Hale, William. Turkey, the US and Iraq.

AuthorJerry, Janice J.
PositionOil and Democracy in Iraq - Book review

Hale, William. Turkey, the US and Iraq. London, UK: SAQI and Middle East Institute, SOAS, 2007. 175 pages. Paper $21.95.

Springborg, Robert. Editor. Oil and Democracy in Iraq. London, UK: SAQI and Middle East Institute, SOAS, 2007. 160 pages. Paper $29.95.

THESE TWO SHORT MONOGRAPHS, Turkey, the US and Iraq and Oil and Democracy in Iraq, focus respectively on Iraqi regional and international relations and economics. Using extensive Turkish, and some Western sources, to the exclusion of Arabic materials, Hale describes the ongoing complexities of Turkish diplomacy regarding neighboring Iraq. After briefly tracing Turkish relations with Iraq from the 16th century, Hale offers a more detailed narrative of Turkish-iraqi relations in the twentieth century with particular emphasis on events from the first Gulf War through the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Throughout this time frame, the Kurdish issue was the paramount concern of Turkish governments with regard to relations with Iraq. Hale argues that all other factors including borders, regime changes, and riparian disputes over water allocations were secondary concerns in the formulation of Turkish policies toward Iraq. His descriptions of Turkish policies toward the indigenous Kurds within Turkey and those in northern Iraq are nuanced and based on a wide array of Turkish sources; however, he may underestimate the importance of water allocation--which he mentions only in passing--in Turkish-Iraqi relations, especially insofar as it impacts on Iraq.

Turkey, along with most of the international community, supported the first Gulf War and U.S. policies against the Saddam Hussein regime, thereby maintaining its long- term alliance with the United States. However, the Gulf War and subsequent Kurdish rebellion, urged but not materially supported by the first Bush administration, resulted in a huge influx of Kurdish refugees into Turkey that caused domestic problems for both the Ozul regime and those that followed it. The development of a semi autonomous Kurdish state in northern Iraq was viewed with apprehension throughout Turkey particularly since it coincided, perhaps not coincidently, with a rise in the strength of the Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Following Ocalan's arrest and imprisonment in 1999, internal Kurdish opposition within Turkey waned and Turkish relations with the Kurdish population within the country improved. Turkey has always preferred that a...

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