THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 241, November 3, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PKK TERRORISM IN TURKEY: SAME GLOBAL TERROR WAR
By Michael Rubin
THE TERROR WAR THAT THE KURDISTAN WORKERS PARTY IS WAGING AGAINST TURKEY: PART OF THE GLOBAL TERROR
WAR THAT THE ISLAMISTS ARE WAGING AGAINST AMERICA & THE WEST -- PKK SATELLITE TELEVISION BROADCASTS FROM
EUROPE, PKK FUNDRAISING IN THE U.S.A. & OTHER WESTERN NATIONS, & PKK USE OF IRAQI KURDISTAN AS A SAFE HAVEN
UNDERCUTTING THE U.S.-LED WAR ON TERRORISM -- THE NEED FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO TERMINATE PKK FUNDRAISING
IN THE U.S.A. & FOR THE U.S.-LED COALITION FORCES TO ERADICATE PKK SAFE HAVENS IN IRAQ & SEAL THE IRAQI BORDER --
WHAT IS AT STAKE: THE U.S.-TURKISH STRATEGIC ALLIANCE & AMERICA'S ABILITY TO WIN THE WAR ON TERRORISM
FULL STORY:
Hardly a day goes by when an improvised explosive device does not kill or maim a soldier or civilian bystanders. Crude explosives
have given way to high quality C4. Sophisticated remote-controlled detonators have replaced gerrymandered devices and increased
the lethality of the improvised explosive devices. Public anger toward the government is rising as casualties mount.
Terrorism has returned to Turkey, five years after Ankara had nearly stamped it out. Turkey's success was hard fought. The terrorist
campaign of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, had raged through the 1980s and 1990s. Approximately 30,000 people, at least
half of them civilians, died in the violence. Turkey's neighbors -- Greece, Iran, Armenia, and Syria -- sponsored or supported the PKK
and its leadership financially, materially, or by providing safe-haven to its members. Abdullah Ocalan, the group's founder and
commander, resided in Damascus.
The Turkish government took a no-nonsense approach to fighting terrorism. In 1998, Turkey almost went to war with Syria over the
Syrian regime's support for the PKK. Faced with Ankara's unyielding resolve, the Syrian government expelled Ocalan. Within
months, the PKK collapsed. On February 16, 1999, Turkish commandos, working with U.S. support, seized the terrorist leader outside
the Greek Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
The PKK's rebound undermines not only the security of an important ally, but also American credibility. On September 20, 2001,
U.S. President George W. Bush declared:
"Our war on terror begins with al-Qa'ida, but it does not end there. It will
not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found,
stopped, and defeated."
With satellite television broadcasts from Europe, fundraising arms in the U.S.A. and across the West and camps in Iraq, the
PKK fits the bill. That its victims are Turks does not detract from its importance. That it has rebounded since the liberation of Iraq
and now uses Iraqi Kurdistan as a safe haven undercuts President Bush's war on terrorism.
U.S. White House credibility is on the line. Turkish officials say that, while attending the June, 2004, NATO summit in Istanbul,
President Bush promised Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the American military would address the PKK issue.
During a February 6, 2005, news conference in Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared, "Whether it is al-Qa'ida
or the PKK ... terrorism is simply not an acceptable tool in the modern world." Nothing happened. September, 2005, talks between
senior U.S. Central Command and European Command generals and their Turkish counterparts went nowhere.
Blame for the PKK revival is not Washington's alone. Masud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, shelters PKK
terrorists in his territory. Every Winter, his political party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, profits by selling PKK members
supplies as they descend from their mountainous hideouts. While Barzani insists that the Kurdish militia and not the Iraqi army
should secure his region's northern border, he has failed to use his militia to secure the Iraqi-Turkish border. All but the lucrative
formal crossings with Iran and Turkey are unguarded.
The Turkish government has also bungled its own fight against terrorism. Mr. Erdogan's blunders have hurt his military's own fight
against the PKK. By criticizing Israel's counterterrorism operations against Hamas as "state terror," he enabled European critics to
characterize Turkish operations against the PKK as illegal or ill-advised. By inviting the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, to
vacation in Turkey, the Prime Minister implied forgiveness for a regime complicit in the deaths of 30,000 Turkish citizens. His
explanation that Bashar al-Assad had no role in his father's regime is disingenuous. Mr. Erdogan's continued poor personal
relationship with many White House and senior Bush administration officials has also undercut the coordination necessary to
defeat the PKK.
Beyond the Bush administration's big picture war on terror, there are also pragmatic concerns. Turkish opinion-makers use U.S.
inaction to inflame anti-Americanism. Many Turkish politicians encourage such talk to distract from their own counterterrorism
failings. The cost to the U.S.-Turkish strategic partnership is high.
The PKK has also become a barometer of both the global war on terrorism and American respect for its allies. Here, the Bush
administration shows signs of wavering. The solution to terrorism should never be compromise with terrorists. Prior to entering
government, Meghan O'Sullivan, newly appointed Deputy National Security Adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote that America
should seek a "more nuanced" approach to terrorism, in which Washington would calibrate penalties to the degree of terrorism.
Such positions -- never recanted -- undermine the President's positions. No terrorism should ever be acceptable. There can be no
degrees.
It is a message that, according to Turkish sources, the Bush administration has forgotten. The State Department has proposed
Ankara accept a "Grand Bargain" in which the PKK would lay down arms in exchange for amnesty. Such an offer is naive and
makes a mockery of the President's war on terrorism. Ankara should not compromise or forgive PKK terrorism any more than
should Washington negotiate with or forgive al-Qa'ida, a group which has killed far fewer Americans than the PKK has killed
Turks.
Terrorists learn from American strategy. If the Bush administration rewards terrorism, groups from Abu Sayyaf to Hamas will
conclude that violence pays. The chief casualty of Washington's failure to eradicate PKK safe havens in Iraq or seal the Iraqi
border will not be whatever remains of the U.S.-Turkish strategic alliance. Rather, it will be Washington's ability to win the global
war on terrorism.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
Middle East: Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, is editor of the Middle East
Quarterly.
The foregoing article by Michael Rubin was originally published in the New York Sun, November 2, 2005, and can be found
on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
November 2, 2005
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