Turkey Eyes the Shia Crescent; Iran clearly seeks to lure Turkey away from its traditional moorings to the West, and the Kurds may be just the wedge it needs.

Byline: Omer Taspinar (Taspinar is a fellow at the Brookings Institutionin Washington.)

If you were a mullah in Tehran facing a new western "coalition of the willing," there's one country you would try to get on your side: next-door NATO neighbor, Turkey. And lately, the Iranians have been doing this quite well. The reason: Ankara and Tehran increasingly share a cause that unites them: Kurdish guerrillas operating in northern Iraq, and America's failure to do anything about them.

It would be premature to speak of any entente. Yet Iran clearly seeks to lure Turkey away from its traditional moorings to the West, and the Kurds may be just the wedge they need. During visits to Ankara in recent months, Iranian officials and other state representatives--including Ali Larijani, head of the supreme National Security Council--have gone out of their way to stress the troubles created for both nations by the PKK terrorist movement. Despite myriad promises, U.S. troops in the region do nothing to prevent cross-border raids. Suggesting that Turkey should join with Iran and Syria to establish a tripartite platform of security cooperation against the Kurdish separatists, Larijani and others impressed upon their counterparts the advantages of a large-scale Turkish military incursion to clean out the guerillas--possibly in coordination with Iranian forces, according to Turkish and Iranian news reports.

Nothing so dramatic appears to be imminent. Yet clearly, the prospects of a Turkish intervention are growing. It is certain to be an issue when Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and military Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit visit Washington over the next week. And, just as clearly, Tehran has every incentive to stir up trouble. An intervention in northern Iraq would all but end Turkey's already troubled European journey and spark a monumental crisis with the United States. Estranged from Brussels and Washington, Turkey would see less benefit in toeing the Western line against Iran. To be sure, a Sunni Turkey would have some problems with its historic Shia rival's acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet that still-hypothetical threat is considered modest next to the reality of Kurdish separatism. On this score, at least, Turks do not see America as being on their side. Iran, ...