Bush's Brazen Request

Morton Kondracke, writing for Roll Call, takes it a step further: "White House aides insist that he's now on policy offense across the board. From Iraq to SCHIP to the budget, energy policy, trade, terrorist surveillance, the mortgage crisis and even prescription drug costs and student test scores, top Bush aides say that events are turning in his direction -- and that they are trying to get the word out more effectively."

Turkey Watch

Helene Cooper and David S. Cloud write in the New York Times: "Scrambling to forestall a threatened Turkish retaliatory attack in northern Iraq, the Bush administration pressed Iraq's Kurdish leaders on Monday to rein in the Kurdish group whose raids into Turkey have heightened tensions along the border.

"But American officials acknowledged that neither the United States nor Iraq had done much recently to constrain the Kurdish group, known as the Kurdish Workers' Party, or the P.K.K. . . .

"The United States lists the P.K.K. as a terrorist organization, but American military commanders in Baghdad have long resisted calls by Turkey to devote American military resources to going after the group in mountainous northern Iraq. The commanders say they have barely enough troops to deal with the insurgency in Iraq, so using them to contain the P.K.K. has never been a serious option."

Robin Wright and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "Over the past two days, top U.S. officials have made clear to Turkish, Iraqi and Kurdish leaders that Washington fully backs Turkey in the growing crisis, administration sources said. Twelve Turkish soldiers were killed and eight others taken captive in an ambush Sunday by Kurdish rebels who crossed from Iraq into Turkey in a brazen nighttime attack. . . .

"With Turkey sending a convoy of about 50 military vehicles toward the Iraqi border, Bush called Turkish President Abdullah Gul to express 'deep concern' about the attacks against Turkish soldiers and civilians. He also pledged to work with Turkey and Iraq to 'combat' cross-border PKK operations, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said."

But Jonathan S. Landay writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Some experts were skeptical about the chance of success of Bush's diplomatic offensive, saying that the isolated mountains in which the PKK maintains bases are beyond the Iraqi government's control and that U.S. troops are stretched too thin to deal with the problem.

"Moreover, they said, the semi-autonomous regional government that runs Kurd-dominated northern Iraq is unwilling to provoke the anger among its own people by moving against their ethnic kin from Turkey.

"'There is enormous sympathy for the PKK among Iraqi Kurds,' said Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat who maintains close ties to Iraq's Kurdish leaders. 'There is no desire to have Kurds fighting Kurds.'"

And On Another Front

Richard A. Oppel Jr. writes in the New York Times that "out of the public eye, a chillingly similar battle has been under way on the Iraqi border with Iran. Kurdish guerrillas ambush and kill Iranian forces and retreat to their hide-outs in Iraq. The Americans offer Iran little sympathy. Tehran even says Washington aids the Iranian guerrillas, a charge the United States denies. True or not, that conflict, like the Turkish one, has explosive potential."

Speaking of Iran

I wrote in yesterday's column about the administration's increasingly warlike rhetoric against Iran.

From yesterday's press briefing from deputy press secretary Tony Fratto: