Has the Pentagon lost its mind?

Let me start with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Last week he led the Bush administration with increasingly pointed and intimidating calls for Turkey to bring a "swift conclusion" to the cross-border operation against the PKK in northern Iraq. Interestingly, we haven't seen Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who represents the State Department school of foreign policy, saying anything about it. Nor were State Department spokespersons enthusiastic about going on the record with concrete timetables for Turkish ground operations. Obviously they care more about sustaining the recent rapprochement between Turkey and US. On the other hand, the Pentagon seems more passionate about courting the Kurdish regional leadership in northern Iraq. It doesn't seem to understand or care about Turkish reactions as much.

I am sure not only the substance, but also the wording of Secretary Gates' messages to Turkey was perceived as unusually undiplomatic, if not arrogant, in Ankara. On his way back from Turkey he told journalists, "I think they got our message." That was a clear attempt to paint his official visit as a message delivery effort, which delights the Kurds. One day after Turkey "got the message," Ankara declared an end to the operation. That sparked a heated discussion about the role of US pressure on the timing of the Turkish military's withdrawal. Mr. Gates' excessive actions and words have been instrumental in starting a big domestic fight within Turkey. The military and the civilian government are now under fire by the opposition. They are accused of operating under the command of the US. I hope Mr. Gates is now aware how much strain he helped put on Ankara and US-Turkish relations, in particular between the two militaries.

Adding salt to the wound, some other voices coming from the Pentagon only bolstered negative Turkish feelings toward the US. On Tuesday Turkey heard Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the number-two commander in Iraq until recently, suggesting that we should talk and negotiate with the PKK. Wait, it is not finished yet. The State Department can try to control the damage by saying the US government does not have a policy of talking to terrorists, but another recent statement -- this time from the top US commander in the Middle East -- echoed the same line. At a congressional appearance on Wednesday, Adm. William Fallon said, "The real solution here, to me, is that there's some kind of accommodation reached with this group."

From these statements, it is clear that the Pentagon wants Turkey to talk to a group that both Washington and Ankara officially regard as a terrorist organization. Have you heard any American commander suggesting Israel should talk to Hamas to find a "real solution" to the Jewish-Palestinian conflict, although both the US and Israel consider them a terrorist group? Can you imagine how people at the State Department might be feeling about this? How can anyone fix these mistakes by the Pentagon? This is a major blow to US foreign policy and US-Turkish relations.

Let me tell you the problem with the Pentagon. They are so consumed by the situation in Iraq that they can't see anything else around them. It took years to overrule their objection to the Turkish right to fight the PKK in northern Iraq. Thankfully, since the agreement made between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President George W. Bush on Nov. 5, the US has been providing "indirect support" to Turkey by providing real-time "military intelligence," as Adm. Fallon put it.

The recent operation proved just how low the Pentagon's threshold is for things that might annoy their newfound Kurdish friends and allies in the region. It seems much easier for them to say and do things that intimidate Turks than Kurds. Because they are on the ground in Iraq, they care about the relative stability of northern Iraq the most. Any possible peshmerga-Turkish fight would hurt them the most. Therefore they speak in terms less and less politically correct on the Turkish-Kurdish issue. That is why Adm. Fallon easily used the term "political solution," which the State Department generally refrains from because it is politically incorrect in the Turkish context. For many Turks, a "political solution" would subsequently invite calls for autonomy or even independence for Turkey's predominantly Kurdish Southeast.