Can Iraq get any worse? Yeah, and maybe soon!

If Turkey invades, which that trigger-happy tank and others poised along the Iraqi border may do soon. From the Guardian:

"Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came under intense pressure last night to order an invasion of northern Iraq following the deadliest attacks for over a decade on the Turkish military and civilians by separatist Kurdish guerrillas.

Mr Erdogan, who has resisted demands from the Turkish armed forces for the past six months for a green light to cross the border into Iraqi Kurdistan, where the guerrillas are based, called an emergency meeting of national security chiefs to ponder their options in the crisis, a session that some said was tantamount to a war council.

A Turkish incursion is fiercely opposed by Washington since it would immensely complicate the US campaign in Iraq and destabilise the only part of Iraq that functions, the Kurdish-controlled north."

Understatement of the year! Thing is, the Turkish military tends to get its own way, like with, ahem, four coups since 1960. Erdogan's under enough pressure from the military as it is, as the avowed defenders of Turkish secularism call him out on any moves perceived as a slide toward an Islamist state.

Messy, messy, messier...