One Maybe Two Victories for Humanity!

[elSicomoro]

Given what I know about Turkey, and trying to take all sides into account, I would say that the main reasons for Turkey rejecting the US request are:

--Desire to one day be part of the EU.

--Too many loans, not enough free money from the US.

--A possible uprising or rise in extremism from the Turkish people, who are predominantly Muslim. The army is sworn to the principles of Atatürk, and would crush any uprising that could run counter to those ideals. (IIRC, when fundamentalism became more obvious there a few years back, the head of the army gently reminded those folks that things were not going to shift in that direction as a whole.) So, worst-case scenario, you could wind up seeing an army coup and lots of folks dead in the end.

--The US would not give them control over Northern Iraq...the Turks hate the Kurds, and would love to exert their control over more of them.

I now wonder if the US will try and twist Turkey's arm, much in the same way they are apparently trying to do with Mexico.