. The Bush
administration is trying to convince a skeptical world that it is ready to
fight for a free, democratic Iraq. Nothing would undermine the American
assertion faster than abandonment of the Kurds.


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