Washington Times
What a mess
October 24, 2007
Tony Blankley – With the steady decline of our selected ally Gen.
Pervez Musharraf’s ability to govern Pakistan, and the growing
alienation of the Turkish people and government from their longtime
ally, the United States, it is fair to say that from the Bosporus to
the Himalayas, American interests continue to decline, while American
policy drifts. It is ironic, if not mordant, to observe that in that
zone, our policy in Iraq stands out as holding more promise for
success than most of the other policies we are attempting. This week,
let me consider why we are losing Turkey.
The unfolding estrangement of the Turkish people (and derivatively the
Turkish governments) has been both predicted and virtually unnoticed
by Washington until last week. This tragic event needs to be
thoroughly understood by the United States and the West, because it
goes to the core of our theory of how to defeat radical Islam.
About three years ago, as then-editorial page editor of The Washington
Times, I hired as a weekly correspondent a leading Turkish
correspondent in Washington, Tulin Daloglu. She was and is a superb
student of Turkish culture and politics, a secularist, a friend and
admirer of America and a Turkish patriot. I asked her to describe each
week in her column what the Turkish people and government were
thinking, particularly about American policy and actions. I thought
more attention both in Congress and the administration was needed on
Turkish attitudes and American-Turkish policy.
I was deeply concerned that Turkish attitudes were slipping
dangerously away from us, despite Turkey being our strongest Muslim
ally in the Middle East, and the model for how Israel and the West
could establish a modus vivendi with a major Muslim-peopled country.
Turkey has been both taken for granted and ignored by Washington for
years.
In Congress, the well-organized Greek and Armenian American
communities had a stronger voice than the Turkish American. And, of
course, for historic reasons Greek Americans and Armenian Americans
usually oppose various Turkish policies. In the administration, their
peevement with Turkey not permitting our 4th Armored Division entry
through Turkey into Iraq in 2003 led to a failure to attend carefully
to a decaying relationship with our great ally. For about two years,
the State Department barely communicated in a significant way – on a
policy basis with Turkey. To read Miss Daloglu’s columns in The
Washington Times these last years is to read, week by week, the sad,
objective, chronicle of the loss of a vital ally.
In the past week, the Turks’ reaction to the congressional Armenian
genocide resolution and their threat of serious military action
against our allies the Iraqi Kurds has finally – too late – gotten
Washington’s attention. But beyond the appalling mess we have if
Turkey invades Iraq (under the U.N. resolutions we are, arguably,
obliged to defend the Kurds from the Turks – militarily), there is a
larger and still ignored lesson to be learned by the melt down in
support we have experienced from the Turkish people.
If there is one idea that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and
liberals, share on how to fight the war on terror, it is that we need
to reach out to and win the hearts and minds of the "moderate,"
modern, peaceable more secularist Muslims – and empower them to defeat
by both persuasion and other methods the radical, violent
fundamentalists in their religion.
That would be a very, very good idea. But consider the Turkish
experience in the last six years. The Turks are the "Moderate, modern,
peaceable more secularist Muslims." Moreover our countries have been
close allies for a half a century. And Turkey has had extensive
friendly commercial relations with Israel. They are Turks, not Arabs,
and are therefore less susceptible to the emotional plight of the West
Bank Arabs under Israeli occupation.
And yet, we have lost the Turks almost as badly as we have lost the
most angry religious, fundamentalist Arab, Muslims. If we can’t keep a
fair share of their friendly attitude, how do we expect to win the
much-vaunted and -awaited hearts and mind campaign?
While I hardly have the answers to that question, one lesson can be
learned from the Turkish debacle (or near debacle): While we cozied up
to their arch threat – the Iraqi Kurds – we kept telling them not to
worry and trust us. We did little to allay their fears that the Iraqi
Kurds were giving the PKK terrorists succor and sanctuary in Iraq. We
didn’t pressure our allies the Iraqi Kurds to pressure the PKK.
In the future, we are going to have to earn each ounce of friendly
relations based on what we actually do for the object of our desire.
Good intentions and common visions of the future are not likely to be
readily available.
Tony Blankley is executive vice president for global public affairs at
Edelman International. He is also a visiting senior fellow at the
Heritage Foundation.
Source: ITORIAL01/110240006