Posted on 01/15/2009 9:28:25 AM PST by Squidpup
A decade ago, Western and Israeli leaders could count on Turkey as an ally. A solid NATO member, Ankara took decisions based on pragmatic calculations of interest - and erred on the side of caution if at all. But under the rule of the Islamic conservative AKP, this has changed.
In the face of Hamas rockets, Israel could have expected more understanding from a country long suffering from aggressive PKK terrorism. The vehemence with which Turkish leaders attacked Israel, and their apparent willingness to convey Hamas' position to the United Nations, came as a surprise to many.
Some of this may be explained by pandering to the Islamic conservative AKP's hard-core base. But Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's words - that Israel's actions will be punished by God and help lead it to self-destruction - are too significant to be taken lightly. Indeed, they are part of the trend of a Turkish government guided more by Islamic solidarity and anti-Western sentiment than by pragmatic calculations of interest. Indeed, Turkey's international behavior suggests that its attachment to the West is tenuous at best - and eroding.
SINCE COLD WAR times, Turkey played a solid role as the southeastern anchor of NATO. When president Turgut Özal decided to participate in Operation Desert Storm in 1990, he made Turkey a regional power in its own right, putting an end to talk of the country's reduced strategic value in the aftermath of the Cold War.
Under successive governments in the 1990s, Turkey built strong relations with Israel, which branched out from the defense sector to culture, trade and tourism. This served both countries well. In the new states of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Ankara was alongside Washington one of the most powerful Western forces, coordinating policies with the US to mutual benefit.
Of course, the policy had its detractors. Turkey's Islamists strongly disapproved not only of ties to Israel, but also of the attention given to former Soviet nations, which they considered inferior Muslims compared to their own role models in the Middle East. When briefly in government in 1996, the Islamists tried in vain to reorient the country's foreign policy.
When Erdogan's AKP came to power in 2002, it portrayed itself as a very different brand of Islamists - as post-Islamists, in fact. Where his predecessors had shunned the EU, Erdogan embraced it; his rhetoric was free of the anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism of his forebears. Yet after half a decade in power, Erdogan's policies and rhetoric have slipped dangerously.
Ankara's differences with Washington over Iraq in 2002-03 are widely known, but differed little from stances adopted by Germany or other European allies. Nevertheless, Turkish policies on a whole range of issues since then illustrate how dramatically the country has changed.
IN AUGUST, when most of the West balked at Russia's invasion of Georgia, Erdogan rapidly tried to make himself a go-between. His initiative of a "Caucasus stability platform" was met with disbelief in both Georgia and Azerbaijan, since it effectively promised to freeze all territorial disputes in the region, including legitimizing Russia's recent territorial grab in Georgia. More worrying was the composition of Erdogan's intended platform: the three Caucasian states, Turkey - and Russia. The US and EU had not been consulted, neither did they apparently figure in Erdogan's calculations for this region, effectively amounting to a recognition of Moscow's imperial ambitions. This, in turn, came following Turkey's alignment with Russia on the issue of NATO's presence in the Black Sea.
Ankara's position on Iran has been similarly equivocal. When in Washington recently, Erdogan observed that "those who ask Iran not to produce nuclear weapons should give up their own nuclear weapons first" - a position that fits neither with Turkey's membership in the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NATO.
More broadly, Erdogan has in recent years shown a remarkable willingness to meet with rogue regimes. Ankara's improving relationships with Syria and Iran are understandable, given that they are neighbors with which Turkey needs to work. But its decision to welcome Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with full honors in January 2008, or to invite Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to the AKP party headquarters in 2006, cannot be explained away simply by pragmatic decisions born out of necessity. Indeed, these decisions need to be seen in the context of the AKP's gradual change, with Islamic self-identification gaining ground in both domestic and foreign policy. Since reelection in 2007, the AKP has focused more on the advancement of Islamic values in Turkey's society and state than on democratic reform. In foreign policy, Islamic solidarity and anti-Western sentiment have gained ground - which in turn influence the views of society at large, making Turkey as a nation less Western.
This is the broader context in which Turkey's reaction to the Gaza crisis should be seen. It does not signify that Turkey will become an enemy either of Israel or of the West - Ankara's deep links to the US and Europe are too strong to be reversed anytime soon. But as long as the AKP remains in power, these ties are likely to gradually erode even further. Rather than a part of the West, Turkey could rather become equidistant between the West and powers like Russia or Iran. Were that to happen, it would require strategic thinkers in Washington, Brussels and Tel Aviv to reconsider some of their earlier assumptions.
The writer is research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a joint center affiliated with Johns Hopkins University-SAIS and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. A graduate of Ankara's Middle East Technical University, he is the editor-in-chief of the center's biweekly journal, Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org).
Just another reason to acknowledge the wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI. he warned the EU not to admit Turkey to the EU as it did not have the traditions of western civilization.
This isn't a lesson in logic, it is a reality. Turkey has been a steadfast member of NATO contributing more in many ways to the organization than some other members, e.g., France. The foolish assertion that we can just boot Turkey out of the alliance because they are now adjudged not to be European is just not realistic or desireable. This is not a matter of being correct or incorrect. It is a political reality.
The U.S. has had many strategic partnerships that ended up expiring once the conflict finished. My example of China in WWII is only one. Indeed, Russia itself was our ally during WWII--the very reason for the formation of NATO in the first place.
Both examples are not analogous to the circumstances surrounding Turkey's membership in NATO. To compare the US and the allies wartime relationship with China and the Soviet Union to the NATO alliance and Turkey is pure sophistry. As long as NATO exists, and it is growing, Turkey will remain a member of its own volition. Can you cite any NATO member calling for the removal of Turkey from the alliance? Putin and Russia remain a threat to Europe, which is why countries like Georgia and the Ukraine want to join the current 26 member countries. And Albania and Croatia will be joining in the not too distant future.
NATO, of course, was a strategic alliance to counter the threat of Russia.
No, the Soviet Union and communist expansion.
But it was (and is) more than just that. It's an alliance of kindred folk, ethnically closer to each other than any other population in the world.
Hyperbole. NATO was formed as a military alliance and many European countries did not join NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Washington D.C. - 4 April 1949
In any way that you can reasonably define, Turkey is foreign to Europe.
Foreign? I suggest you read the history of the Ottoman Empire and its influence on and role in European history.
NZ:Muslim Owned Businesses Stop Serving Israelis
Islam in Action | Jan. 15Th, 2009 | Christopher Logan
Posted on 01/15/2009 5:04:35 PM PST by Islaminaction
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2165433/posts
[snip] An Israeli family in New Zealand stopped into a local cafe to get lunch for their children, before placing their order the family was speaking in Hebrew. Hearing this the owner who is a Turkish Muslim asked them where they were from. [end]
A decade ago, Western and Israeli leaders could count on Turkey as an ally. A solid NATO member, Ankara took decisions based on pragmatic calculations of interest - and erred on the side of caution if at all. But under the rule of the Islamic conservative AKP, this has changed. In the face of Hamas rockets, Israel could have expected more understanding from a country long suffering from aggressive PKK terrorism. The vehemence with which Turkish leaders attacked Israel, and their apparent willingness to convey Hamas' position to the United Nations, came as a surprise to many. Some of this may be explained by pandering to the Islamic conservative AKP's hard-core base. But Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's words - that Israel's actions will be punished by God and help lead it to self-destruction - are too significant to be taken lightly. Indeed, they are part of the trend of a Turkish government guided more by Islamic solidarity and anti-Western sentiment than by pragmatic calculations of interest. Indeed, Turkey's international behavior suggests that its attachment to the West is tenuous at best - and eroding... When president Turgut Özal decided to participate in Operation Desert Storm in 1990, he made Turkey a regional power in its own right, putting an end to talk of the country's reduced strategic value in the aftermath of the Cold War. Under successive governments in the 1990s, Turkey built strong relations with Israel, which branched out from the defense sector to culture, trade and tourism. This served both countries well... When Erdogan's AKP came to power in 2002, it portrayed itself as a very different brand of Islamists - as post-Islamists, in fact. Where his predecessors had shunned the EU, Erdogan embraced it; his rhetoric was free of the anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism of his forebears.
To keep in mind, many secular Turks were disillusioned with the U.S. government when it fully supported Erdogan’s AKP after it won re-election. Over half of Turks did not vote for AKP (which only got 47% of the vote). AKP got control of the govt based on a plurality, because the opposing secular parties could not unite and split the vote.
Many of those Turks have hoped for some condemnation of AKP’s creeping Islamization by the United States, which has yet to come.
In fact, some Turks feel the U.S. doesn’t care at all if Turkey becomes just like the Arab states or Iran - if it does, then why hasn’t the U.S. officially spoken out against AKP they ask.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan once made the statement that “Democracy is like a bus - you ride it to where you want to go, then you get off.”
He and his AKP party have always been essentially the “al Taqiyya” party. They have been gradually implementing a calculated, long-range strategy of deception and misdirection intended to subvert/transform from within and eventually replace Attaturk’s secular Turkey with a fully Islamist one. What they are doing in Turkey is the Islamist equivalent of the Gramscian/Fabian socialist strategy which is destroying the West.
Their intent was to do even more than that. Remember that maddeningly interminable political kabuki dance with the Turkish parliament with the back and forth votes and the embarrassing and shameful efforts of Colin Powell's State Department to buy themselves an approval vote by continually upping the number of billions we offered in aid and loan guarantees?
All of that was a sham, nothing but carefully political theater where the fix was already in. The Turks really thought that if they could stall and string us along long enough (remember the arguments that the invasion had to happen before the summer heat got too bad?) that we'd be forced to call the whole thing off. THAT would have really boosted Erdogan's "cred" with the Islamists, wouldn't it?
Are you Turkish (in terms of citizenship or blood)?
LOL. No, Irish, English, and German. Are you Greek by citizenship or birth?
No I am English and French.
I am just trying to get a handle on why you are advocating so hard for Turkey.
Advocating? I am just questioning why you want to remove Turkey from NATO, a member in good stead for 57 years and on whose soil we still have American military bases. What is the up side to doing that?
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