Editorial: Turkey attacks Iraq

C.I.'s Saturday "Iraq snapshot" said it all.

If you doubt it, you missed the fact that over 24 hours later, Patrick Cockburn was expressing concern as well.

While the White House has okay-ed the Turkish government's decision to bomb northern Iraq -- allegedly to root out the PKK -- this decision is idiotic and will cause tremendous damage.

In Iraq, specifically, it will enrage Kurds as innocent civilians in their region are killed and it will enrage all Iraqis -- as it did before -- that the Turkish government is dropping bombs on their country.

This does nothing to address the threat of the Islamic State but does everything to further destabilize Iraq.



How bad is it?

Cockburn offers:


The result is that the US may find it has helped to destabilise Turkey by involving it in the war in both Iraq and Syria, yet without coming much closer to defeating Isis in either country. If so, America will have committed its biggest mistake in the Middle East since it invaded Iraq in 2003, believing it could overthrow Saddam Hussein and replace him with a pro-American government. 



This does nothing to help Iraq.