Turkish Army goes to Iraq to protect TL

The main question we focused on was: Why does Turkey send troops to Iraq and what does it expect in return?

We started with the issues that were once labelled as our RED LINES, the ones we avoided to mention.

Can the establishment of a Kurdish state be prevented?
The main reason for the Turkish Armed Forces to go to Iraq is to prevent possible establishment of an independent Kurdish state in the future. Military and state officials claim that the existence of Turkish soldiers in the region will block such an attempt from Kurds and this will also put pressure on the Americans who are to give the final decision.

However, we should see that such assumptions are not valid today, especially after the parliamentary rebuff of the motion to send troops to Iraq before the Iraq War started.

If one day Washington and Tel Aviv decides for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, they put this into practise despite protests from Turkey. The reason for they haven’t decided for such an establishment there yet, may be lack of appropriate conditions and that they don’t want Turkey to become an unstable country. Therefore existence of Turkish soldiers in the region can neither prevent a possible independence movement of Kurds nor engage in an operation to which the Americans oppose.

Turkey cannot put its plans into practise towards supporting Turkmens or deterring PKK militants, too.

Existence of Turkish soldiers may only increase Turkey’s prestige in the region and in the eyes of the U.S. administration.

However, there are other advantages to be gained by sending troops to Iraq and they are economic advantages.

Economic Advantages are extremely important
If you’re listening to recent news on economy, this point must have distracted your attention; people interpret economic developments as very positive, but every sentence ends saying, "of course if Parliament passes the new motion".

The reason for this is simple.

Turkey is on a line. Even a simple adverse event is enough to get all the things in a mess. Economic crisis will hit our country even worse this time. The major cause for this is to run counter to Washington once again.

This time if Turkey promises to send troops and then changes its behaviour once again, it will be labelled as "too risky to lend credit" in the international arena of finance.

At the same time, interest and inflation rates will rise, again.

If Turkey sends troops to Iraq, this will make Washington approach the PKK issue in a different way.

In short, Turkish Armed Forces will go to Iraq to protect the Turkish Lira. Other reasons are vague.