An American in Turkey

Let me start off this pot-luck post by letting you know that it seems Facebook has pulled its feature that allows me to give you a link on the blog. Not sure why they did this, in fact I'm not sure why they do more than half the things they do. If you would like a link to the albums I've posted I think I can email or send a personal invitation to you to view them. If not, if I ever run into you I'll be happy to set you down for the slide show.

If you haven't already heard it seems Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Turkey the last weekend or so in November. He is making what I believe is a four day excursion beginning in Ankara and proceeding to Izmir/Ephesus, and Istanbul. It is His Holiness' first excursion to a predominantly Muslim country. The purpose of the visit is rather unclear. The only certain things I can tell that he will do will be to make a pilgrimage of sorts to Ephesus and nearby Meryemana and perhaps meet with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch who resides in Istanbul. The visit, as you probably know, has been followed very closely after the remarks he gave in Germany a few months ago. People here have had various reactions. Immediatley following the speech a group of lower level government employees filed a petition to have him arrested on arrival for "insulting the Turkish Republic", this assuredly failed. Today, as there have been a few other times, there was a protest outside the Italian Embassy (not sure why the Italian embassy, I guess they all said 'hey, wait the Vatican doesn't have an embassy here, what is the next best thing?') and a man fired a pistol into the air and threw it onto the grounds of the Embassy. This apparantley followed a report that teh Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will not hold an audience with the Pope.

This event, in my mind, marks the latest in a line of events that could precipitate some rather unappetizing outcomes in this part of the world. Beginning with the Pope's remarks in Germany, following with the French Parliament passing the Armenian Genocide legislation, and perhaps ending with the impending disintegration of EU talks the West is one step at a time pushing its most valuable, trustworthy ally in the Muslim world right out the door. The sentiment here seems to suggest Turkey is starting to believe in its growing economic strength, its military prowess, and the value of its real estate and the fact that it doesn't really need the West as much as the West needs it. There are even a large group of people who think if the whole partnership with the EU doesn't work out, Turkey can just as easily turn its head East and cozy up to powers such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt (this is much easier said than done, but not out of the realm of possibility given the attitudes of Mssr. Chirac and Mdme. Merkel).

Which brings me around to the current mid-term elections in the United States. Those of you who know me, know I have a gauntlet of opinions about the current state of the government, I don't intend to bore you with opinions you've probably heard before. With that in mind, as well as the fact that I'm sitting in Ankara right now, I want to expain why a few issues are important and how Turkey fits into them.

First, there is Iraq. Turkey's relations with the US have been cool at best since it refused to allow US troops to enter Iraq through the north via its border there in 2003. Apparantley they didn't get Mr. Bush's "with us or against us" memo (you know the one that was sent to Pakistan with a nuclear threat attached to it, gotta love Bush's diplomacy!). Fast forward three years and the situation here could not be more dire and could not be more fragile. I firmly believe it was wrong to invade Iraq (have so since the beginning), however, if the situation is not handled properly now it could mean absolute disaster in this region. President Bush sure has created a mess, but that does not mean the whole country can just leave the bull in the china closet and hope he can't do any more damage. I don't pretend to have a solution for this conflict, but I can tell you a few things. First, I would avoid like the plague any diplomat who believes a three state system (Kurds in the north Sunnis in the middle and Shiites in the south). Here is how this scenario would work out (and I'm fairly certain of this): Sunni and Shi'ia violence would increase at an unprecedented pace resulting utter lawlessness in most of the country, second an independent Kurdistan would ultimately mean war with either or both Iran and Turkey (both of whom would feel quite threatened). A pull out now or pull out over the horizon plan would result in a similar situation. That leaves the current military force and the haphazard democracy in place to quell the violence and instability. But there is one stone the Bush administration has left unturned, and has done so deliberatley out of pride (ultimately the aspect of Mr. Bush that undermines all his diplomatic efforts) and that is Iraq's neighbors, particularly Iran, Turkey and Syria. Sure, we don't like Iran, but they were of service to us when we needed intelligence in Afghanistan after 9/11, and the current Iraqi PM has already beat us to the chase by making overtures to Iran to lend a helping hand with the violence. Syria is in Iran's back pocket, if but certainly we have the power to take them out of that pocket by sitting down with them and bettering economic relations. Turkey is the insurance policy. What I'm talking about would of course be a tremendous risk and would take a true genious of a diplomat. The sad thing is, we (and by we I mean Democrats for not reversing the 2004 presedential ticket AND Republicans for their blank check of support for the President), missed our chances for that diplomat to be there.

There is a reason that last paragraph is so complicated, because that is how this situation is. Its not black and white as the Republican Party would have you believe, but its not unwinnable as some Democrats would have you believe. What our country, nay the world, needs is not hardened rhetoric, we need an intelligent, flexible set of diplomats who work for a leade who knows when he needs to take a spoon full of sugar and let the medicine go down. The boastful "Proud to be and American" slogan was great for national morale after 9/11, but it has cost us more than we know.