A NATO Without Turkey?

[jimmy olsen]

Are things as dire as Schenker suggests?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574517210622936876.html

A NATO Without Turkey?
Ankara's Islamist government is turning away from the Western alliance

By DAVID SCHENKER

The European Union has long debated the merits of Turkish EU membership. But now, nearly a decade after Islamists took the reins of power in Ankara, the central question is no longer whether Turkey should be integrated into Europe's economic and political structure, but rather whether Turkey should remain a part of the Western defense structure.

Recent developments suggest that while Turkey's military leadership remains committed to the state's secular, Western orientation and the defining principles of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the civilian Islamist government led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) seems to have different ideas. Ankara is increasingly pursuing illiberal policies at home, for instance by attacking independent media, while aligning itself with militant, anti-western Middle East regimes abroad.

The latest demonstration of Ankara's political shift was its cancellation last month of Israel's long-standing participation in NATO military exercises in Turkey. Even worse, on the same day Israel was disinvited, Turkey announced imminent military exercises with Syria, a member of the U.S. list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism." These developments came just weeks after Ankara and Damascus established a "senior strategic cooperation council." These developments could signal the beginning of the end of Turkey's close military and economic cooperation with the Jewish state.

Ankara is simultaneously moving closer to the mullocracy in Tehran, even though the Islamic Republic is undermining stability in Afghanistan and Iraq by providing insurgents in both countries with explosives that are killing NATO and U.S. soldiers. The Iranian regime is also threatening to annihilate Israel, the very state Turkey is now distancing itself from. And yet Turkey and Iran have signed several security cooperation agreements over the past few years, and just two months ago, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hinted he would oppose sanctions against Iran, saying he "firmly believe[d] that the international community's concern over Iran's nuclear program should be eased." This past June, Turkish President Abdullah Gul was among the first to call Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to congratulate him on his fraudulent re-election.

Meanwhile at home, individual liberty and rule of law have gone by the wayside. The Islamist government—in an effort to silence critics—attempts to bankrupt the independent and secularist Turkish media through extra-legal tax fines. The AKP government has also targeted political opponents by arresting them on dubious charges of attempting to overthrow the government.

Ankara's dramatic policy transformation seems inconsistent with the fundamental values that underpin the alliance. NATO partners are bound by the principles articulated in the 1949 charter, which affirm member states' "desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments...[a] determin[ation] to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law." Member states are also committed to "seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area."

As Ankara's politics shift, Turkey's willingness to take on politically difficult NATO missions could also diminish, bringing into question the commitment to "collective defense." While Turkey has deployed troops to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, it's unclear that Ankara would support NATO efforts to stem Russian pressure westward in Latvia or Lithuania. Judging from Turkey's equivocal position on Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia, it seems unlikely that Turkey today would even consent to training missions in the Baltic States. Justifying his tilt toward Moscow, Mr. Erdogan said "we have an important trade volume [with Russia]. We would act in line with what Turkey's national interests require."

While Ankara's politics have changed, the military's pro-Western disposition reportedly has not. But over the past decade, the dynamics between the politicians and the general staff have been transformed. For better or worse, Western pressures have compelled the Turkish military to remain in the barracks, and refrain from interfering in political developments. Today, the Turkish military can do little but watch as the secular, democratic, pro-Western republic established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the early 1900s is undermined.

While it's still too early to write Turkey out of NATO, in the not so distant future, the alliance will reach a decision point. In 2014, NATO's next generation fighter plane, the Joint Strike Fighter, will be delivered. Given the direction of Turkish politics, serious questions must be asked about whether the Islamist government in Ankara can be trusted with the highly advanced technology.

It's time that NATO start thinking about a worst case scenario in Turkey. For even if the increasingly Islamist state remains a NATO partner, at best, it seems Turkey will be an unreliable partner. Since the 1930s, the country has been a model of modernization and moderation in the Middle East. But absent a remarkable turnaround, it would appear that the West is losing Turkey. Should this occur, it would constitute the most dramatic development in the region since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Mr. Schenker is director of the Program in Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

[Martinus]

Next they will want you to have Thanksgiving without Turkey too.

[jimmy olsen]

Next they will want you to have Thanksgiving without Turkey too.

I'm not a fan of the bird, too dry.

[Sahib]

USA should take Turkey as 51st State

[Neil]

Next they will want you to have Thanksgiving without Turkey too.

I'm not a fan of the bird, too dry.

You Mexicans just don't know how to cook it properly.

[jimmy olsen]

Next they will want you to have Thanksgiving without Turkey too.

I'm not a fan of the bird, too dry.

You Mexicans just don't know how to cook it properly.

My Grandmother's English.

[Neil]

You Mexicans just don't know how to cook it properly.

My Grandmother's English.

English people have problems cooking too.  Plus she allowed her blood to mix with Mexican blood.

[jimmy olsen]

You Mexicans just don't know how to cook it properly.

My Grandmother's English.

English people have problems cooking too.  Plus she allowed her blood to mix with Mexican blood.

Puerto Rico > Mexico

Also, my grandmother married an American soldier of French-Canadian descent.

[Neil]

Puerto Rico = Mexico

FYP.

Also, my grandmother married an American soldier of French-Canadian descent.

And then their child married a Mexican.  Fail.

[Ed Anger]

Fuck Europe.

[Warspite]

That article was good for brief giggle.

[Faeelin]

I like the idea that Turkey is now an illiberal state. Unlike under the generals who kept them in NATO?

[Queequeg]

I like the idea that Turkey is now an illiberal state. Unlike under the generals who kept them in NATO?

QFT.  Liberal and being in NATO are not synonumous.  The idea that a Liberal Islamic Democracy would distance itself from its previously cozy relationship with Israel as the newly democratically elected government is not a fan makes perfect sense. 

The author also fails to mention that Turkey is, frankly, being pretty clever.  They are helping to open up and develop Mid-Eastern markets, and are acting as a moderating and capital-friendly influence on the region.

A much better, less histrionically anti-Muslim article.  From The Economist.

Looking east and south
Oct 29th 2009 | ISTANBUL
From The Economist print edition


Frustrated by European equivocation, Turkey is reversing years of antagonism with its Arab neighbours.

IT IS a thousand years since the Turks arrived in the Middle East, migrating from Central Asia to Anatolia. For half of that millennium they ruled much of the region. But when the Ottoman Empire fizzled out and the Turkish Republic was born in 1923, they all but sealed themselves off from their former dominions, turning instead to Europe and tightly embracing America in its cold war with the Soviet Union.

The Turks are now back in the Middle East, in the benign guise of traders and diplomats. The move is natural, considering proximity, the strength of the Turkish economy, the revival of Islamic feeling in Turkey after decades of enforced secularism, and frustration with the sluggishness of talks to join the European Union. Indeed, Turkey's Middle East offensive has taken on something of the scale and momentum of an invasion, albeit a peaceful one.

In the past seven years the value of Turkey's exports to the Middle East and north Africa has swollen nearly sevenfold to $31 billion in 2008. From cars to tableware, dried figs to television serials, Turkish products, unknown a decade ago, are now ubiquitous in markets from Algiers to Tehran. Already a vital conduit for sending energy from east to west, Turkey is set to grow in importance as more pipelines come on stream. The most notable is Nabucco, a proposed €7.9 billion ($11.7 billion) scheme to carry gas across Turkey from Azerbaijan and possibly Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq and Egypt. A single Turkish construction firm, TAV, has just finished an airport terminal for Egypt's capital, Cairo, and is building others in Libya, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. Turks have scooped up hundreds of infrastructure contracts in Iraqi Kurdistan, and invested in shopping malls, hotels and even schools.

These achievements are partly due to an energetic pursuit of trading privileges, such as Turkey's free-trade pacts with Egypt, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia. It is seeking a similar deal with the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia. Earlier this month, teams of Turkish ministers travelled to Baghdad and Damascus to sign a package of 48 co-operation deals with Iraq and 40 with Syria. Covering everything from tourism to counter-terrorism and joint military exercises, the deals could end decades of tension between Turkey and its former Ottoman provinces.



Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has just been warmly received in the Iranian capital, Tehran, a reflection of the realpolitik that has kept links open despite the Islamic Republic's international isolation. Turkey requires no visas for Iranians, and Mr Erdogan, who has stressed Iran's right to nuclear power for civil purposes, pointedly congratulated Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after his disputed election win in June. Turkey only recently made an historic breakthrough in relations with another eastern neighbour, Armenia. If the parliaments of both countries endorse the move, diplomatic ties may be restored after a 16-year freeze.

This dogged diplomatic pragmatism has been ardently pursued by the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, an ebullient professor of international relations who had long advised Mr Erdogan before his appointment in May. Mr Davutoglu, who in a book described the Middle East as "Turkey's strategic depth", has called for a policy of "zero problems with neighbours". Reflecting the mild, modernist Islamism of the Justice and Development party, known by its Turkish initials AK, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, the new policy seeks to use the soft power of trade, along with historical links, to project stability beyond Turkey's frontiers. This marks a distinct shift in worldview. In the past Turkey tended to see itself as an eastern bulwark of the NATO alliance, whereas its Middle Eastern neighbours were viewed as threats to be contained.

Whatever Mr Davutoglu's persuasive powers, this reorientation could not have happened without dramatic changes in Turkey. Reforms undertaken partly to meet demands for EU membership have shifted power from threat-obsessed generals to civilian institutions, and to a new, more self-consciously Muslim elite rooted in Anatolia rather than Istanbul, Turkey's Western-looking commercial and intellectual capital. The AK party has also reversed decades of official policy by trying to meet the demands of Turkey's large Kurdish minority (some 14m in a total population of 72m). The granting of more cultural and political rights, and the admission of past discrimination, have soothed tempers not only among Turkish Kurds, but among their ethnic kin in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Yet a reason for the success of Turkey's kinder, gentler approach is that it takes place in the context of a regional power vacuum. Such relative Arab heavyweights as Egypt and Iraq no longer wield much clout. American influence has also dipped in the wake of its troubles in Iraq. Indeed, Turkey's biggest breakthrough in Arab public opinion came in 2003, when its parliament rejected an American request to open Turkish territory as a second front for the invasion of Iraq. Turkey did allow the use of an airbase to supply the war, but escaped the opprobrium heaped on America's Arab allies who grudgingly lent support to the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Turkey has also been welcomed back because many Arabs see it as both a moderate counterweight to Iran and as a window to the West. Iraqi Shias, for instance, are still wary of Iranian meddling in Iraq, even though Iraq's main Shia parties have close relations with Iran. Iraq's Kurds, despite age-old tensions with Turkey, have also warmed their relations as trade has boomed and the looming departure of the Kurds' American protectors raises the spectre of isolation. The secular government of Syria, an ostensible ally of Iran, in fact shares little cultural affinity with its stridently Islamist rulers, compared with the AK party's businesslike, tie-wearing officials. Improved relations with Turkey, which now include visa-free travel, bring much-needed relief to Syria, isolated diplomatically and economically backward. In fact, so eager has Syria been to woo Turkey that in 2005 it scrapped a longstanding territorial claim to Hatay, a province granted to Turkey in 1939 by France, Syria's colonial master at the time.

Turkish officials, however, have been careful to explain that their renewed interest in the Muslim east does not mean a chill towards the West. Instead, they present Turkey as a useful bridge, a regional force for peace, and the model of a democracy that is compatible with Islam. Its Western allies have generally shared that view and have not opposed Turkey's eastward shift. Yet such benign indifference could change, if Turkey's prospects for joining the EU die, or if Turkey is seen as undermining attempts to pressure Iran.

Already, Turkey's gentle realignment has carried some costs, most obviously to its relations with Israel. These flourished into a full-blown strategic partnership in the 1990s, before the AK party's rise, when peace between Palestinians and Israelis seemed possible. Joint military exercises and Israeli arms sales brought the two countries' military establishments close, while trade and tourism expanded fast. Israel even offered to shield Turkey from lobbies in the American Congress that sought to punish Turkey for disputing the genocide of Armenians in Ottoman territory during the first world war.


The end of an affair?
But ties have frayed as Turkish public opinion, which now counts for more, has turned increasingly hostile to Israel. Mr Erdogan, a tough, streetwise politician, felt slighted last year when Israel attacked Gaza only days after he had met Israel's then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who assured him that Turkish-brokered peace talks between Israel and Syria would resume. The bloodshed in Gaza outraged many Turks, who heartily praised Mr Erdogan when he stormed out of a debate with Israel's president, Shimon Peres, at Davos in Switzerland earlier this year.

The Turks were again angered in September when Israel denied Mr Davutoglu permission to cross into Gaza during a visit to Israel. Earlier this month Turkey, citing Israel's failure to deliver an order of military drone aircraft, abruptly cancelled joint air exercises. Israel, for its part, lodged a formal protest at the airing, on Turkish state television, of a serial depicting Israeli soldiers as brutal killers. Some Israeli officials say they detect signs of anti-Semitism that disqualify Turkey from mediating any longer between Syria and Israel.

Turkish officials respond that they have no intention of breaking off relations with Israel, and think they can still be a useful interlocutor with the Jewish state. But they remain indignant. "We might have lost leverage with Israel," says an AK party man. "But I'd rather be on the side of history, of what is right, of justice." One of Mr Erdogan's advisers puts Turkey's case more boldly, in a sign of its growing confidence as a regional leader. "We are conditioning relations with Israel on the progress of the conflict," he says. "This is what the West should do."

[CountDeMoney]

As long as there is a Black Sea, there will be a Turkey in NATO.

[Queequeg]

Jesus, when did the WSJ become that bad?  That is one pathetic article.