LONDON — Fifteen months ago, the armed wing of Lebanon's Hezbollah party, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and most other Western countries, attacked Israel's northern border, capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more. Israel replied with a month of massive air attacks all across Lebanon that destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, leveled a good deal of south Beirut, and killed around a thousand Lebanese civilians.
Washington, London, Ottawa and some other Western capitals insisted that this was a reasonable and proportionate response, and shielded Israel from intense diplomatic pressure to stop the attacks even when Israel launched a land invasion of southern Lebanon in early August 2006. The operation only ended when Israeli casualties on the ground mounted rapidly and the Israeli government pulled its troops back.
So what would be a reasonable and proportionate Turkish response to the recent attacks by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and most other Western countries, from northern Iraq into southeastern Turkey? More than 40 Turkish civilians and soldiers have been killed in these attacks over the past two weeks, and a further eight Turkish soldiers were captured.