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Novak Leaking More Secrets

By SusanUnPC on July 31, 2007 at 4:38 PM in Current Affairs, Iraq, Turkey

By BooMan, of BoomanTribune.com, July 30, 2007
SusanUnPC’s Note: It’s interesting that Cheney/Rove’s scrivener in the DoD is behind this.

For Robert Novak disclosing national security secrets has become a part-time second job. Today’s is a doozy.

Turkey has a well-trained, well-equipped army of 250,000 near the [Iraqi] border, facing some 4,000 PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] fighters hiding in the mountains of northern Iraq. But significant cross-border operations surely would bring to the PKK’s side the military forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the best U.S. ally in Iraq. What is Washington to do in the dilemma of two friends battling each other on an unwanted new front in Iraq?

The surprising answer was given in secret briefings on Capitol Hill last week by Eric S. Edelman, a former aide to Vice President Cheney who is now undersecretary of defense for policy. Edelman, a Foreign Service officer who once was U.S. ambassador to Turkey, revealed to lawmakers plans for a covert operation of U.S. Special Forces to help the Turks neutralize the PKK. They would behead the guerrilla organization by helping Turkey get rid of PKK leaders that they have targeted for years.

Edelman’s listeners were stunned. Wasn’t this risky? He responded that he was sure of success, adding that the U.S. role could be concealed and always would be denied.

 

So, why is Novak going public with this information from a secret briefing? It’s because key congressional Republicans think Bush is unhinged.

The Bush administration is trying to prevent another front from opening in Iraq, which would have disastrous consequences. But this gamble risks major exposure and failure.

The Turkish initiative reflects the temperament and personality of George W. Bush. Even faithful congressional supporters of his Iraq policy have been stunned by the president’s upbeat mood, which makes him appear oblivious to the loss of his political base. Despite the failing effort to impose a military solution in Iraq, he is willing to try imposing arms — though clandestinely — on Turkey’s ancient problems with its Kurdish minority, who comprise one-fifth of the country’s population.

In other words, certain GOP members think the President is crazy. Who leaked this highly sensitive information to Novak? Let’s take a guess.

The plan shows that hard experience has not dissuaded President Bush from attempting difficult ventures employing the use of force. On the contrary, two of the most intrepid supporters of the Iraq intervention — John McCain and Lindsey Graham– were surprised by Bush during a recent meeting with him. When they shared their impressions with colleagues, they commented on how unconcerned the president seemed. That may explain his willingness to embark on such a questionable venture against the Kurds.

The fact that Novak decided to do this story is pretty telling about how far Bush’s star has fallen. I guess Novak enjoyed being the subject of a leak investigation for over four years. He’s probably about to get another visit from the FBI.

Meanwhile, the actual underlying policy is hard to critique. Certainly, whatever prevents a Turkish invasion, or a total rupture of U.S./Turkish relations, is worth considering. But, knowing Bush’s track record, why would anyone trust him to ‘embark on such a questionable venture against the Kurds’?

  • schwifty

    That this plan was leaked as a whistleblowing act of conscience by McCain or Graham is one scenario, one which relies on the dubious premise that either of those two assclowns are alarmed by this sort of military adventurism. You know, where if all you have is a hammer how everything begins to look like a nail sort of thing…

    Another scenario, and one that I consider far more likely, is that this was leaked as a way to apply political pressure to the Kurds at the negotiating table in Baghdad, who otherwise have absolutely nothing to gain from doing anything other than maintaining the status quo there. Besides, that Turkey would move from covert action right past its Iranian and Iraqi borders to overt political suicide (in the form of blowing a huge smoking hole in any chances of EU accession ), is questionable. This is all about pressuring the Kurds.

  • Montag

    Machiavelli advises in “The Prince” that: “A prince also gains esteem when he acts as a true ally or true enemy, that is, when he declares himself openly for or against one of two conflicting parties–a policy that is always better than neutrality. . . And let no state suppose that it can choose sides with complete safety. Indeed, it had better recognize that it will always have to choose between risks, for that is the order of things. We never flee one peril without falling into another. Prudence lies in knowing how to distinguish between degrees of danger and in choosing the least danger as the best.”

    Obviously the Busheviks didn’t get the memo. They wish to appear neutral while stabbing their “friends” the Kurds in the back. And what about the Kurdish insurgents fighting Iran, the PEJAK, who also are based in Iraqi Kurdistan? Should we hold our breath that Bush will do something about them as well? This smacks of kneejerk policy.

  • Leslie

    From Reuters yesterday.

    A pentagon spokesman “declined to comment on a U.S. report on Monday that said the Pentagon briefed Congress last week on secret plans for a joint U.S.-Turkish military operation to suppress the rebel movement and capture its leaders.”

    My bet is on the Pentagon leaking this. Are they trying to buy time with Turkey? Because Turkey has accused the US of not doing much to stop the PKK, of giving them weapons, etc.

  • schwifty

    Leslie, that is the flip side of this leak, and in my mind the most maddening. First of all, it represents the continuation of DoD executed foreign policy, a further signal that Rice is doing little more than counting down the days before she can flee to some conservative think tank and write her memoirs: “Day 768 in the White House. Today George dropped his pencil under the table at the cabinet meeting to try and sneak another look at my panties and I blushed when he let loose with that charming snigger of his. Also, Rummy gave me a mean look.”

    Second, it demonstrates how badly the Turks have us in a bind, despite the huge amount of weight we carry for them. We are their great champion at the gates of the EU (the importance of which has always been underestimated and misunderstood over here), and enjoy a high potential of influence with them as a result. I say potential, because it is wholly neutralized by what we perceive, and they promote, as a hair-trigger situation in Kurdistan. Rather than having the opportunity to pressure the Turks toward meaningful political solutions to their Kurdish and Armenian problems, we tip toe around those issues for fear of piling more tinder onto the Iraqi clusterfuck. This is a situation that their politically influential Generals are more than happy to exploit.

    Unfortunately, this whole leak is just more evidence of the total absence of any sort of diplomatic ability in this administration. Where we should have settled this in backroom bread and butter deals with the Turks a long time ago, we are instead falling back once again on reactionary realpolitik sabre rattling. Not that the latter is inherently a bad thing.. but when has this administration ever demonstrated any proficiency for it?

    • Montag

      Yeah, but they’re rattling a sabre that’s broken off at the hilt. The problem with the Busheviks is that they never seem to learn that actually drawing the sabre doesn’t have the desired effect. Bismarck called the military option “rolling the iron dice.” In Iraq snake-eyes could be disastrous.

  • Leslie

    Schwifty,
    The Kurds won’t object either. Because it’s not as if they’re our allies also.

  • schwifty

    The Kurds are not our allies in as formal a sense as the Turks are. The leak mentioned some 5,000 PKK fighters and their high value leaders, and we know that the Turks have been chasing PKK loyal peshmerga into Turkey and Iran. Both we and the Iranians allow them their pound of flesh; in our case to keep the Turkish hardliners happy, in Iran’s case because the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Our interests often align with the Kurds, but “allies” is a strong word..

    But the real issue here is the fate of oil-rich Kirkuk, and the fact that Barzani, the regional leader of Iraqi Kurdistan, has dug in his heels on the issue. The Kurds have already achieve
    d constitutional right of return for those who were expelled from Kirkuk under Saddam, and tens of thousands of them already have. However, Baghdad has not implemented a mandated census and accompanying referendum on the issue yet, and Barzani is not happy. He’s made ominously clear that the Kurds will never relinquish their demand for Kirkuk. The issue is so explosive that it is not hard to imagine why the government has not worked more urgently to hold a census, even accepting the premise that a census is even logistically possible for them to carry out at this time.

    So all of this is standing in the way of achieving oil law consensus. Note that the leak’s threats weren’t made against Kurds and their Iraqi DAKP, but against the PKK, who the EU and the US both formally declare to be a terrorist organization. This is all vastly more complicated than just “the Kurds”.. Talabani, Iraq’s current president, and Barzani, used to both head competing Kurdish political parties in Kurdistan. Barzani even called on Saddam’s help ten years ago to fight with his KDP against Talabani’s PUK, and both the PUK and KDP have fought the PKK at one time or another to curry favor with Ankara or Tehran. The PUK and KDP are now joined in the DAKP, and it is not at all clear that their leadership would mind if the PKK were eliminated in northern Iraq, even given that they no longer have to curry the favor of Ankara.

    All of that said, this is a very risky (ie foolhardy) hand to play. If the Kurds call our bluff and don’t back down on Kirkuk, we either pretend this leak never happened and continue to keep the Turkish lid on, or we give the Turks their promised “assistance” and, on some level, betray our relationship with the Kurds.. again. However, simply the fact that this was leaked at all pretty much blows a huge hole in our deniability if we ever are to be involved in the deaths of PKK in Iraq (remember how smart we were about launching clearly labeled hellfires into Pakistan), so we either are bluffing, or we are so desperate that we are prepared to grasp at ill-fated straws to prolong our occupation there. I think (hope) that we’re bluffing.

  • schwifty

    Oh dammit, sorry about the triple post. Could someone delete the first two? I made changes after I thought the first one hadn’t hit. Ugh, sorry about that.

    Schwifty,
    Deleted the first two comments for you.
    Leslie [Susan's part-time assistant]

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    • Donald from Hawaii

      I couldn’t have said it any better — nor would I ever try.

  • Leslie

    Schwifty,
    You don’t think Talabani and the Kurds inside Iraq and those inside Turkey, who just won an unprecedented number of seats in Turkey’s Parliament, won’t feel betrayed by this news? Wonder where the spare Special Forces are going to come from?

  • Shirin

    Leslie, the Iraqi Kurds have been betrayed so many times by the U.S. that they wouldn’t know what to do if it didn’t happen.

    As for the Turkish Kurds – by far the most abused of all the Kurds* – I don’t think they ever expected anything good from the U.S., so it’s all business as usual.

    *In addition to the horrible abuse Turkish Kurds have suffered from their government, the racism of Turks toward Kurds is unlike anything I have ever seen.

  • schwifty

    I don’t think the leadership of the DKAP (Barzani and Talabani) is going to feel betrayed, considering the years of their lives they have devoted to fighting the PKK when they weren’t busy fighting each other. Their constituents may be just as ambivalent, maybe not. But regardless of their collective personal feelings regarding the fate of PKK fighters in their territory, it is clearly a shot across the bow for the Kurdish leadership in Iraq, who is ostensibly responsible for taking care of the PKK themselves.

    As to the tactical or operational support the Turks could expect from the Americans, it all depends on how deep inside Iraq the PKK has nestled itself. If they were close to the border I would imagine it would confine itself to some gift wrapped and current intel as to troop strength, location, high value targets etc., and not much in the way of material support. But since Edelmann apparently spoke of a covert SF op, and the PKK is probably sizable or entrenched enough to warrant some air power, that probably means combat controllers sneaking around with laser designators. I doubt that any of the supposed PKK leadership out there is going to expose themselves to assassination any other way after hearing of this.

    Please note, I would not consider myself an authority on any of this, only an interested observer from having lived much of my life in Berlin, where Kurdish drama occasionally flares up among our substantial Turkish population. This is all speculation however, I have no clear evidence of what Edelman has in his pointy head nor where this year’s Kurdish loyalties lie.

    It’s a shame we don’t have an administration capable of the statecraft necessary to broker any political rather than military deals on this issue.

  • schwifty

    Yeah Shirin, the Turks here in Berlin refer to Kurds as “Bergtürken” or “Mountain Turks,” sort of the equivalent of “cracker ass redneck hillbilly.” The Kurds resent the Turks as well, of course.. The Kurds in Iraq tend to view the PKK Kurds as “too Turkish.” I was in Berlin when the PKK leader Öcalan was spectacularly captured in Nairobi, and a huge protest in front of the Israeli embassy resulted in a surge of protesters up to the front door, which was then opened and closed long enough to cut down three of them with gunfire.

    On a side note, I think the Iraqi soccer celebrations this week should finally have put to rest the notion that not very many Iraqis experience patriotism for their country, even despite the righteous monopoly we Americans tend to think we have on it. It would have been such a great moment to seize for a withdrawal announcement..

    Btw, thanks leslie for cleaning up my triple comments, I’ve learned to wait for them to show up even if the page is done loading.

  • Shirin

    Schwifty,

    The way Turks view “their” Kurds, and the way Iraqis and Iranians view “their” Kurds is thousands of miles apart in my experience. As I said, I have never witnessed such horrible racism as I have seen among Turks regarding Kurds, and they are so passionate about it – you cannot even discuss it with them in a rational way.

    By contrast, Kurds in Iraq have had a much better time, even with the government, and particularly with their fellow Iraqis. Kurds traveled freely and lived from one end of Iraq to the other. One of the largest Kurdish populations in the world is in Baghdad, and they have been fully integrated into the society and the economy. There has always been quite a bit of intermarriage, though not as much as between Shi`a and Sunni Arabs. In Kurdistan, especially in the “old days” there would sometimes be marriages between elite Kurdish and Arab families in order to solidify relations between tribes or families.

    The biggest source of problems for Kurds in Turkey is not that there are separatists among them, but that Turks have some kind of thing about “racial purity” that began in the late 19th and early 20th century. Either you are a Turk or you are no one. That does not allow them to recognize and give equal status to their non-Turkish citizens. So, Kurds have been required to deny their own language and culture, history and identity or suffer the consequences. They were not allowed to speak Kurdish in public, or to teach it to their children, or to express any aspect of their culture.

    You may have heard of Layla Zana, elected in 1994 as the first female Kurdish Member of the Turkish Parliament who was put into prison for years for speaking a few words in Kurdish at her inauguration. She was accused of being a separatist even though what she said was an expression of unity between Turks and Kurds. She took her oath in Turkish, and then added in Kurdish a wish for all Turks and Kurds to live together in harmony under democracy or something like that – I don’t recall exactly.

    There is quite an enlightening documentary film that deals mainly with Turkish Kurds called “Good Kurds, Bad Kurds”. The “Bad Kurds” are, of course, the Turkish Kurds because they have troubles with the Turkish government who are U.S. allies, and the “Good Kurds” are Iraqi Kurds, who are no less violent and troublesome, because they, of course, had difficulties with Saddam. All Kurds recognize that the most abused Kurds in the world are the Turkish Kurds.

    My sense is that if Turkey would fully integrate the Kurds – as Kurds – into the society, the economy, and the political system, the PKK would either change is purpose and character, or all but die out. In any case, though I could be wrong my sense is that these days PKK is less a separatist group than a civil rights group, though certainly there are separatist elements there.

  • Shirin

    “I think the Iraqi soccer celebrations this week should finally have put to rest the notion that not very many Iraqis experience patriotism for their country”

    You know, the American – and British – reaction to the whole soccer thing has been just amazing, and mostly amazingly off base. What it has shown for the most part, is a desperate need on the part of Americans (and some others) to force new information fit the old framework.

    That old framework is, of course, the received truth that “Iraq is an inherently non-viable entity that was cobbled together by western colonial powers out of three completely separate, distinct, and incompatible ethno-geo-sectarian groups who have detested and slaughtered each other for thousands of years, Iraqis have never had any sense of national identity, and the country was only held together by the iron fist of Saddam”. That this construct utterly ignores reality, including the fact that Iraq had more than a half century of existence as a modern-day nation state, before anyone had even heard of Saddam does not seem to concern any of its proponents.

    I remember something similar – and similarly patronizingly condescending – after the Iraqi soccer team’s lovely performance in the 1994 Olympics. There was so much talk then about what an amazing thing it was that the team was composed of Shi`as Sunnis, and Kurds, and how in spite of their inherent incompatibility and historic hatred they were all able to work together toward a goal, and why didn’t Iraqis, who as we knew have been slaughtering each other for thousands of years, take a lesson from their soccer team. It is difficult to express just how annoying that was.

    The reality is, of course, that the soccer team is quite representative of Iraqi society in its normal state, and the general reaction to the Iraqi victory in the Asia Cup tells us that Iraqis do indeed have an inherent national spirit that has been badly damaged, but not destroyed, by the events of the last four and a half years.

  • Shirin

    One last thing (promise):

    For those who think Iraqi Kurds don’t see themselves as Iraqis, and have no national spirit (and for those who are operating under the illusion that Kurdistan is some kind of lovely example of how democracy really CAN work if only Iraqi culture allowed it), here is a small example of what “democracy” is really like under the two corrupt mafia warlords who rule Kurdistan:

    “Security forces in Dohuk city in the Kurdish Autonomous Region in the north of Iraq arrested 50 Kurds for waving the Iraqi flag to celebrate the victory of the Iraqi national football team, a police source said Monday.

    “The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, ‘The Kurdish security forces seize anybody carrying the Iraqi flag, even for one hour.’“

  • schwifty

    I’ve been really disappointed by the whole notion that Iraqis are incapable of allegiance to a nation-state.. it’s ridiculous, and I see it from some of my otherwise favorite commentators. Nothing is easier to create or maintain than such an allegiance, it is the simple result of having grown up somewhere! It’s tantamount to us saying that Iraqis can’t love their mothers and fathers like we can, thinking as we do that patriotism is some kind of virtuous choice made by good people.

    There has never been a serious public discussion about patriotism and nationalism in America to my knowledge, it always devolves into platitudes or revolves around tabus like McCarthyism or Vietnam. There’s no way we can understand Iraqi patriotism if we haven’t begun to understand our own nationalism. What was the saying? A patriot supports his country because of what it does, a nationalist supports his country no matter what it does. Or something. For what it’s worth, discussions about nationalism and patriotism in places like Germany can be equally demented, although on balance I’ll take caution over fervor any day of the week.

    My sense is that if Turkey would fully integrate the Kurds – as Kurds – into the society, the economy, and the political system, the PKK would either change is purpose and character, or all but die out.

    Exactly right, and pandering to their racism and Ataturkian superiority complex is so counter-productive, for us and for them. We have so much sway over the Turks because of the EU issue, and yet we exacerbate the very things that make eventual accession unlikely: an honest assessment of their past vis a vis Armenia, the whole Kurdish issue, respect for individual freedom.. These things require political solutions, not surgical strikes. Hmm.. where have we heard that before?

  • mudkitty

    What next? Is he going to give away troop positions?

  • osama_been_forgotten

    Well; pandering to Ataturkism (and Saddamism, and Shah-ism, and Saud-ism) seemed to be the regional model for how the West dealt with these nations. (and you see this pattern elsewhere. . . Marcos, Pinochet, Duvalier, etc.) – it stems from a distrust of democratic principles; which is where our foreign policy has been rooted for the past 60 years.

    I’m glad that Bush’s neocons actually at least gave lip-service to the notion that these countries should have democracies – but not so glad at how they went about trying to change things in a way that seems to ensure that things WONT change. . .

  • rugger9

    Anyone see the declassification document for Edelman’s briefing? I didn’t think so. No doc = violation of SF-312 at least, and the Espionage Act (still in force).

    That being said, either Novak is floating a trial balloon (with a little more force than usual, since the SAO is named this time) or he’s blowing smoke. As reliable a tool as he has proven to be for the WH, I tend to see the former as more likely. So, what exactly does floating this get the WH? Are they trying to tell the PKK to back off? Are they trying to wedge the PKK away from the Talibani wing of the Kurdish politicos, and how does that help? I really don’t see the benfit for America here to make this public.

    With as much trouble as there is already in Iraq, so much that the “surge”™ strategery has as its centerpiece a retrenchment to control Baghdad first at the expense of most of the provinces, the question of where the troops will come from is even more apt. Multiply that many times for the trouble if (as I expect) W expands the conflict into Iran.

    Way to go, W.

  • rugger9

    Go check out Think Progress, apparently Novakula is unhappy that he didn’t get a two hour interview like Brooks did. So, now he’s so over the WH, never again, nope, nuh uh….

    HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

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