The Turkish Daily News, writing about Tony Snow’s evocation of the “Korea Model” for Iraq, portrays any long-term U.S. military presence as a means of protecting Kurdistan from, well, the Turks:

Turkey is wary of Iraqi Kurdish inspirations for independence. Kurdish leaders say they presently opt for staying inside a federal Iraq, but that self-determination is their right. Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish regional government in the north, has said the Kurds will welcome U.S. bases in their area, while some other leaders have voiced concerns that the Kurds might once again face a U.S. “sell-out,” referring to conflicts in 1975 and 1991 in which they say they had been encouraged by Washington to rebel against Baghdad only to be abandoned later.U.S. plans for a Korean model for Iraq did not come as a surprise to Turkish military officials. “From the very beginning, we have been thinking that the American presence in Iraq had been planned for being permanent,” said one official. “You don’t invade a strategically important country to pull out shortly afterwards. So this is normal.” But the Korea example presumes the presence of a stable, democratic and internally safe host country, like in the model nation, which is not the case for Iraq.