Did the red lines change places?

When Turkey decided to look for "international legitimacy" in that MGK meeting with the active role taken by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the military and civilians remained silent and started to wait for what may happen… The military was the first to realize that things were becoming steep, so the Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok praised their relation with the government and made statements for the sake of the motion to pass… However, it was too late to do anything now. Turkey, as stated by one of the "permanent members" of the MGK meetings, was out of the game…

Afterwards, eyes were turned towards mending U.S.-Turkey relations that were damaged when Turkey did not take an active role in the war on Iraq and eyes were also turned to developments that took place in northern Iraq… Although U.S.-Turkey relations became a bit better with the help of a great number of local and foreign mediators, Turkey was not happy not being able to control the developments that took place in northern Iraq… At first, Turkey declared that it would accept the establishment of a Kurdish State as a war reason, then it built its policy on Turkmens in the region and fell into a trap… At this point it can be said that Turkey losing the chance of making agreement with the Kurds, had no other cases left other than Turkmens. However, Turkey insisting on the territorial integrity of Iraq naturally had to make a policy not only over Turkmens but over all Iraqi people… When this view was mentioned by some members of the MGK, they encountered resistance… In time relations between Turkey, northern Iraq and the Kurds became an insoluble problem.

Consequently Turkey could only enter the region by means of the Red Crescent aid and by such "modest reasons" as inspecting the situation of Turkmens on the spot… Especially when it was revealed that Turkey would not take part in the peace power that would be established and it became even more difficult for Turkey to take part in the reconstruction of Iraq, the tensions started to increase… At this point, the increasing messages related to domestic politics started to occupy the country’s agenda… First of all the National View circular then the April 23 crisis, appointments of the AK Party government and MGK Secretary General’s speeches in Europe started to be on the agenda. That is to say, Turkey couldn’t do what was necessary regarding the red lines in northern Iraq, concentrated on the red lines within the country… And when the red lines between the government and the State were laid on the table, that poem like harmony suddenly dissappeared… The MGK meeting suddenly came on the agenda like in the old days… All eyes were turned to the relation between the military and civilians…

At the finally realized meeting sides had things to tell one another… However, both the military and civilians spoke about their anxieties and didn’t take any further steps… Without doubt there was the role of the government that didn’t want to raise its voice not to receive any harm… When the Prime Minister acted calmly in order not to fall into the same position as the Parliament speaker the problem was "for now" gotten over. However, there’s now officially a process that has started where they keep one another under observation… As regards, Turkey without discussion has concentrated on the "red lines" inside…

Do you think that a country that cannot deal properly with the red lines outside can solve their problems by dealing with the red lines inside?