After the recent rejection of a measure to allow US ground troops to attack Iraq from the north via Turkey, a Turkish politician said something like, "Today Turkey voted for peace." (Sorry, didn't keep the link)

Well, no, that's not what your vote meant, sir.

There will still be a war. You just voted for a different one.

Here's what it does mean, unless you guys change your minds in a skinny instant:

A) You will not get the six billion dollars we were going to give you, and another twenty billion or so in loans. (At least one pundit has suggested we spend the money on a new aircraft carrier. I like that idea, and suggest we name it the CVN Todd Beamer) You needed that money, and here's why:

After GWI, the Turkish economy tanked, going from a growth rate of 9.5% before the war to a mere .5%. Tourism plummeted. (Contrary to most right-wing op-ed pages, in this case Turkey was not being a "checkbook ally" but in fact looking for help with the real economic damage that GWII would cause.)

You now make money by charging duties on the oil Iraq ship though the pipelines under the food-for-oil program. You're about to lose that, at least for a while.

B) The last war caused a flood of Kurdish refugees into Turkey. With the US army coming down from the north, much of this flood would have stopped. Now, if we attack only from the south, there's a chance the Iraqi army will retreat to the north, pushing a wave of civilians ahead of them. Better hope that they decide to surrender in place.

C) You just lost most of the juice you had to control what goes on in northern Iraq after the war, and greatly increased the odds of an independent Kurdish state coming into being. This will mean all manner of troubles for you with your ethnic Kurds. And guess what? The US will be far more sympathetic to allow those minorities to join in the new Kurdistan.

D) The US will now be forced to begin this war with our second or third choice operational plan. If there are additional casualties because of this, on either side we will be a long time forgetting this. If for example, the Iraqis are able to launch chemical rocket attacks on the Kurds because our guys couldn't get in there fast enough to stop them, some fingers are going to be pointing in your direction. Some of those fingers will be attached to people who will be saying that you might have even wanted it that way. The Kurds are a thorny problem for you, aren't they?

E) Allowing the US forces to sweep in from the north would greatly increase the odds that we'll get to the oil fields there before the Iraqis have a chance to torch or destroy them. If they do, your pipeline revenues will be forestalled for that much longer.

F) Forget about the US using it's influence with either the IMF or the EU on your behalf.

I understand that you are a democracy, and that a majority of the people are against the war. I suspect that most of them are against the war due to their memories of the adverse effects of GWI on your nation. How ironic that in voting as you did, you made it all but certain that those same effects will revist the Turks, and rejected the aid and political support that could have prevented it.

UPDATE: Seems the Turkish people, at least the ones that run the financial markets, get it. The know what a economic toll this will take on the economy. The Turkish stock exchange plummeted 11% in one day.