As Turkey ponders a military incursion into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebel bases just beyond its border, the US has begun warning Ankara to learn a lesson from what some officials in Washington are starting to call Israel’s “strategic de-feat” in Lebanon under similar circumstances last summer.

When a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations took effect in Lebanon last August, President George W. Bush – who had backed Israel in the month-long war against Hizbollah – declared: “Hizbollah attacked Israel. Hizbollah started the crisis, and Hizbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis”.