Thursday, November 01, 2007

'I am not ordering you to attack; I am ordering you to die," Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is quoted as telling his troops in the 1915 battle of Gallipoli, in which British and French forces were prevented from taking Istanbul with heavy casualties.

So seems the motto of Kurdish rebels who keep ambushing Turkish soldiers on the Iraqi border, racking up a Turkish body count of 42 in the last month as well as kidnapping eight soldiers. The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has embraced a death wish.

Tanks have massed along the Iraqi border, just waiting for the word go. On Oct. 17, the Turkish parliament voted 507-19 in favor of going into Iraq to rout the PKK. And just days ago, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said, "We are determined to make those who cause this sadness grieve with an intensity that they cannot imagine."

You'd better believe the Turks.

In Baghdad and Washington, everyone is freaking out. Even Tehran expressed its opposition over the weekend to a Turkish invasion.

To say that Turkish patience is wearing thin with the PKK would be an understatement. The Marxist organization, deemed a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, has waged war since 1984 for its aims to swap what it calls occupation for another type of ideological oppression — a neo-socialist state carved out of parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

After so many years and nearly 40,000 killed in the Turkish fight against the PKK, why pick this inopportune timing — namely, when there's an Iraq in flux with a blessedly stable north — to go in and take them out?

What would Ataturk do?

Ataturk was the father of modern Turkey and gave birth to fierce nationalism and an example of modernism for Islamic nations. Turks who take pride in the Ataturk legacy have spilled out in the streets to demand action.

"We can't say when or how we will do it, we will just do it," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said of attack plans. At least that's a switch from hashing out war plans first on cable news, stripping the element of surprise in a way that would make Napoleon cringe.

Ataturk led the war for independence, and there's little doubt that he would quash the PKK. No doubt he'd act swiftly to defend Turkey, as the keepers of his legacy, the Turkish military, are sworn to do — as well as keeping the country secular.

Because that's another thing Ataturk would have had little patience for: Islamist movements within Turkey, tension that has shaped the terms of Islamists Erdogan and recently elected President Abdullah Gul.

I've thought about the WWAD — what would Ataturk do? — and weighed my months of resistance to Turkish military action in Iraq, believing as many do that this would only jack up a country that's already on shaky ground.

However, the WWAD has won out.

I realize there are serious, legitimate reasons to tell the Turks to stay home, but staunch opponents of terrorism can't be hypocrites. The Turks should be able to defend their country as anyone would — or more than most try.

Go for it, Turkey. Come in to get rid of the PKK. But I'd argue that a limited incursion is too limited — and if you come into the kitchen and make a mess, you have a responsibility to grab the dustpan and broom, get down on your knees and sweep it up.

This is my dream scenario: After Turkey crosses the Iraqi border and kicks some PKK butt, it should stick around to help out the security situation.

Turkey wasn't much help in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Turkey also has the second largest standing armed forces in NATO. But they should think about regional and domestic security, the Islamist forces of Muqtada al-Sadr and al Qaeda in Iraq that are hellbent on the re-establishment of the caliphate from the Ottoman Empire days.

Think about the Islamic movements within Turkey, which for years have drawn influence from Hezbollah ideology. The old Ataturk unity now regaining strength works voodoo on the Islamists trying to upend Turkish secularism.

And what could Turkey do with captured PKK members, radicals intent on forcing a socialist utopia? Ship them to Venezuela, of course.