Turkey's military said Friday it has ended a ground offensive against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, but said that foreign influence did not play a role in its decision.
And the world did not end. Iraq still stands.
Interesting enough, we got credit from the Iraqis for getting the Turks to get out after only about a week of very focused operations.
And we got credit from the Turks for providing them with intelligence (which helped keep the operation brief and focused).
To add to the bonus points we racked up, we also show that we are not hypocritical in wanting Pakistan to let us operate against al Qaeda and Taliban forces hiding in Pakistan that strike into Afghanistan.
We have conflicting goals involved in this region. But we successfully navigated the issue another year and bought valuable time to reduce the conflicting goals we have and address issues that threaten those goals.
Not bad for cowboy foreign policy, eh?
