WPR's The New Rules: Making Syria's Assad Next Domino to Fall

Recent polls indicate that a majority of Americans and Europeans don't want NATO to widen its war against embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. So long as the West's low-and-slow approach to regime change continues to weaken the dictator, there is good reason to stick with President Barack Obama's strategy of limited intervention. Yet as international cameras focus in on Libya, a prospective tipping point for the future of the Middle East becomes all the more visible in Syria, despite that country's ban on international journalists. And although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken an admirably tough line regarding the Baath regime's "continued brutality," the White House still expresses more concern over Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza than over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's increasingly bloody crackdown against protesters there. 

Read the entire column, co-authored with Michael S. Smith II, at World Politics Review.

WPR's The New Rules: Long-Term U.S. Presence in Afghanistan a Mistake

The Obama administration has begun talks with Afghanistan designed to quell the Karzai government's fears about being abandoned by the West come 2014. Those talks are said to involve negotiations for long-term basing of U.S. troops involved in training Afghan security forces and supporting future counterterrorism operations. This can be seen as a realistic course of action, given our continuing lack of success in nation-building there, as well as our inability -- although perhaps unwillingness is a better term -- to erect some regional security architecture that might replace our presence. But there are good reasons to question this course.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

Turkey - Re-Rise of the Ottoman Empire?

One of the most interesting things we do in Wikistrat is Scenario Planning. Through the use of live collaborative simulations, our analysts and subscribers alike engage in the mapping of scenarios, country interests and policy options on a given issue. We ran such drills on Egypt (The Egypt War Room) and on the "Sudden death of Kim Jong Il".

Our current Simulation is on Turkey, and deals with its political and economic rise in the Middle East, its implications and potential pathways. So far several interesting scenarios were mapped, as well as interests and policy objectives for major regional and global powers affected by Turkey's Rise.

Essentially we ask - Will Turkey's rise continue? Will its relations with the West deteriorate given its "Shift eastward"? And- How should the US, the EU, Israel, Iran and the KSA react?

Below is the introduction to the drill, written by Dr. Barnett, and some of the scenarios written by Wikistrat's subscribers and analysts collaboratively. The simulation is still running, so more to expect. If you wish to participate in this simulation and our upcoming exciting simulations, you can subscribe here.

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Introduction:

Turkey's rise is real and based on both its economic trajectory (stunning quadrupling of per capita GDP across last decade) and its economic vulnerabilities (resource-dependent, deeply embedded in global production chains), meaning Ankara networks aggressively throughout the surrounding regions because it has to.  

In many ways, far more than responsibility-averse China and alliance-averse India, Turkey is the true US-like (as in, turn of 20th century) rising power of this globalization era, meaning the natural bridge-builder and peace-maker that sticks its nose nearly everywhere - often to welcoming effect.  In many ways, Turkey outperforms the foreign policies of both the EU and the US in the Middle East and Central Asia, while - in effect - extending their interests.  

Despite this truth, both Europe and the US fret that Turkey's more independently-minded foreign policy of the past years means it is "turning away from the West." It's not.  If anything, Turkey is simply turning toward everybody else on the West's behalf. Turkey's sudden emergence as diplomatic whirlwind under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is on par with China's sudden reappearance on the global stage with Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

Some of the Scenarios proposed and their summaries:

1. Continued Rise and "Shift back Westward" - This scenario, written by Proffessor Robert Edwin Kelly (Author of the excellent Asian Security Blog, where he also elaborated on this scenario), argues that "Turkey's rise will continue as it shifts away from Iran, strengthening relations with US, Europe and Israel." Read More at Professor Kelly's blog to get a deeper insight.
2. Continued Rise and "Shift Eastward" - Led by Mark Safranski of the Zenpundit Blog, this strategy argues that "Turkey's rise continues, as it develops friendlier ties with anti-Western local regimes (e.g., Syria, Iran), as well as Eastern powers (India, China) that are moving toward closer relations with the Persian Gulf energy powers". Along with contributors Thomas Barnett, Thomas Wade and Daniel Florian, the various aspects of the scenario were mapped - its outline, regional implications, global implications, opportunities, risks and probability.
3. Turkey's Rise Slows - Suggested by Milena Rodban of the Cosmpoloitan Intellectual, this strategy's summary argues: "Vulnerable to the consequences of the political turmoil in the region, Turkey's rise is likely to slow in the near term. The future of Turkey's rise will be determined by how well its government and central bank can weather the storm of lost FDI, high oil prices, and the specter of inflation".
4. Last Middle East Power Standing - An interesting strategy that exemplified the "go wild" nature of such drills, which serve as important brainstorming technique. This strategy's summary describes "An R&D long shot (in this scenario, Polywell fusion) pays off and the ME region hits the end of the oil age like a DUI hits the median. Turkey picks up the pieces as the biggest regional power that has a diversified society capable of thriving in the new environment"

Join Wikistrat

WPR's The New Rules: Ten Assumptions About Egypt Worth Discarding

There's a lot of trepidation mixed in with the joy of seeing one of the Arab world's great dictators finally step down. With Americans being so down on themselves these days, many see more to fear than to celebrate. But on the whole, there's no good reason for the pessimism on display, which is based on a lot of specious assumptions that need to be discarded. Here's my Top 10 list.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Defense Cuts a Step in the Right Direction

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled his much-anticipated budget cuts last Thursday, signaling the beginning of the end of the decade-long splurge in military spending triggered by Sept. 11. Gates presented the package of cuts as being the biggest possible given the current international security landscape, warning that any deeper reductions could prove "potentially calamitous." Frankly, I find that statement hard to swallow.

REad the entire column at World Politics Review.

This week in globalization

Clearing out my files for the week:

• Martin Wolf on why the US is going to win the global currency battle:  "To put it crudely, the US wants to inflate the rest of the world, while the latter is trying to deflate the US."  We win because we have infinite ammo.  But better that we come, per my Monday column, to some agreement at the G-20. 

• Sebastian Mallaby, also in FT, says that, despite the current currency struggles, the "genie of global finance is out of the bottle" and not to be stuffed back in.  Wolf had noted $800B capital inflows to emerging markets 2010-2011, which is gargantuan, thus the crazy struggle of some places to keep their currencies low.  As for America stopping China from buying US bonds in retaliation for our not being able to buy Chinese assets?  China holds only about one-third of the US T-bonds abroad ($3T total), so it can buy all its wants from others in the system.  There is no turning back, he says.

• Meanwhile, the Pentagon makes plans to turn back the clock on the globalization of defense manufacturing.  A new spending bill provision--inserted at DoD's request--includes the power to exclude foreign parts suppliers (read China). Just about every US-based defense firm uses offshore suppliers, so this is going to get very expensive very fast.  It'll be a lot harder to find that $100B in savings over five years. This is almost a fifth generation warfare version of shooting yourself in the foot--first, before the other guy can.  China does nothing here, that frankly we shouldn't be able to handle, but we move down a path that instantly adds a significant tax to everything we buy in the growing-by-leaps-and-bounds IT realm.  One hopes there's a half-billion for that American rare earths mining co. that's looking for a new investor.  Interesting how China's becoming vulnerable to, and dependent on, so many unstable parts of the world for resources, and we're going to cut off the tip of our IT nose to spite our face.  I can imagine a cheaper way, but that would be so naive in comparison to spending all this extra money.

• China continues to buy low, as a ruthless capitalist should. Giving us a taste of what it could be like if we don't get too protectionist, it's buying up Greece's "toxic government bonds."--and plenty more in Europe. All of the EU is getting a taste, says Newsweek, as Chinese investors are snapping up bankrupt enterprises and--apparently--putting people back to work.  China also, like a ruthless capitalist, seeks to make bilats reduce the chance of EU-wide restrictions on its trade. Old American trick.

• Another sign of globalization on the march:  emerging economies buying up food and beverage companies in the West that would otherwise naturally be targeting them for future expansion. Bankers expect the trend to continue.  Gotta feed and water that global middle class that keeps emerging at 70-75m a year.  Emerging economies are buying up the companies from equity firms that had previously bought them during down times.

• Great FT story on how Turkey has the Iranian middle class in its sights.  Long history of smuggling inTurkey dips a toe in, would like to drink entire tub eastern Turkey.  Sanctions hold up what could be a major trade, so the black-marketing local Turks mostly smuggle gasoline--and a certain amount of heroin.  But the official goal is clear enough:  be ready to take advantage whenever Iran opens up.  A local Turkish chamber of commerce official floats the notion of a free trade zone at the border. Those 70m underserved Iranian consumers beckon.

• Bloomberg Businessweek stories on how China's working aggressively to get western technology and cooperation to allow it to work its significant coal-bed and shale gas reserves.  Russia's exporting nuclear reactors like nobody's business, and Mongolia's beginning a long boom as "one of the last places on earth with huge, untapped metal ore resources" (guess who's showing up in numbers--with cash).

• India's airline industry can't keep up with demand generated by itsGet me planes and pilots--now! booming middle class. Boeing says Indian airlines will buy over 1,000 jets in the next two decades. Already they're forced to have one-in-five pilots be foreigners.

• Fascinating WSJ story on how China's car economy is going wild, with ordinary Chinese exploring the freedom of the road.  Drive-in service is taking off, weekend jaunts mean hotel business, etc. In past visits I saw a lot of this coming down the pike.  Just like when America's car culture went crazy after WWII, this is a serious social revolution.

Don't forget your meal of eternal happiness!

• "Brazil and China banks join list of world's top credit card issuers."  And so it begins.

• Funny thing about all this South China Sea hubbub: "Corporate ties linking China and Japan have never been stronger," says the WSJ.  Serious driver?  Japan is exporting its mania for golf to China--the fastest growing market for the sport.  It's what middle-class guys do.

Coming soon: the "golf wars"

• WSJ story on Vietnam creating its own Facebook to keep a closer eye on its netizens.  Defeat the anti-capitalist insurgents!What caught my attention: "The team has added online English tests and several state-approved video games, including a violent multi-player contest featuring a band of militants bent on stopping the spread of global capitalism."  I would say we finally won the Vietnam War.

Has power changed Erdogan for the worse?

Readers know me as a big fan of both Turkey's foreign policy and the main man behind it, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but this Newsweek profile contains some troubling bits worth filing away.

First, about his gut motivations:

Politics tends to be personal for Erdogan. “He has not forgotten that he grew up poor in the slums of Istanbul,” says an AKP strategist, declining to be named analyzing his boss’s psyche. “That’s more central to his philosophy than anything.”

Okay, hard to criticize that too much.  Actually, it makes him quite appealing in his populism.

This is worse, because it suggests that, like everybody who spends more and more time at the top of the power pyramid, he's starting to confuse his destiny with the country's:

But sometimes it gets too personal. Like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Erdogan has a street fighter’s instincts. Last year, in a ruling widely viewed as payback for years of negative coverage, Turkey’s largest media conglomerate, the Dogan Group, was slapped with a $2.5 billion tax bill. “He doesn’t listen to anyone anymore,” complains CNN Türk anchor Mehmet Ali Birand, the dean of Turkish media commentators. “He used to be a prime minister who liked the media, joked around with opponents, argued, and at times asked for their opinion. Today, he wants to destroy a huge media group with thousands of employees, silence the opposition, and create his own media.”

Politics watchers say Erdogan is becoming aloof and arrogant. Journalist Burak Bekdil has catalogued a half-dozen cases of ordinary citizens who have been arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for daring to heckle the prime minister or shout slogans in his presence. “Before the [AKP’s] creeping counterrevolution, the judiciary was somewhat slow, corrupt, partisan in all possible ways,” Bekdil complains. “Now it will feature slowness, corruption, favoritism, and partisanism in absolute favor of the ruling party.”

But here I take note that economics is driving a lot of Erdogan's strategy:

In fact, however, Turkey’s foreign--policy agenda is driven more by the country’s business interests than by Islamic identity. “Turkey’s growth is coming not from Europe but from Russia, Central Asia, the Gulf,” says [Ian] Lesser [of the German Marshall Fund in the US]. “There is no strategic decision to turn east.” Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy have made clear their antipathy toward Turkey’s full membership of the European Union. The rejection has hit Erdogan hard, say people close to him. Having invested so much political capital to implement EU--dictated reforms, Erdogan now “feels a deep sense of personal betrayal,” says the longtime backer. The prime minister himself recently told diplomats: “If the motivation of the Turkish people for full membership in the EU decreases, it’s because of EU policies toward Turkey.”

This is the flag following trade.

But here's why I still admire the man:

Erdogan, says [Brit expert Grenville] Byford, “seeks a fundamental change in [Turkey’s] relationship” with the West, to “an ally but not a subordinate.” He takes pride in the fact that Turkey has emerged strongerthan ever from the economic crisis, says the former AKP M.P. Now his No. 1 goal is to make the people rather than generals the real arbiters of Turkey’s future. Those people will doubtless in time vote him down for arrogance and for his clumsy attempts to silence opposition. But if by that time Turkey is more at peace with itself and with its neighbors, then Erdogan’s gamble will have paid off handsomely.

Erdogan will go down in history as the guy who enabled Turkey to grow up and into serious great power-dom, and that is a real gift to the entire world, given its strategic importance.

Excellent piece by Owen Matthews, who is consistently impressive.

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Needs an Activist, Independent Turkey

 

If America could be magically granted its ideal Muslim strategic partner, what would we ask for? Would we want a country that fell in line with every U.S. foreign policy stance? Not if the regime was to have any credibility with the Islamic world. No, ideally, the government would be just Islamist enough to be seen as preserving the nation's religious and cultural identity, even as it aggressively modernized its society and connected its economy to the larger world. It would have an activist foreign policy that emphasized diplomacy, multilateralism and regional stability, while also maintaining sufficient independence from America to demonstrate that it was not Washington's proxy, but rather a confident great power navigating the currents of history. In sum, it would serve as an example to its co-religionists of how a Muslim state can progressively improve itself amid globalization's deepening embrace -- while remaining a Muslim state.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review

A bad call by Obama on Turkey

FT front-pager on how Obama warns the Turks to change their stance on Israel and Iran or risk being denied US weapons.

This while we sell the store to the Saudis, birthplace of most of the 9/11 terrorists, and keep the pipeline open to the Pakistanis. Talk about screwed up.

This is an immature response to a maturing foreign policy.

An anonymous administration official is quoted as saying the Turks need to show that they take our national security interests seriously.

Definitely a realism deficit--on our side.

Turkey's populism is America's gain

FT full-page analysis on Turkey’s new orientation in foreign policy.

Core logic by way of a Turkish expert at Brookings (Omer Taspinar):

What we are witnessing is not the emergence of an Islamist foreign policy but rather the rise of a populist government that caters to and exploits Turkish frustration with America and Europe.

Nothing odd there compared to, say, a rising America of the late 19^th century.

Complain as you care to, but this is the best we can hope for.  You want a “multi-partner world”?  This is what it looks like:  rising powers with foreign policies that cater to their emerging middle classes in all their conflicting desires.   There is no alternative.

Once more, Turkey leaps into the void!

WSJ story on how Turkey is becoming the diplomatic center of gravity in the Balkans, replacing the US and EU, who were getting nowhere on securing a new constitutional settlement on Bosnia because the Russians were being unhelpful.

So Ankara steps in about a year ago in an effort to foster dialogue among Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia.

Unlike in the Middle East, Turkey’s efforts in the Balkans have largely been welcomed by the West.

A great review comes by way of a former strategic analyst for the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia:

If you compare the solo Turkish diplomatic efforts to everyone else’s in the past six months, they are the only people who got anything done at all.

Nice work if you can hack it, and if you can hack it, won't you tell us how?

Turkey: too good for the EU?

NYT story on Turkey's amazing economic ride relative to the EU's troubles:

For decades, Turkey has been told it was not ready to join the European Union — that it was too backward economically to qualify for membership in the now 27-nation club.

That argument may no longer hold.

Today, Turkey is a fast-rising economic power, with a core of internationally competitive companies turning the youthful nation into an entrepreneurial hub, tapping cash-rich export markets in Russia and the Middle East while attracting billions of investment dollars in return.

For many in aging and debt-weary Europe, which will be lucky to eke out a little more than 1 percent growth this year, Turkey’s economic renaissance — last week it reported a stunning 11.4 percent expansion for the first quarter, second only to China — poses a completely new question: who needs the other one more — Europe or Turkey?

“The old powers are losing power, both economically and intellectually,” said Vural Ak, 42, the founder and chief executive of Intercity, the largest car leasing company in Turkey. “And Turkey is now strong enough to stand by itself.”

It is an astonishing transformation for an economy that just 10 years ago had a budget deficit of 16 percent of gross domestic product and inflation of 72 percent. It is one that lies at the root of the rise to power of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has combined social conservatism with fiscally cautious economic policies to make his Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., the most dominant political movement in Turkey since the early days of the republic.

So complete has this evolution been that Turkey is now closer to fulfilling the criteria for adopting the euro — if it ever does get into the European Union — than most of the troubled economies already in the euro zone. It is well under the 60 percent ceiling on government debt (49 percent of G.D.P.) and could well get its annual budget deficit below the 3 percent benchmark next year. That leaves the reduction of inflation, now running at 8 percent, as the only remaining major policy goal.

Here was my crazy prediction in "blogging the future" back in 2005 (Blueprint for Action's afterword):

Turkey's Surprisingly Rapid Entry into EU Signals Europe's Tilt Toward Arab World

My logic?  I expected pain within Europe to rise to the level where taking Turkey in would seem like salvation versus suffering.  I had expected the pain to be social or political unrest; I just didn't imagine the economic causality being so profound.  I also underestimated how far Turkey would come economically in such a short period of time.

In short, I erred in my too heavy social-political pessimism and in my lack of economic optimism--just like Africa.  

O me of too little faith in globalization!

WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Must Expand its Pool of Allies in Afghanistan

 

With his recent selections of Gens. David Petraeus and James Mattis for command in Afghanistan and Central Command respectively, President Barack Obama signals his understanding that his previously established deadline of mid-2011 to begin drawing down combat troops in the “good war” cannot be met.  The two were co-architects of the military’s renewed embrace of both counterinsurgency operations and the associated nation-building project that by necessity goes along with it. Neither flag officer can be expected to preside over a Vietnam-like exit that once again puts troubled and untrustworthy Pakistan in charge of Afghanistan’s fate.

Read the rest of the column at World Politics Review.

Nice op-ed buttressing my arguments on Turkey-v-Iran over Gaza

NYT op-ed by way of Michal Shapiro.

See if this sounds familiar:

SINCE Israel’s deadly raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara last month, it’s been assumed that Iran would be the major beneficiary of the wave of global anti-Israeli sentiment. But things seem to be playing out much differently: Iran paradoxically stands to lose much influence as Turkey assumes a surprising new role as the modern, democratic and internationally respected nation willing to take on Israel and oppose America.

While many Americans may feel betrayed by the behavior of their longtime allies in Ankara, Washington actually stands to gain indirectly if a newly muscular Turkey can adopt a leadership role in the Sunni Arab world, which has been eagerly looking for a better advocate of its causes than Shiite, authoritarian Iran or the inept and flaccid Arab regimes of the Persian Gulf.

Turkey’s Islamist government has distilled every last bit of political benefit from the flotilla crisis, domestically and internationally. And if the Gaza blockade is abandoned or loosened, it will be easily portrayed as a victory for Turkish engagement on behalf of the Palestinians.

Bottom line:  this is all about Turkey's countering of Iranian influence, and just like Iran uses Israel as a whipping boy, now it's Ankara's turn, the difference being that when Tehran does it, it hurts US interests and when Ankara does it, it actually serves US interests--given Netanyahu's intransigence on all things Palestinian.

Check this out:  

... a new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 43 percent of Palestinians ranked Turkey as their No. 1 foreign supporter, as opposed to just 6 percent for Iran.

More:

Turkey has a strong hand here. Many leading Arab intellectuals have fretted over being caught between Iran’s revolutionary Shiism and Saudi Arabia’s austere and politically ineffectual Wahhabism. They now hope that a more liberal and enlightened Turkish Sunni Islam — reminiscent of past Ottoman glory — can lead the Arab world out of its mire.

You can get a sense of just how attractive Turkey’s leadership is among the Arab masses by reading the flood of recent negative articles about Ankara in the government-owned newspapers of the Arab states. This coverage impugns Mr. Erdogan’s motives, claiming he is latching on to the Palestinian issue because he is weak domestically, and dismisses Turkey’s ability to bring leadership to this quintessential “Arab cause.” They reek of panic over a new rival.

I keep telling you, Turkey is moving big-time and in ways that benefit the region and US foreign policy interests.

Turkey's like the fourth-year player who's finally coming into his own on the roster.  Yes, a big ego and a bit to handle, but how not to welcome this infusion of talent?

The phony war posturing continues

Pair of WSJ stories on the further posturing of Iran and Turkey.

Iran gives Syria radar that will do little to prevent Israeli strikes against Iran’s ally but will give Iran that much more warning time WRT Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities.  It could also improve the aiming of Hezbollah’s rockets. 

Meanwhile, Turkey says it has closed its airspace to Israel—a total non-surprise since Turkey already canceled three scheduled mil exercises with Israel after the flotilla fiasco.

This “war” will remain phony until Israel decides to strike, and then we’ll see some heating up across the board, but nothing on the scale of ’73, because nobody really wants to own anything—just restructure the regional arms balance in the short-term.

Turkey the only state in the region really pursuing a strategy worth noting, and it’s mostly economic.

The Turkey-Iran rivalry comes to the fore

FT story noting that Turkey’s moves as of late have nothing to do with Islamic ideology and everything to do with expanding the nation’s influence in the Middle East vis-à-vis competitor Iran.

Yeah, Turkey said no to the US on invasion plans WRT Iraq, but as soon as Saddam fell, Iraq was crawling with Turkish contractors.  So the big refusal was a case of having one’s cake and devouring it too.

I made the same argument on the Esquire blog recently regarding Turkey’s reorientation WRT Israel, the tipping point being the Gaza flotilla show.

The whole package can’t be viewed as some fit of pique regarding the EU, nor a turn east, says the FT, and I agree wholeheartedly. 

That is the behaviour of a regional power with a long-term view of its strategic interests, not of a country veering towards Islamist activism.

The author Gardner then makes the argument that Turkey, Iran and Israel and locked in a three-way fight to dominate the region.  I agree with Turkey v Iran and certainly see Saudi Arabia v Iran, but tossing Israel into that dynamic is mistaken.  Tellingly, after Gardner makes the statement, he spends the rest of the piece focusing on Iranian and Turkish moves to that effect, except to note that Israel might strike Iran over its nukes in coming months.  Gardner believes this would leave Turkey’s strategic approach in tatters, but I think that overstates the notion by a ways.

If Israel strikes, then Turkey will demonize it further—for its purposes.  Turkey will also be able to portray Iran as a nutcase that creates regional instability, whereas it represents growth and development and stability and solid relations both East and West.

Frankly, I don’t see how Turkey can lose in any kinetics between Iran and Israel.  Both sides will be weakened and Turkey will simply be that much stronger as a result.  Also, Saudi Arabia will look weak for having the “Jews” do its dirty work.

Turkey don't need no stinkin' badges!

The National by way of WPR's Media Roundup.

The gist:

Turkey has embarked on the road to a “Middle Eastern Union” as an alternative to the European Union, according to some observers, after Ankara unveiled its vision for a giant free-trade zone spanning from the Bosphorus to Sudan and Morocco.

The country has taken the first step towards forming the bloc by signing an agreement with three southern neighbours – a move being viewed in some quarters as further evidence that Ankara is losing interest in joining the EU.

“Turkey’s new aspiration: Middle Eastern Union,” the Milliyet daily newspaper trumpeted on its front page after the signing of a free-trade agreement between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan during a Turkish-Arab forum in Istanbul last week. According to the agreement, the four countries will drop all trade and visa restrictions between them.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said this was only the beginning. His country was in favour of strengthening co-operation within a region spanning from Turkey to equatorial Africa, he said. “We want to turn this region into a security region, into a region of economic integration.”

Mr Davutoglu did not present any concrete proposals to make that giant new trade zone a reality, and there was no sign that his statement had been coordinated in advance with any of the two dozen countries that would make up a bloc reaching from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Guinea. Neither did Mr Davutoglu address the question of how realistic the chances are to create a regional pact that would bring together sworn enemies like Iran and Israel.

This should be our foreign policy, quite frankly, because it serves our strategic interests to no end.

But since we seem incapable of such strategic imagination anymore, why the hell not support Turkey in such ambition--no matter what china gets broken in the process?

Even with the recent shenanigans over the Gaza flotilla, I say it's a proud time to be a Turk.  They are talking and they are walking, while we merely keep balls in the air, occasionally patting ourselves on the back between tosses.

The Economist on Turkey's alleged turn

Less hyperbolic than most commentary on the subject, The Economist sees an imbalance corrected:

For the past 90 years Turkey has in fact neglected the Arab lands of the former Ottoman empire and focused on the West.

Props also given to the "zero problems with the neighbours" policy, "masterminded by the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu."

The fly in the ointment is Turkey's Iran policy, and the distance that creates with Israel (the flotilla fiasco was just a codifying show, I have argued).  The Economist hopes for the best, whereas I think that Ankara is simply prepping the nuclear battlefield, convinced as it is of Iran's inevitably achievement.

Taking Turkey seriously

 FT column by Philip Stephens.

The conventional narrative says Turkey has traded in western democracy for Islamism.

Stephens sees it a bit more subtly:

In any event, the message I took from policymakers and business leaders at a recent conference in Istanbul convened by Chatham House was far more subtle than the present discourse in the west. Far from turning its back on Europe, the government hopes that the country’s rising regional influence will strengthen its claim for admission.

It is not often these days that you hear anyone praise the EU. Turkish politicians are the exception. The Union, one of Mr Erdogan’s ministers told the conference, had been a “greatest peace project in the history of mankind”. Securing Turkey’s membership remained a “national and a strategic” objective.

In sum, no breach with West, but a rational attempt to boost Turkey's negotiating hand.

Gates to EU: I blame you on Turkey!

WSJ story.

Gates just being blunt.

The EU began membership talks with Turkey in 2004--about a half century after the country first expressed interest in joining anything Europe put together on economics.  The talks have gone nowhere, despite Ankara's heroic efforts to meet requirements.

Thank-you France and Germany:  your racism comes back to haunt you once again!

I agree with those who says Turkey's "turn east" is exaggerated, but you reap what you sow, my friends.