One Shoe Dropping

ANKARA, Turkey - Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who operate from bases there, Turkish security officials told The Associated Press.

Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the raid was limited in scope and that it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks.

"It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands," one of the officials told the AP by telephone. The official is based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.

The officials did not say where the Turkish force was operating in northern Iraq, nor did he say how long they would be there.

Though it hasn't gotten a lot of time on the US news channels, the Turkish government has been making increasingly bellicose noises for weeks now. There are reports of 150,000 Turkish troops on the Iraq (Kurd) border. It wasn't hard to hear, lurking behind the official's comment that "it is not a major offensive", a sotto voce "yet."

Kurdish separatists have increased attacks in the border region. A rush-hour bombing in the Turkish capital Ankara killed six and injured 100, and though the PKK separatists deny involvement, they are being assumed to be responsible.

All of which is set in the context of a Turkish presidential campaign season. Some analysts have suggested that the Prime Minister's party might benefit from rallying the nationalistic Turkish people around the government in military conflict against Kurdish separatists operating from northern Iraq.

(Imagine that, a government trying to bolster its political support through a military response to a terrorist threat.)

The Bush administration has already proven that it is pretty incapable of coping with the complexity of sectarian and regional tensions within Iraq. Reuters is reporting bad news on that front:

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant group said on Wednesday it has reached a ceasefire deal with Iraq's wing of al Qaeda to end clashes between the two Sunni insurgent groups waging a violent campaign against U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

"A deal has been reached between the Islamic Army in Iraq and al Qaeda in Iraq that stipulates an immediate end to all military operation between the two sides in all sectors including capture operation," the Islamis Army in Iraq said in a statement on a Web site used by militants including al Qaeda.

So, now instead of also fighting each other, they can focus on fighting us. And the long-simmering Turkish-Kurdish tensions seem headed for a boil. So, how are things coming in Baghdad? The LA Times brings us a look at the Iraqi government we are somehow counting on to get us out of this mess.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and Tariq Hashimi, the country's Sunni vice president, faced each other across the room as the latter spoke angrily of the bad blood between Sunni and Shiite officials.

A hush fell over the room as Hashimi demanded to know whether the prime minister had been accusing his political bloc of being infiltrated by terrorists.

"Are you talking about us? If you are … we would ask for proof," said Hashimi, according to his account of a recent closed-door meeting of Iraq's top political and national security officials. "I am treated as an opponent," he said, his voice rising. "If you continue treating me like this, it is better for me to quit."

Maliki sat in silence.

Iraq's government is teetering on the edge. Maliki's Cabinet is filled with officials who are deeply estranged from one another and more loyal to their parties than to the government as a whole. Some are jostling to unseat the prime minister. Few, if any, have accepted the basic premise of a government whose power is shared among each of Iraq's warring sects and ethnic groups.

Maliki is the man U.S. officials are counting on to bring Iraq's civil war under control, yet he seems unable to break the government's deadlock.

Even Maliki's top political advisor, Sadiq Rikabi, says he doubts the prime minister will be able to win passage of key legislation ardently sought by U.S. officials, including a law governing the oil industry and one that would allow more Sunni Arabs to gain government jobs.

"We hope to achieve some of them, but solving the Iraqi problems and resolving the different challenges in the [next] three months would need a miracle," Rikabi said.

Interviews with a broad range of Iraqi and Western officials paint a portrait of Maliki as an increasingly isolated and ineffectual figure, lacking in confidence and unable to trust people.

There seems to be a tendency in the US to think that Iraq is a mess, and it's getting worse, but in a slow, deliberate way, so we have time for Congressional manuvers, and rhetorical diversions about the difference between benchmarks and timetables, and waiting to hear in September about whether or not we've turned yet another corner. There doesn't seem to be room for imagining that it could get far worse very quickly.

While we're waiting for General Petraeus, could someone ask what's our plan for coping with a truly massive Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, and/or the collapse of the Maliki government? Or what we'll do if Iran decides to join Turkey in sorting out the Kurdish problem, especially with Turkish troops operating on their border? (I'm guessing the law about distributing the oil from the Kirkuk field won't be relevant by then.)

Ever since 2003, our policy in Iraq has featured an unwillingness to imagine how bad it could very easily get. You'd think we'd have learned by now.