Turks trade troops for hard U.S. cash
Toronto Sun, October 12, 2003
by Eric Margolis

The de facto partition of Iraq, long predicted by this column, could be accelerating. Washington may decide to carve up the country into "Iraq utile," as France used to define Chad, and "Iraq inutile" - or useful and useless Iraq. Oil is in the north and southeast. Let the Turks and Kurds divvy up the north; the U.S. and Britain will control the bigger southeast fields; the oilless Sunni triangle, where resistance to U.S. occupation is fiercest, will be sealed off and left in isolation.

Most Turks bitterly oppose intervention in Iraq. But their politicians cannot face them and admit it's either rent out their troops as mercenaries - oops, "peacekeepers" - or watch the lights go out when they run out of imported fuel.

Either way, it's a hard choice for proud Turks, and one that will certainly generate even more anti-Americanism in a nation that used to love the United States.

Full story here.