Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Monday, November 11, 2002


Iraq is complaining about repeated Turkish incursions into its airspace, and is taking the matter to the Arab league.

Given that there is a no-fly zone in the northern, Kurdish areas near Turkey and that Iraq does not even control its airspace up there, this particular complaint seems bizarre on the face of it. But presumably it is part of a campaign to paint the pressure being applied to Iraq to comply with international weapons inspections as a non-Arab plot against the land of an Arab nation. The implication from the Iraq side is that Turkey may be planning to invade or to claim Iraqi territory. Of course, this implication is meant to scare Iraqi Kurds into not cooperating with the US invasion plans, either.

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