No Impact – No Middle East Escalation

No Impact – No Middle East Escalation

Kevin Drum tries to throw some water on the "Middle East in Flames" theory holding that American withdrawal from Iraq will lead not only to a short-term intensification of fighting in Iraq, but also to some kind of broader regional conflagration. Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, as usual sensible but several clicks to my right, also make this point briefly in Democracy: "Talk that Iraq’s troubles will trigger a regional war is overblown; none of the half-dozen civil wars the Middle East has witnessed over the past half-century led to a regional conflagration." Also worth mentioning in this context is the basic point that the Iranian and Syrian militaries just aren't able to conduct meaningful offensive military operations. The Saudi, Kuwait, and Jordanian militaries are even worse. The IDF has plenty of Arabs to fight closer to home. What you're looking at, realistically, is that our allies in Kurdistan might provide safe harbor to PKK guerillas, thus prompting our allies in Turkey to mount some cross-border military strikes against the PKK or possibly retaliatory ones against other Kurdish targets. This is a real problem, but it's obviously not a problem that's mitigated by having the US Army try to act as the Baghdad Police Department or sending US Marines to wander around the desert hunting a possibly mythical terrorist organization. 

No Impact – Squo Solves PKK

After recent PKK attacks, Turkish forces have deployed along the border – there’s no need for US troops there
Karadeniz 6/21 (Tulay, Ankara correspondent for Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65K2YU20100621) GAT

Turkish commandos backed by helicopters deployed along the Iraqi border on Monday after Kurdish guerrillas killed 11 soldiers at the weekend in one of the deadliest attacks for years in their separatist war. In Ankara, President Abdullah Gul chaired an emergency security meeting, attended by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and military leaders, as pressure mounted for the government to rein in escalating violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast. In fresh violence, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas attacked two military police units on Monday in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast, killing one soldier and wounding another, security sources said. Four rebels died in the clashes. Elite troops rappelled down from helicopters and poured out in mechanized infantry units to surround Kurdish rebels in an operation along the Iraqi border, security sources said. The deployment has boosted troop numbers well into the thousands along the border with Iraq, where rebels are based.

No Impact – Squo Solves PKK

The US is already committed to helping Turkey against the PKK through non-violent means – this solves best
Bozkurt 3/20 (Abdullah, writer for the Turkish Press, http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-204904-united-states-vows-to-put-pkk-out-of-business.html) GAT
Drawing an analogy to notorious American gangster Al Capone, who was convicted on charges of tax evasion, a senior US counterterrorism official has vowed to bring down the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) organization operating on Turkish soil through financial instruments available to authorities. “We want to put the PKK out of business. We put Al Capone out of service for tax evasion. This is what we want to do [for the PKK as well],” Shari Villarosa, deputy coordinator for regional affairs in the State Department’s Counterterrorism Office, told Today’s Zaman in Ankara on Thursday. “It is a very effective way. Our desire is to stop the flow of funds to terrorists,” she said, adding, “We regard a threat to Turkey as a threat to the US.” The United States, which already classifies the PKK as a terrorist organization, imposed further sanctions on the group to cut off its funding under an anti-drug smuggling law in 2008 and designated three top leaders of the organization as narcotics traffickers last year. “This would enable us to take action against any of those individuals and to close their bank accounts and seize their assets,” Villarosa explained, noting federal prosecutors can also go after individuals who donate to fundraising campaigns by the terrorist group. Senior US counterterrorism official Shari Villarosa has vowed to bring down the terrorist PKK operating on Turkish soil through financial instruments available to authorities. ‘We regard a threat to Turkey as a threat to the US,’ she said, noting they want to put the PKK out of business to stop the flow of funds to the terrorists She stressed that the action would put pressure on non-US banks as well because she said those banks that have accounts belonging to someone on the US terror list would not want to jeopardize their ties with the US banking system. “They will also cut off this funding. We found this an extremely effective measure in cutting [off the] sources of funds. If there are no funds, it is going to be very difficult to mount future attacks,” Villarosa underlined. Commenting on a recent wave of arrests targeting PKK-affiliated businesses in France, Belgium, Italy and Germany in recent weeks, Villarosa acknowledged that the US strongly urged Europeans to take action against PKK. “We encouraged more cooperation between Turkish and European legal officials, prosecutors and law enforcement people. We can claim [some] credit for helping bring people together with positive results,” she said. Turkey and the US have significantly increased cooperation on the PKK threat since 2007. The US has started to share intelligence on PKK activities and relayed real-time actionable intelligence to the Turkish military so that security operations can pinpoint terrorist hideouts. The State Department also intensified what Villarosa called a “diplomatic outreach” program to explain to European partners the threat PKK activities pose. The senior counterterrorism official further noted that US officials have regular meetings with their European counterparts on global terror threats and gave assurances that the PKK has always been on the agenda of those discussions. “I have regular twice-a-year talks with the EU. The last one was in the US in November. I will go to Brussels in April. The PKK was part of our discussions as well,” she remarked. Though she declined to comment on any specifics of intelligence operations and played down differences of opinion between the two NATO allies, Villarosa emphasized that the US has increased its cooperation in “many fashions.” She said the US officials have raised the issue of the PKK threat with both the central Iraqi government and Kurdistan regional administration officials. “They are very well aware of our concerns that the PKK poses a real threat to stability,” she said, adding that a “terrorist group operating freely is not good for the stability of either Turkey or Iraq.” She vowed to continue raising US concerns with the relevant authorities in Iraq.

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