Time to talk Turkey

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Just as it was clear on the morrow of 9/11 that Pakistan would be the vortex of the first stage of Pres. Bush’s war against terrorism [A sense of Asia: Pakistan Maelstrom, September 9, 2001], Turkey has become central in the next phase.

And like Pakistan at that juncture, Washington will have to use every wile – propaganda, political as well as military – to persuade Turkey to play its role. That second phase means not only cleaning up Al Qaeda pockets from Yemen to the Philippines – to prevent another “Afghanistan”– but to topple Sadaam Hussein in Iraq. Sadaam not only threatens to develop weapons of mass destruction against the U.S.’ friends and interests in the area. But Sadaam could become the Big Daddy to the worldwide terrorist networks.

. Vice Pres. Cheney has not had much success, at least publicly, in winning the cachet of “moderate” Arab states for toppling Sadaam. But, as Washington “informeds” said, private conversations likely have a different tone. Moscow leaks that American unilateral action would not be opposed if Russian “interests” [debt and oil] would be protected is a sign of the growing perception that U.S. action is coming. The West Europeans will continue to press – along with Russia and China in the U.N. – for new inspections procedures. But Sadaam would be able to circumvent them as he has in the past. [The U.S. never did locate the mobile Scud missiles in the Gulf War.]

Where does Turkey fit in, then?

Decisive American action against Iraq will not have the Saudis’ support or use of bases there [built for just this kind of crisis] – as, indeed, has been the case in the Afghanistan war. Access to the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey during the Gulf War, and by the U.S. and Britain since to enforce a "no-fly" zone to protect Iraqi Kurds, would be essential in any new conflict. So would a Turkish blocking force on Iraq’s northern border. And perhaps most of all, Turkey as a Moslem nation enthusiastically in the U.S. camp would be important in any new coalition to drain this part of the terrorist swamp.

One must begin, of course, with a statement that Turkey has been a loyal NATO/U.S. ally back to its quite substantial participation in the Korean War. But today black and white allegiance to American/West European goals in the Cold War [granted against Turkey’s traditional enemy, Russia] is gone. Major interest conflicts for Ankara’s loyalties have developed in its half-century of stop-and-go economic and political development.

The Turkish political scene is volatile. [There is no Musharraf – at least not for the moment.] Many observers believe that were elections held today a moderate Islamicist party would come out ahead instead of the current bumbling secularist coalition. Turkey’s military, the keepers of the holy grail of Kemal Attaturk’s secularism, might again have to step in as they have in the past.

Turkey’s entry into the European Community seems no nearer than when initiated in 1987. EU demands for changes in Turkish law often seem subterfuge for Brussels’ real worries: the cost of EU agricultural subsidies to Turkey’s backward agriculture, Turkish migrant workers in a common labor market, protection of other low men on the EU totem pole, Portugal, Greece, and Spain, etc.

If truth were told, just the idea of a Moslem nation entering their ranks frightens some Europeans – PC multiculturalism and “diversity” slogans notwithstanding. And the Turks who had seen EU entry as solving their longstanding economic problems are increasingly disillusioned. [The mid-March Barcelona EU summit suggestion that Turkey might be the fire brigade to bail out the proposed but non-existent EU rapid deployment force to be sent to Macedonia is what Ankara has come to expect of Brussels.]

The attempt to firm up a Turkish-Israeli-U.S. alliance has also run into complications. Israeli politics have held up long-term water deals. The Turks have found Israelis hard bargainers in revamping old military equipment and new hardware purchases against American and European competition. And the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s growing ferocity has to be a preoccupation of Turkish politicians with their growing Islamacist constituency.

Perhaps Ankara’s number one worry is post-Sadaam Iraq. A refugee influx might re-ignite Turkey’s own Kurdish insurgency that tough [and often criticized] counter-terror tactics finally brought under control after decades. The Turks claim the Gulf War and the subsequent Iraqi embargo has been a principle cause of its endemic economic crisis, costing $30 billion in the last decade.

U.S.-Turkish collaboration is not insignificant. [One of the best Al Qaeda cleanups proceeds quietly at the Turkish-Iranian border]. But if the Turkish card is to be played effectively, Washington will have to step up efforts – perhaps publicly as well as in diplomatic salons – to win Turkey’s enthusiastic approval for what is to come.