When I was in Turkey this summer, I was shocked -- really -- to discover how intensely anti-American the people were. I don't mean people were rude; they weren't. I mean reading the Turkish press, and talking to Turks, you learn that America's longstanding ally had really grown far, far away from us. The polls showed that an overwhelming majority of the Turkish people thought poorly of America.
Part of me thought: good. You hear how Turkish Christians are persecuted there, you read about how the Turks persecute their own best and brightest -- like Orhan Pamuk -- for daring to speak the truth about the Armenian question, you read about what the ethnic Turks have done to the ethnic Kurds, and you think, "Why do I care if America is allied with these people?" But then you think twice when you grasp that at this moment in history, America needs Turkey more than Turkey needs America. We will never see eye to eye with the Turks, whose values are not our values. But we can't afford to make enemies of them.
While I was in Istanbul, the Turkish military made a tentative incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan, chasing PKK rebels. Washington was put on notice that it absolutely had to make every effort to force the Kurds to rein in the PKK, or face the catastrophic prospect of a regional war involving a NATO ally on the other side. You would have thought that the administration would have made an urgent effort to defuse the situation. Didn't happen. And now, things have gone so far that I don't know if war can be stopped.
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 past six years. The Turks are the moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist Muslims. Moreover our countries have been close allies for a half-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 angriest 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 minds campaign?
While I hardly have the answer 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 to 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.
UPDATE: This week's exceptionally good Spengler column, which references a Turkish professor at Brookings, makes me reconsider my view. According to Spengler (and the scholar upon whose research he relies), Turks hate Americans for reasons having to do with their own national identity, not so much our actions (though Spengler concedes the Turks have reason to be angry with us over our support of the Kurds of Iraq). The gist of the problem, on this view, is Washington's misguided promotion of Turkey as a model of "moderate" Islam, which ends up provoking the contempt of the Turkish Islamists as well as the Turkish secularists (Kemalists). Writes Spengler: "The Kemalists dislike Christians because the Kemalists are atheists, and the Islamists dislike Christians because they are Islamists. Christian America gets no sympathy from either side."
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I'm with the K Street Feller. The whole lot of them are crazier than public restroom rats. North Africans, Turks, Arabs, Persians, Kurds-all bat ___. Which is why we should buy their oil only if we have to, seal the borders (how mnay single male 25-year old students from the ME do we need? I'd say ZERO)and have nothing at all to do with the followers of the pedophile murderous prophet beyond the bare minimum. ANd in the meantime drill everywhere we can can, use our ample clean coal reserves, and develop alternatives and technologies. Which all should be looking to the day we can tell them all to go pound sand.
The only way this situation can improve is for America, as a nation, to recognise that it is just one of the nnations on this planet and has no special status.
Cool with me as long as these other nations get off the American teat.
If Christian America gets no sympathy from either side, imagine what Christian Turks get! Exactly right: the atheist government hates Turkish Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks because they are religious; the Islamists hate them because they are not Muslim.
From Tony Blankley:
"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. "
Talking about blind following blind idiots (otherwise known as American political establishment of Demopublican party).
First we have to keep looking for those imaginery moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist Muslims. We have been looking for 6+ years, not much found. Not a single sizable Muslim demonstration against Islamic terrorism, not even in Western world.
So we still have to find those virtual moderate Muslims and then, somehow, EMPOWER them? How?
By quoting that famous Islamic scholar Jorge "Islam is Peace" Boosh?
What is that in Koran that terrorists misunderstand accordingly to Jorge Boosh?
If Islam is non-totalitarian ideology, it should be very easy to demonstrate to Osamas of this world that they are wrong by citing Koran.
Nobody could do it because Osamas have Koran of their side. It is moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist Muslims who must distort Koran to be peaceful and secularist. I.e. they must become Muslim in the name only.
I have spent 6 weeks in Turkey, in 4 separate visits from 2003 through this year, from Edirne to the Iranian border. Some personal observations:
1. Turks as unfailingly gracious and accomodating to Americans as individuals. I have NEVER noticed any personal animosity to me as an individual American.
2. Turks are, however, strongly opposed to our foreign policy in their neighborhood, as well they should be. For they know our misadventures have a way of slopping over. Part of the opposition is purely economic. For example, my friend's business dropped off 60% after our 2003 invasion.
3. I find that they are bewildered by our unevenhandedness in the whole Palestinian question, as am I. Try explaining John Hagee to a Turk, or any foreigner, for that matter.
4. Turks are very susceptible to wild conspiracy theories, particularly in regard to 9/11, etc. Seemingly the more far-fetched, the more believable it seems to them. They are ill-served by the Turkish press, and not inclined to seek other sources of information. Along these lines, they believe the worst horror stories about America. My friends will not travel to the US because of the stories they have heard about airport security regarding Muslim travelers.
5. Turks retain ingrained prejudices against their Christian minorites, whether Greek, Armenian or Suriani. Indeed, rationality seems to go out the window whenever Greece, Cyprus or Armenia comes up.
7. In my experience, they are notoriously ill-informed and uncurious about Christianity. Comparatively, I think we know more about Islam than they do about Christianity.
8. My friends vote AKP, but are the far from Islamists. They are simply voting for the party of good government and the rising middle class. This is not to say that they aren't those who are pursuing the Islamist agenda. We will see whether they have been betrayed by their party.
9. I agree with Spengler about "moderate Islam." Turks are not moderate, merely unobservant.
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