Mr. Hunt Has Forgotten Rule One In The Middle East

Rule One in the Middle East goes as follows:

"Don't fuck with the Turks."

That's it. Short, sweet, and simple. Those who ignore Rule One often end up dead or worse.

Well, Mr. Hunt of Hunt Oil has forgotten Rule One. He has signed a long term exploration agreement with the Kurds. That's right, not with the dysfunctional Iraqi central government, but with the Kurds directly, based on their de facto independence due to the opt-out clause in the current Constitution of Iraq.

Emptywheel, as usual, is right on the case, pointing out how that this indicates that Mr. Hunt, who is connected into the current Administration in ways that make pancreatic cancer look apathetic, is of the opinion that Kurdistan will remain independent for the next twenty to thirty years or so, possibly guaranteed by U.S. troops at the "undiscussed" bases in the region.

What Ms. Wheeler has forgotten, with deep respect, is that Turkey is having its own problems right now with the rise in islamist political parties challenging the secular state of Attaturk and his successors. The military has made two things clear in the current situation. First, they will not tolerate any form of religious intervention in modern Turkish life based on politics (like trying to make parts of Sharia law enforced by the police). Second, they are willing to allow the Kurdish members of Turkish society to return to public life and even have some power there, provided the militants are kept in check.

The problem with militants is very simple: they need money because they don't work and they use up expensive resources like explosives, guns, ammunition, people, goats, you name it at a ferocious rate. Until now the relative poverty of the Kurdish people has kept their militants on an austerity budget, relatively speaking.

If those militants get access to even a few percent of the oil revenues that can potentially flow through the Kurds provided they can take and hold the Kirkuk fields (they currently don't have them and there concern they might not be able to hold them without U.S. help) their drought will be over big time. They could start using truck bombs and suicide bombers against the Turkish non-Kurd population in the same way Sunni's have in Iraqi.

The Turks know this. They are not about to allow the Kurds to get any significant oil money as things now stand. That is one of several reasons there are an unknown number (but a sizeable one) of Turkish troops just across the border from Kurdish Iraq.

In order for Hunt's deal to make any sense, the Iraqi Kurds have to gain control of Kirkuk and the associated oil fields. Unless there is a massive U.S. military presence there at that point to prevent it, look for Turkey to invade and create an "Autonomous Turkish Kurdish Republic" there, whose net effect will be to take control over the oil revenues and crush the various Kurdish guerilla factions operating from there.

And Mr. Hunt will be out in the cold. The Turks have long memories.

Never Forget Rule One.