Curfew in Baghdadd

"I'd say it is no more than a rumor. but a Turkish newspaper is reporting that Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari asked Turkey to send troops to Iraq to replace the Americans on his recent trip to that country. A Bulgarian news wire says,

"According to the information the proposal was made by Jaafari to the Turkish Prime Minister Reccep Tayip Erdogan during the Iraqi Prime Minister’s visit to Ankara on Tuesday. According to the publication Jaafari has said: “The USA failed. USA cannot establish peace in Iraq. Only Turkey could do this.” '

Turkey might be tempted. Although all sides are now denying a statement attributed to a Czech diplomat that Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told him that if Coalition troops withdrew, Iraq would fall to the "Iranian model" (i.e. clerical, Islamist government), which then might spread to Turkey. Whether Gul said this out loud is irrelevant. Certainly the Turkish elite is very worried about Iranian hegemony in Iraq and Iranian and Iraqi Shiite influence spreading in Turkey. Turkey has hard line Sunni Islamists who hate Shiism but take some inspiration from Iran. About 20 percent of Turks are Alevis, a Shiite sect that is heterodox, often secular, and not mostly interested in Iranian style clerical Shiism. But similar heterodox groups among Iraqi Turkmen in the north in the past two decades became followers of the Sadr Movement, and the Turks may worry that the Alevis could go in that direction. Turkey offered to station troops in Anbar Province a couple of years ago, but that move was blocked by the Kurds."
Juan Cole