Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Iran may reap a political bonanza from increased tensions between Turkey and the U.S. sparked by Kurdish guerrilla attacks on Turkish forces near the border with Iraq.

Iran's radical Islamic government, eager to expand its regional influence and resist U.S. efforts to isolate it, is wooing the Turks by showcasing its bombardment of the camps of Kurdish fighters along its border, according to experts on the region.

The Iranians draw a pointed contrast between their willingness to act and what Turks see as a failure by the U.S. and its Iraqi partners to move against other Kurdish camps in northern Iraq.

``Iranians are realizing the lack of U.S. action is creating a massive amount of anger against the U.S. in Turkey,'' said Soner Cagaptay, who heads the Turkish studies program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ``It's an incredible opportunity for Iran, which the Iranians have used so smartly, driving a wedge between Turkey and the United States.''

A full-scale Turkish military strike against the Iraq-based Kurds might disrupt the flow of supplies to U.S. and allied forces in Iraq. And it could also damage Iraq's struggling civilian economy by interfering with commercial traffic.

Intermittent Shelling

Turkey sent troops into Iraq to hunt down the PKK fighters who carried out that raid, a lawmaker of Turkey's governing party said today. The troops later returned to Turkey, he said. Turkish jets and artillery are intermittently shelling PKK positions in Iraq, the lawmaker said.

``If the Turks make a serious incursion into northern Iraq, a fairly deep penetration, it would be very serious,'' said retired Army General Jay Garner, who headed U.S. relief efforts for Kurds in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and served as the first U.S. occupation administrator in Baghdad in 2003. ``It's an incredibly difficult situation we're all in.''

While the impact of the crisis on Iranian-Turkish relations has received relatively little attention in the U.S., it represents a serious challenge to Bush's policy of reining in Iran, experts say.

``The Iranians seem to be very good at incremental additions to their influence,'' said Henri Barkey, a former State Department planner.

Own Reasons

The Iranians are bombing Kurdish camps for their own reasons: The fighters based there -- members of a PKK offshoot called the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK -- often attack Iranian forces.

Still, the Iranians don't hesitate to play up their actions with the Turks, said Barkey, who now heads the international relations department at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. ``You see the Iranian ambassador giving interviews to Turkish journalists, saying that they go after the PKK and the Americans, who control Iraq, do not,'' he said.

A senior U.S. defense official agreed that Iran has sought to capitalize on Turkish anger over the PKK attacks to expand its influence in Turkey.

The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, added that there were many inherent limits on how much sway Iran would be able to gain in Turkey. The official said Turkish leaders share U.S. concerns about Iran's nuclear program and its record on human rights.

Iran's foreign ministry said Oct. 21 that ``security cooperation'' was essential to confronting the threat of cross- border Kurdish terrorism, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

Turkey is pursuing major energy deals with Iran over U.S. objections. It reached an accord with Iran in July to transport Iranian gas to Europe and to develop and extract gas from Iran's South Pars field.

`Pretty Serious'

A large-scale Turkish thrust into northern Iraq carries the danger of spreading along the entire 140-mile (225-kilometer) border and engulfing populated regions of northern Iraq, which is dominated by ethnic Kurds and has largely escaped the violence that has wracked Baghdad.

``Certainly, if they enter an Iraqi Kurdish town, which the PKK has not used as a safe haven, that's pretty serious,'' Garner said.

Essential supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq flow through Turkey, including 30 percent of all fuel used and almost all the new armored vehicles built to withstand roadside bombs, defense officials said.

`Surgical' Attack

Hasan Koni, a professor at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University and a former adviser to Turkey's National Security Council, said he thought the Turks would seek to contain their operations.

``Any military intervention would be narrow in scope, involving surgical bombings and attacks by commando units via helicopter on PKK bases,'' Koni said. ``The attack probably wouldn't last more than a few days.''

U.S. efforts to head off a Turkish move center on pressuring the Kurdish regional government, which holds sway in northern Iraq, to move against the PKK.

``We look to the Kurdish leadership to take steps in their own interest,'' the State Department's coordinator for Iraq, David Satterfield, told reporters yesterday. ``We are not pleased with the lack of action.''

The U.S. is studying alternative ways to move supplies in case its normal methods are hampered, the operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Carter Ham, said last week.

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said one likely option would be to fly more supplies from U.S. bases in Germany.

Cordesman said Turkish officials aren't eager to send forces into the rugged mountainous terrain of northern Iraq and prefer that the U.S. and Iraq act instead.

``Turkey has no great desire to go inside Iraq to fight a guerrilla war and perhaps get stuck there,'' Cordesman said. ``But Turkey is not a country that stands by if there is no response, and it is not famous for its patience.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Ken Fireman in Washington at kfireman1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 24, 2007 16:55 EDT