It Is About the United States

JINSA
Report #: 995
08 June '10

Turkey and Honduras, in different ways, highlight the lack of effective leadership the United States currently is able to exercise in the world.

Turkey: Turkish government support for the IHH ship in the Gaza flotilla is now well understood and the anti-Semitic ravings of both official Turks and the Turkish media have made Turkey's intention to split from Israel clear.

But it is a mistake to think this is only about Israel. Support for the flotilla was only the latest in a series of Turkish decisions designed to distance itself from the United States and move toward closer political relations with countries adversarial to us. Immediately after the bloody 2007 Hamas coup against Fatah in Gaza, the United States and the European Union reiterated that Hamas was a terrorist organization to be shunned. Instead, Turkey's prime minister invited Hamas leadership to Ankara. The Hamas-Turkey relationship has grown as the Turkey-Palestinian Authority relationship, the relationship supported by the United States and the EU, has declined. Rapprochement with Russia, Syria and Iran, and the Iran-Brazil-Turkey enriched uranium deal are more of the same.

After his meeting with Secretary of State Clinton, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters, "Citizens of member states were attacked by a country that is not a member of NATO. I think you can make some conclusions out of this statement." The implication was that Turkey would ask NATO for some satisfaction-or some slap at Israel.

Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Minister.

Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran. If Turkey finds its best friends to be Iran, Hamas, Syria and Brazil (look for Venezuela in the future) the security of that information (and Western technology in weapons in Turkey's arsenal) is suspect. The United States should seriously consider suspending military cooperation with Turkey as a prelude to removing it from the organization.

(Read full report)

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