It's hard to resent Turkey for not wanting to be a part of one of the greatest stupidities of recent American foreign policy. While American can pull out if things don't go like they imagine, Turkey is stuck in the Middle East and has to maintain relations with its neighbours. Besides Turkey had no interest in toppling Saddam Husseins regime. He wasn't a thread to Turkey and in fact allowed the Turkish military to conduct operations against Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan.In 2003, the US invaded Iraq. Turkey denied the transit of the US 4th ID to attack from the north.
While opposed to that war, I was at the time angered by this
While Rumsfeld and the Bush administration who pressed this war were disturbingly delusional about the might of American military power I don't think even they were stupid enough to do something like this.Thank you Turkey, for your outstanding support during the war. I fully understand that you did not support our attack, and that nothing in the NATO agreements said you should. I get that. However, I do hope that you understand we will be endevouring to make use of the local conditions as we can. For example, the one group in Iraq that truly supports us is the Kurds. Can you say 'Independent Kurdistan'? I can. Can you say 'Independent Kurdistan armed with M1 tanks and Apache attack helicopters backed by US SAM systems?' I can. The fact that such a polity would destabalize Iran is just kind of...gravy.
So, WI? What if the US supported an independent Kurdistan, and then armed it? What happens?
1) The USA piss off their allies even more. Countries like Spain, with their own secessionist movements, would withdrew their troops and support immediately. (Note, that Spain doesn't even recognize the Kosovo, because they don't want to set a precedence for other secessionist movements.) And considering that the forceful separation of Kurdistan from Iraq would be a clear violation of established International law with unpleasant consequences for the stability of the entire Middle East and would set a dangerous precedent, those who opposed the war, because they considered its legality questionable at best, and were concerned about the international political consequences it would have, would see their concerns increased dramatically.
2) It strengthens the Message send by the war in OTL, which is “If we don't like your government, even if you are no direct threat to us, we will bring you down without regard for other opinions or established mechanisms of international law and do what we want with your country. So you better take an example of North Korea and equip yourself with weapons of mass destruction ASAP.” It also further destabilises the situation in Iraq making a bigger civil war likely and basically giving up on any chance of gaining a democratic Iraq as a long term ally.
3) The new Kurdistan would not receive widespread recognition. Of course a few members of the mighty “coalition of the willing” might recognize it, but as Russia and China would certainly veto it in the Security Council it has no chance of ever becoming a UN member.
Long story short, it would mean making an even bigger mess out of US foreign policy and the situation in the Middle East.
Eh, what? The only area where the USA had any possibility of setting up an independent Kurdish state was in areas under their control, i.e. occupied Iraq. And how do you propose a Kurdish state that isn't near Turkey? (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Kurdish-inhabited_area_by_CIA_%281992%29.jpg)2. Turkey and Iraq aren't a problem if they locate the proposed Kurdish state in the right place. Of course the only place where the US would actually have the power to create a Kurdish state is Iraq and that's a bad idea if the United States is looking to make friends with Iraq but is at the same time double-dealing and setting up a new country carved from territory that is considered an Iraqi possession by its government. The US is probably better off creating it out of Iran or Syria though, waiting for instability in either of those countries so as to opportunistically set up a US ally.
3. Turkey could be handwaved as long as the US is super careful with Turkey's own Kurdish issues and as long as the state is not within immediate geographic proximity of Turkey for fear of causing any instability.