Military trucks hauled more tanks and guns to the border area Thursday, local reporters said. For weeks, TV stations have broadcast images of military trucks rumbling along the remote border, and trains transferring tanks and guns to bolster an already formidable force in the area.
The news reports make it obvious that the Turks may strike into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish terrorists if we don't shut them down.
And it is likely that this is the explanation. Massing troops in this area is nothing new.
Yet as I've explained before, deception involves not hiding what you are doing, but hiding why you are doing it. If what you are doing can be seen, if the target believes you are doing something for a completely different reason, they may not respond.
If we are truly about to do something next month to overthrow the mullah regime as I suspect/hope, much like having extra American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to forestall an Iranian counter-attack, the Turks would want extra troops near Iran.
The troops north of Iraq's Kurdish provinces are a short drive from Iran's Kurdish regions, too.
If a revolution begins against the mullahs and we support it, the Turks might want to have troops in the area both to discourage Iraq's Kurds from declaring independence in the crisis and to keep the Iranian Kurds from splitting from Iran and setting a bad precedent from Ankara's perspective.
We can see what is happening. Turkish troops and armor are massing in southeast Turkey. We just can't know for sure why it is happening--even if we think we know the answer.
