So is Turkey really still a western ally?
Published by Avi Green on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 at 10:01 AM.
After reading some of this recent Daniel Pipes article, somehow, I doubt it:
There's one thing Pipes says here though that I have to disagree with:
Plus, let's also note that Japan, most amazingly, would not sell out its Jewish refugees who'd come there from the Soviet Union during the early 20th century, to the nazis. See this article for a bit on that. Turkey, on the other hand, wouldn't just have sold out any Jewish refugees unlucky enough to stumble into their territory, they'd have done the nazis filthy work for them.
Perhaps it's time to start forging an alliance with Armenia, the country whose citizens the Islamic-led Ottoman empire murdered during 1915, instead?
"Far from being the source of anti-Americanism in Turkey, the AKP represents an ideal partner for the United States in the region." So asserts Joshua W. Walker, a former Turkey desk officer at the State Department now studying at Princeton University, referring to the Justice and Development Party (known as the AKP). Writing in The Washington Quarterly, Walker supports his thesis by noting the constructive Turkish role in Iraq, praising "how carefully the AKP has guarded the [U.S.] alliance and tried to work with the Bush administration, particularly when compared to other European nations."When you see a so-called diplomat sugarcoating things as badly as this Walker is, you know that's another sign of the State Dept. being in serious need of a redo, as John Bolton has argued.
Not just that; he welcomes the weakening of Turkey's secular establishment, which he disdains as having "succeeded for decades in defining secularism in such a narrow way as to safeguard the outmoded and repressive antidemocratic features of the Turkish state."
This analysis, in "Reexamining the U.S.-Turkish Alliance," throws down the gauntlet for someone like myself, who appreciates the secularists' long run and suspects the AKP of being an Islamist organization that seeks to impose Islamic law (the Shari‘a) and perhaps overthrow the secular Atatürkist order to create an Islamic Republic of Turkey.
New realities require a painful reassessment and giving up the warm sentiments built up over a nearly 60-year alliance. Bold steps are needed to bring the country back into the Western fold while blunting the damage an Islamist-led Turkey can do to Western interests. Although all Western governments currently share Walker's easy accommodation and even enthusiasm for an increasingly hostile Turkey, their soothing words and glib assessments must not be allowed to conceal the dangerous developments now under way.
There's one thing Pipes says here though that I have to disagree with:
Along with Japan, Turkey has shown itself to be among the most malleable of countries.I don't think that a comparison to Japan makes sense. Let's remember that Japan is not built on the kind of horrific religious ideologies that Turkey's been for many centuries, and that, following their defeat in WW2, they began to reform and adopt many western values and popular culture there very fast. Baseball, for example, has been one of the most popular sports in Japan that originated in America over a century ago. And today, Japan has also taken on considerable democratic values and ideas, far more than you'll see in Turkey by now. That doesn't mean that there aren't crooks in Japan who can't be trusted, but Japan is still far from being what Pipes suggests.
Plus, let's also note that Japan, most amazingly, would not sell out its Jewish refugees who'd come there from the Soviet Union during the early 20th century, to the nazis. See this article for a bit on that. Turkey, on the other hand, wouldn't just have sold out any Jewish refugees unlucky enough to stumble into their territory, they'd have done the nazis filthy work for them.
Perhaps it's time to start forging an alliance with Armenia, the country whose citizens the Islamic-led Ottoman empire murdered during 1915, instead?
Labels: islam, State Dept, turkey
