AP Photo

The cycle of attack and retaliation has become depressingly familiar: Kurdish guerrillas kill Turkish soldiers in a hit-and-run raid. Politicians express outrage and vow vengeance as patriotic Turks fly flags of solidarity to commemorate the dead from every window and car. Fighter jets, gunships, and commandos stream over Turkey’s southern border to hit the bases of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in the mountains of northern Iraq.