Eric Margolis has long been one of my favourite writers and he's someone who wasn't snowed under by the Bush administration. He was against Iraq from day one and warned presciently what would happen if the US attacked.

His column on the possibility of Turkey crossing the border to attack the Kurds [1] is a must read for laying out the conflicting agendas of the various players in a clear eyed way that makes it clear just how much Turkey has to gain from attacking Iraq's Kurds, and how little it may have to lose:

In recent weeks, Turkish-Kurdish tensions burst into flames. Marxist-nationalist PKK guerillas fighting for an independent nation for Turkey’s 20 million or so Kurds killed a score of Turkish soldiers and captured eight.

Hundreds more Turkish soldiers have been killed in eastern Anatolia by increasingly effective Kurdish fighters known as `pesh-merga,’ who have been receiving more and better weapons from fellow Iraqi Kurds.

Fiercely nationalist Turks demand their armed forces invade Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish mini-state to destroy PKK bases. The Turks have massed 100,000 troops and armor on their mountainous border with Iraq. Limited Turkish air attacks and ground probes inside Iraq began last week.

Rubbing your temples with an oncoming migraine yet?

Washington has been piously urging `restraint’ on Turkey, a key US-ally. By contrast, after two Israeli soldiers were captured last year in a routine border clash with Hezbullah guerillas, the White House gave Israel a green light to bomb and invade Lebanon, killing over 1,100 civilians and caused $4 billion of damage.

This crisis is a huge mess for all concerned. Turkey provides 70% of air-delivered supplies to US forces in Iraq and allows US military aircraft to use its airspace. Turkey also quietly allows Israel certain overflight rights, which may eventually include the right to launch an air blitz against Iran through Turkish air space. Israel’s recent air attack on a mysterious Syrian building was flown over Turkish territory. Turkey’s military approved the Israeli overflight; its civilian government knew nothing about the attack until afterwards.

Meanwhile, anti-Americanism is peaking in Turkey. Turkey’s powerful army and civilian government make conflicting policies. Turkey’s popular democratic government wants no part of America’s war in Iraq and is loathe to attack Iraq, fearing getting embroiled in the US-created debacle. But Turkey’s powerful military establishment, a state within the state with very close links to the Pentagon and Israel, is pressing for an invasion of Iraq.

So... most of the US's air-delivered supplies come through Turkey. And as the Iraqi resistance has been destroying the roads and bridges in Iraq, that percentage has been climbing. Certainly the US can route around, but it will be quite inconvenient. And while the civilian government doesn't want to get involved in Iraq, at the same time, the general population is very angry and would support an attack. And, well, there's something in Iraq that the Turks might want. Wonder what that something is?

Turkey’s government must respond to surging public outrage, but fears major military action in Iraq will foreclose its hopes of getting into the European Union, and put it on a collision course with the US in Iraq. Interestingly, US forces in Iraq have turned a blind eye to the PKK’s operations there and to its cross-border attacks into Turkey...

...A new danger looms. The US invasion devastated Iraq and effectively split into three pieces - fulfilling the first step in Israel’s grand strategy of fragmenting Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Iraq’s Mosul oil region, which formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire, is a mere 119 kms from Turkey’s border. Kirkuk is only a bit further. After World War I, the British Empire grabbed this oil-rich region, cobbling together the unnatural state of Iraq to safeguard the oil.

If Iraq slides further into the abyss, Turkey and Iran may partition Iraq. Today, Turkey has no oil. Its fragile economy is hammered by having to earn US dollars to buy oil. But if Turkey repossessed Iraq’s northern oil fields, this nation of 70 million with 515,000 men at arms would become an important power that would reassert traditional Turkish influence in the Mideast, Balkans, Caucasus, and Central Asia.

`Pan-Turanism,’ the idea of spreading Turkish influence from its eastern border across the Turkic lands of Central Asia to the Great Wall of China remains dear to the hearts of many Turkish nationalists and far rightists. Iraq’s huge oil reserves are a big temptation Ankara cannot ignore. After all, if the US can invade Iraq for oil, why not neighboring, ex-owner Turkey?

Indeed, why not? And be quite sure that the Turkish army will do a very ruthless job of putting down Kurdish rebels. It may take a few years, but the oil will flow, no matter how much blood has to be mixed into it.

And note also Margolis's observation about how Turkey needs dollars to buy oil. Money, as Stirling has noted repeatedly, is what you can use to buy the ultimate unit of scarcity in a financial system. In the modern world money is what you can use to buy oil. Ankara has two ways to get oil -- it can join the EU and start using the Euro, which is now a currency which oil can be bought in; or it can invade Iraq and grab the oil, with the justification that (unlike the US) Iraq really is harboring enemies who are attacking it.

I hate to say it, but my take is that Europe will never, ever, let Turkey really join the EU. And I further believe that the Turkish army is capable of subduing Kurdish resistance, though it would be a bloody fight that would probably take a decade to fifteen years. Given that those two things are true and given that we are moving into a period of extreme oil scarcity Turkey's national interest would best be served by telling the US to take a flying leap, giving Europe (who will never let them join anyway) the finger, and invading.

The long term consequences from Europe? Not that severe, honestly. Hey, they need oil too. And from the US? Nothing all that significant, the US can't handle the enemies it already has.

Let's hope that either the US or the EU make the Turks an offer they can't refuse. Because right now realpolitik says that the oil fields of Mosul are waiting.