Role playing games, as I have written about before, do not necessarily yield accurate predictions about what will happen in a given situation, but can help elucidate the opportunities and dangers that different actors may see in a crisis.

In the role playing game I ran, different teams of students played Turkey, the PKK (the group claiming to represent Turkish Kurds which has bases in northern Iraq), the U.S.-backed Kurdish Regional Authority, the Iraqi government, and other Iraqi Arab parties, Iran, Russia, various EU governments, and of course, the United States. One-person teams played actors such as Israel, Syria, and Armenia.

The game began with the present situation: Turkey threatening to intervene in northern Iraq unless something is done to halt the PKK from attacking Turkey from there. The PKK team actually welcomed this threat since it anticipated that Turkish intervention in northern Iraq would seriously damage, or even destroy, Turkey's relations with the United States and other Western states. Russia, Iran, Armenia, and Syria also welcomed this.

By contrast, the EU governments immediately recognized that Turkish intervention in Iraq would have extremely negative consequences. And so to prevent Turkey from doing this, the European governments (including - after some cajoling - Greece) offered to admit Turkey into the EU right away if it would agree not to intervene.

The Turkish team was very happy to accept the offer of EU membership, but still insisted that Turkey might intervene - especially since the PKK team kept launching attacks into Turkey.

Also not wanting Turkish intervention, the Kurdish Regional Authority team attempted to reign in the PKK. The PKK team, though, refused to be reigned in. Despite some misgivings, the Kurdish Regional Authority team then offered to shut down the PKK in northern Iraq if Turkey would agree not to intervene. (Some of the Iraqi Arab actors also offered to do this, but the Kurdish Regional Authority team made it clear that their presence in northern Iraq was unacceptable.)

The Turkish team, though, turned down this offer. It did not think the Kurdish Regional Authority was truly willing or able to shut down the PKK.

Finally, the U.S. team - after much internal debate and despite active lobbying from the Armenian team - offered to send its own forces in to shut down PKK operations in northern Iraq in return for a Turkish pledge not to intervene there. It was this offer that the Turkish team finally accepted - along with EU membership and the EU conceding to Turkey on northern Cyprus. The game then ended with war (or, more accurately, expanded war) happily averted.

What the game suggested is that it will take major concessions by other parties to prevent Turkey from intervening in northern Iraq. But while my "peace-loving" students who played the EU, the Kurdish Regional Authority, and the United States were willing to make such concessions, it is extremely doubtful that the real actors would do so. The threat of Turkish intervention in northern Iraq has strengthened - not weakened - European opposition to admitting Turkey into the EU. It is doubtful that the Kurdish Regional Authority would be willing or able to expel the PKK from its strongholds along the Turkish border. Finally, Washington would be extremely reluctant to move against the PKK since the PKK is one Iraqi group not currently attacking the United States. For the United States to do so could also complicate its good relations with the Kurdish Regional Authority.

If, as seems likely, the EU, Kurdish Regional Authority, and the United States do not make the kinds of concessions to Turkey that my students playing them were willing to make, will Turkey refrain from intervening in northern Iraq? I fear that there might not be a happy ending to this story.

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NEWS UPDATE: Turkey attacked PKK rebels in northern Iraq Dec. 1 with cross-border airstrikes and artillery against a group of 50 or 60 rebels southeast of the Turkish town of Cukurca in Hakkari province in the mountainous Turkey-Iraq border region. "If necessary, other army units will intervene in the region," the army said.

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Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.