While everyone else eats their Freedom Fries (and tries to think up a dirty joke involving a Liberty Tickler), I'm thinking we should all be preparing to eat "Freedom Fowl" next Thanksgiving.
Why? Because NATO member and supposed American ally Turkey is preparing to opt for the worst of all possible worlds in its policy on the impending Iraq war.
Afraid of destabilizing the region and angering its neighbors, Turkey initially refused to give American forces permission to use Turkish territory to stage a northern front from which to invade Iraq. Fine with me; I share their opposition to this war. But I recognize that there was a humanitarian cost to Turkey's decision, since a second front would have been likely to speed the conclusion of the war and reduce the window in which innocents will suffer.
Now that it's too late for a second front (at least of the heavily-armored ground-force variety), Turkey appears to be ready to cave in to US pressure and allow overflights in return for economic incentives. So much for principle.
But it gets worse: far from distancing itself from the war, Turkey now appears to be preparing to invade northern Iraq on its own, in order to squelch any aspirations by Iraqi Kurds which might inspire renewed efforts for autonomy or independence among the Turkish Kurds next door. Turkey's historic brutality toward Kurdish populations on both sides of the border is well known. So far Turkey has refused to agree to US requests to avoid interference in Kurdish Iraq.
So we see neither effective opposition to the war, nor effective support for a speedy war, nor cooperation with basic humanitarian and strategic imperatives to minimize infighting among the US allies and contending groups of liberated Iraqis. (Note, by the way, that the Iraqi Kurds have agreed to put their own forces under US command during the war.)
If the feared meltdown of post-Saddam Iraq into civil war does take place, its first shots may well occur with Turkey's opportunistic actions behind US lines. Not even the worst brie-slinging Francophobe is accusing France of using military action to undermine US occupation forces in Iraq, but that is exactly what Turkey proposes to do.
(P.S. The other day Trailer Park Girl got me to thinking about how anti-war folks should shift their positions now that the war is inevitable. While I think we should continue to speak out against it, I think we should focus our efforts on minimizing the damage it does. Insisting to Washington and Ankara that Turkey stay out of Kurdish Iraq could be one place to focus.)