February 20, 2003
The current negotiations between the United States and Turkey raise interesting questions about
the coming war with Iraq. At the end of the day (or the week), Turkey will most likely grant
permission to the United States to deploy significant numbers of U.S. troops along its southern
border, which will form a springboard for an invasion of northern Iraq. The U.S. will probably
pay whatever price Turkey asks (a fact that Turkey is obviously aware of), since the alternative
would almost certainly be more costly than the extra $10 billion that Ankara is demanding.
As is only obvious, the U.S. war strategy will ideally involve a three-pronged invasion of Iraq,
two of those prongs driving north from Kuwait (one heading directly for Baghdad, the other swinging
through the western Iraqi desert to help prevent the launching of al-Hussein missiles against Israel)
and the third headed directly south from the Turkish border. The forces involved in the swing
through the western desert will most likely be minimal--resistance in that section will be light,
and any forces that drive east towards Baghdad would encounter a system of lakes in the most loyal
sections of Iraq. In contrast, the forces driving north along the Euphrates River would enjoy
movement over ideal tank terrain in Shi'ite-dominated areas that would most likely be quick to
embrace their liberators.
It is the drive through northern Iraq that will be the big question mark. If Turkey forbids the
use of its territory as a staging area, the U.S. will simply airlift forces north of the 36th
parallel (much as it did in Afghanistan). But this will not be the same as unloading heavy tanks
at the Turkish port of Iskenderun and driving them overland to the Iraqi border. A modern army
(especially an army that sports the gas-guzzling M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank) requires a huge
amount of fuel and other supplies to remain operable during offensive maneuvers. A force emplaced
and supplied in northern Iraq exclusively by air will be a smaller and lighter force that it
otherwise could be.
And this would mean that such a force would most likely have to act as an anvil to the southern
hammer, instead of as the northern half of a pair of pincers. It would still be worthwhile to occupy
northern Iraq, if only to secure the northern oilfields and manage the inevitable flow of refugees
from the more southern portions of the country. But every member of the Republican Guard that
Saddam doesn't have to post along his northern front is one more diehard fanatic who will face the
Kuwait-based invaders as they roll towards the outskirts of Baghdad.
And it will be in the streets of Baghdad where it will be determined how many lives of Allied
soldiers were bought or lost with that $10 billion. If Saddam was smart (and he might be smarter
than is fashionable to admit right now) he would allow Allied ground forces to approach Baghdad
unopposed, and wait to see which of his domestic opponents most eagerly embrace the invaders. In
the meantime, he would destroy several civilian structures in and around Baghdad, blame the
Americans, and prepare the rubble as defensive positions. The moment when the Allied ground forces
show up at his doorstep is when he'll unleash his chemical and biological weapons on everyone he
can. The longer it takes to take Baghdad, the greater the chance its defenders will be able to
take more than a few infidels with them.
Turkey's wavering in this pre-war period brings to mind the fiddling with the Schlieffen Plan
by Moltke prior to the First World War. The Chief of the German General Staff made the dubious
decision (among many others) of not sending troops through neutral Holland to give the German
right flank more room to maneuver on its way to capture the Channel ports of Belgium and France
and envelope Paris. Fortunately (in terms of the preservation of Western democratic institutions)
and unfortunately (in terms of the bloody four-year stalemate that ensued on the Western Front)
this was one of many decisions that led to the failure of the Schlieffen Plan. The Battle of
Baghdad will be won, but the price of victory in that battle will determine domestic support for
the post-war process. If thousands of body bags have already arrived at U.S. airbases, and Iraq
is thrown into chaos by a protracted war, the politically savvy Bush administration might be tempted to declare
Iraq "WMD Free in 2003" and bring the boys (and girls) home. The remnants of Iraq would be left
to fend for themselves (if you don't think this is plausible, consider the American record in
rebuilding Afghanistan).
The irony is that Turkey's attempts to profit from the Second Gulf War (or at least break
even, if their alleged motivation for compensation for potential war damages is to be believed)
could very well cost that country much more than a few tens of billions of dollars. A failed state along
its southern border, with a restive Kurdish population, a Shi'ite population that might prove a
tempting prize for Iran, and no American or British peacekeepers in sight, would bode ill for
Turkey as well as the rest of the Middle East.
