The American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 has affected Turkey's foreign policy in unpredictable ways. On the one hand stood Turkey's vital alliance with the US, stretching back to the early days of the cold war; on the other, the strong opposition of the Turkish people to the invasion of Iraq. One of Iraq's most important neighbours and America's only formal ally in the region, Turkey gave vital support to the US during the first Gulf war. In the second Gulf war, America sought to project itself as the champion of democracy in the Middle East. Turkey, as the only Muslim country in the region with an acceptably democratic form of government, refused to support the US strategy. The challenge faced by the Turkish government has been to sustain good relations with the superpower, while remaining answerable to its own people. To explain Turkey's changing foreign policy, William Hale examines the relationship between Turkey, the US and Iraq since the 1920s, when the Iraqi state was first established. He also analyses Turkey's policies towards Iraqi Kurds and its 'Europeanisation' as the country aligns itself with the EU. Among the first books to assess the ups and downs in relations between Turkey and the U.S. ... Provides the reader a broader perspective from which to understand those relations, especially in the context of Iraq.' Kiliç Bugra Kanat 'This is an excellent and timely book.' B. A. Yesilada, Portland State University

"Throughout the 1990s, Turkey was the anchor in the containment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq by the United States. The unpredictable set of events unleashed by Operation Iraqi Freedom has unnerved both Turkish decision makers and the public alike. The U.S.-led coalition's operation in Iraq has also upended Turkey's fundamental interests in Iraq, which are fourfold: (1) Prevent the division of Iraq along sectarian or ethnic lines that would give rise to an independent or confederal Kurdish state (with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital), thus supporting aspirations for a similar entity in Turkey's own extensive Kurdish population. (2) Protect the Turkish-speaking Turkmen minority, which resides primarily in northern Iraq. (3) Eliminate the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Turkish Kurdish insurgent movement, which has sought refuge in the northeast of Iraq following its defeat in 1999. (4) Prevent the emergence of a potentially hostile nondemocratic fundamentalist Iraqi state"--Summary.

In Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, central governments historically pursued mono-nationalist ideologies and repressed Kurdish identity. As evidenced by much unrest and a great many Kurdish revolts in all these states since the 1920s, however, the Kurds manifested strong resistance towards ethnic chauvinism. What sorts of authoritarian state policies have Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria relied on to contain the Kurds over the years? Can meaningful democratization and liberalization in any of these states occur without a fundamental change vis-à-vis their Kurdish minorities? To what extent does the Kurdish issue function as both a barrier and key to democratization in four of the most important states of the Middle East? While many commentators on the Middle East stress the importance of resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute for achieving 'peace in the Middle East,' this book asks whether or not the often overlooked Kurdish issue may constitute a more important fulcrum for change in the region, especially in light of the 'Arab Spring' and recent changes in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

“A valuable history [and] a stark warning to Washington policy and strategy makers.” —James Stejskal, former US Army Special Forces and CIA officer In 2002, Sam Faddis was named to head a CIA team that would enter Iraq to facilitate the deployment of follow-on conventional military forces numbering over 40,000 American soldiers. This force, built around the 4th Infantry Division, would, in partnership with Kurdish forces and with the assistance of Turkey, engage Saddam’s army in the North as part of a coming invasion. Faddis expected to be on the ground in Iraq within weeks, the entire campaign likely to be over by summer. Over the course of the next year, virtually every aspect of that plan for the conduct of the war in northern Iraq fell apart. The 4th Infantry Division never arrived, nor did any other conventional forces in substantial number. The Turks not only refused to provide support, they worked overtime to prevent the United States from achieving success. And an Arab army that was to assist US forces fell apart before it ever made it to the field. Alone, hopelessly outnumbered, short on supplies, and threatened by Iraqi assassination teams and Islamic extremists, Faddis’s team, working with Kurdish peshmerga, miraculously paved the way for a brilliant and largely bloodless victory in the North and the fall of Saddam’s Iraq. That victory, handed over to Washington and the Department of Defense on a silver platter, was then squandered. The decisions that followed would lead to catastrophic consequences that continue to this day. This is the story of the brave and effective team of men and women who overcame massive odds to help end the nightmare of Saddam’s rule. It is also the story of how incompetence, bureaucracy, and ignorance threw that success away and condemned Iraq and the surrounding region to chaos

Anatomy of a Civil War demonstrates the destructive nature of war, ranging from the physical to the psychosocial, as well as war’s detrimental effects on the environment. Despite such horrific aspects, evidence suggests that civil war is likely to generate multilayered outcomes. To examine the transformative aspects of civil war, Mehmet Gurses draws on an original survey conducted in Turkey, where a Kurdish armed group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been waging an intermittent insurgency for Kurdish self-rule since 1984. Findings from a probability sample of 2,100 individuals randomly selected from three major Kurdish-populated provinces in the eastern part of Turkey, coupled with insights from face-to-face in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals affected by violence, provide evidence for the multifaceted nature of exposure to violence during civil war. Just as the destructive nature of war manifests itself in various forms and shapes, wartime experiences can engender positive attitudes toward women, create a culture of political activism, and develop secular values at the individual level. In addition, wartime experiences seem to robustly predict greater support for political activism. Nonetheless, changes in gender relations and the rise of a secular political culture appear to be primarily shaped by wartime experiences interacting with insurgent ideology.

"The combination of professional photos, amateur snapshots and interview with refugees, giving their first-hand accounts of the horrs that have befallen them, provides a penetrating insight into the situation in which the Iraqi citizens fin themselves."--Back coverl

In tracing the evolution of Kurdish nationalism, Denise Natali shows that, contrary to popular theories, there is nothing natural or fixed about Kurdish identity or the configuration that Kurdish nationalism assumes. Rather, Kurdish nationalism has been shaped by the development of nation-states in the region. Although Kurdish communities have maintained some shared sense of Kurdishness, Kurdayeti (the mobilization of Kurdish identity) is interwoven with a much larger series of identities within the "political space" of each Kurdish group. Different notions of inclusion and exclusion have modified the political and cultural opportunities of Kurds to express their ethnic identities, and opening the possibility of assuming alternative identities over time. With this book Natali makes a significant contribution to theoretical, empirical, and policy-based scholarship on the Middle East, the plight of the Kurds, ethnonationalism, and ethnopolitical conflict. Hers is the first comparative work to examine Kurdish nationalism as a function of diverse political spaces. As a vital addition to the literature in the field, this book will supplant a number of standard texts on the Kurds.