U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes a surprise visit to Kirkuk “to congratulate the provincial council for a move toward Kurdish-Arab reconciliation,” writes Juan Cole. “But while Condi was doing that, the Turkish army invaded Iraq! And then the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Authority, Massoud Barzani, angrily refused to meet Secretary Rice, saying that the U.S. had given Turkey the ‘green light’ to attack Kurdistan and that the incursion was a ‘crime.’”

Snafu or political sabotage? Cole asks.

“In my view Turkey is trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Barzani, and Turkish Chief of Staff Yasar Buyukanit deliberately embarrassed Secretary Rice and ruined her trip to celebrate Kurdish-Arab reconciliation (a reconciliation that is not actually good news for Ankara, which does not want to see the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government annex Kirkuk).

“If the bombing raid was also not a snafu but was a deliberate attempt to thwart Rice’s good-feeling tour in Iraqi Kurdistan, then that would point to the Turkish military having received advance warning from someone in the U.S. government about Rice’s secret trip. That is, it would point to spying. That in turn would raise the question of whether there are relatively high U.S.G. officials who had knowledge of her secret itinerary, and who have an interest in bolstering the ties of the U.S. with the Turkish military at the expense of Washington’s de facto alliance with Barzani in Iraq. I’ll bet you State is looking into this fiasco as we speak.”