SO GOES AN OLD KURDISH ADAGE. On a recent visit to Turkey’s southeastern city of Van, a Kurdish businessman told me that, “America has just one friend in the Middle East and that is the Kurds. Kurdish people like America because of protecting Kurds in north Iraq. But if America fights Kurds, it will lose Kurdish friends.”

From 1984 to 1999 Turkey was embroiled in a persistent and bloody domestic conflict with the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party), a group of militant Kurdish separatists. Some 37,000 were killed; 1.5 million were displaced. Turkish authorities now believe that the Kurds in northern Iraq are providing sanctuary to some 5,000 PKK guerillas. This is of more than historical interest because the PKK has recently emerged from hibernation and unleash a new wave of violence against Turkey: In 2006 dozens were killed and hundreds injured and arrested. The Turkish military has responded by deploying 50,000 additional troops to it’s southeast border, adding to the already 200,000-strong force in the region.