http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkey8217s-perception-problem-cont
inues-if-not-worsens-in-washington-2010-11-26
Turkey's perception problem continues, if not worsens in Washington
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Friday, November 26, 2010
ÝLHAN TANIR
Following the Turkish agreement on the NATO missile defense system last week
in Lisbon, contrary to expectations, Turkey's perception problem and
questions about its direction have not ended in Washington. Instead, Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan's stern messages to Israel from Lebanon, where
he visited this week, the new matrix of Washington politics since the
midterm elections, in which the Republican opposition is much more stronger,
and a set of issues expected to stem from the missile shield system continue
to promise a hideous winter for the Turkish-American & Israeli, or TAI,
relations.
The big question this week was why Turkey's consensual agreement on the NATO
missile system did not ease the jittery relations between Turkey and the
U.S. Wasn't the biggest contemporary sticking point between the two allies
just nicely resolved? Turkey's opposition to the missile system would have
indeed damaged the image of Turkey far worse than many would have
anticipated. However, in the real world, Turkey had very few other options
beside accepting the new NATO defense plan to begin with, as I concluded my
Oct. 15 column, five weeks before the summit, "What will or can Turkey do
beside support the new vision, willingly or unwillingly?" Turkey, indeed,
could have not opposed the rest of the 27 members of the alliance's decision
to defend themselves just because it did not share the same concerns.
Nonetheless, despite last week's agreement, it appears that discussions over
Turkey's position will be still up for debate for the next few months. This
week, the most relevant senior American diplomatic and military officials,
when asked, said that it is indeed not certain if Turkey will actually host
the radar installment, and Erdoðan confirmed that the decision has not yet
been determined by his government either.
Discrepancies over concerns, questions and statements about the NATO missile
shield are the crisp indicators that shed light on the edgy relations
between Washington and Ankara these days, and they come to the surface when
one finds the audacity to compare notes and do sort of a cross-examining of
the senior administration officials, as I just did this week in Washington.
For instance, at the Brookings Institution this week, U.S. Permanent
Representative to NATO Ivo Daalder, who spent years preparing for the
summit, chuckled and clearly rebuked me when I repeated Turkish President
Abdullah Gül's statement over Turkey's shaping role at the NATO summit, "If
Turkey was not in the summit, the summit would have been concluded within 10
minutes." Then he snubbed another question in which I, once more, voiced
Ankara's repeated concerns over an Israeli role related to the shield;
Daalder stated coldly and briefly: "NATO is requiring this capability to
protect its territory. Period."
U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Adm. James
Stavridis also gave a press briefing and one of my questions, a
much-vocalized talking point in Turkey especially among pundits, was on
which country will be making the most money out of the planned defense
shield, which is expected to cost billions of dollars. The initial response
by admiral, once more, was a spontaneous chuckle, then he continued: "The
good news for NATO is that the United States has already borne a great deal
of the cost of the research and development of the systems. For example, the
Aegis defense system was developed here. That will be adapted and moved
ashore. So a great deal of the costs have already been spent in the
development of the R&D portion of this thing. In terms of the European side
of this thing, the cost is actually relatively low, because it's a command
and control system that plugs into hardware that is being offered up by the
United States at this point. So the command and control side of this thing
will be in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. The actual
infrastructure is, indeed, in the billions of dollars, but much of those
costs will be borne by the United States."
Before the summit, senior U.S. officials shied away from giving any kind of
description about the command and control structure of the new missile
shield, and simply stated that this issue will be worked out in coming
months. Immediately following the summit, this week, it sounded like they
have a pretty good idea of what the system should look like. According to
Daalder, the issue "is actually not that complicated. ... NATO already has
an integrated air missile defense system that has been operation under the
single command-control system for decades, with the NATO supreme allied
commander in charge. And we are going to have a very similar set up for the
missile defense system."
In brief, where the radar component of the shield will be deployed, and
whether the Turkish administration will be satisfied by the
described-precise command structure and Israel's role in the whole cast,
will be still the sticking points that are expected to suck a lot of the
oxygen from the TAI relations during the first half of 2011.
The other significant menace for the U.S.-Turkey relations is undoubtedly
Turkey's worsening relations with Israel. I had a lengthy phone conversation
with Mr. Dan Mariaschin, executive vice president of B'nai B'rith
International, a global Jewish community group, a week ago and one thing
clear to me from the whole conversation was that vociferous Jewish Americans
have no hope for better relations between Turkey and Israel, as long as the
Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government in Ankara.
Make no mistake: I, among many other observers, do believe that Israel owes
an apology and that reparations must paid to those families who experienced
losses following the flotilla incident.
However, it is also clear to me that Ankara has no interest in giving the
Israeli administration the chance to step in that direction. Because it is a
well-known secret that if Ankara really wants to make things better between
the two, it has plenty of diplomatic skills to create that environment.
Erdoðan's attack on Israel was met with a great enthusiasm in the streets of
the Middle East, as his hero's welcome confirmed once more in Lebanon this
week. Though the same attacks met with an even greater distaste and
increased hostility in the streets of Washington and worse, the halls of the
Congress.
The Nov. 2 midterm elections reverberated the Israeli lobby's power in
Washington and made it even stronger; however, the Netanyahu government
appears to be isolated in many parts of the world. As Steve Clemons,
director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation,
wrote on his blog on Thursday: "Netanyahu is telling various close friends
that he has the U.S. Congress in his pocket and can largely ignore the White
House. ... Netanyahu wants to bring down President Obama, when it is Obama
who should be destabilizing the far right coalition of the Netanyahu
government."
Some commentaries appeared this week in the Turkish press which suggested
that the Turkey-U.S. relations are going through the toughest period in the
last 40 years. I have not been around that long and cannot echo the
statement fully. What I am afraid is to predict sadly that the TAI relations
might be entering into one of the most gruesome winters of recent history.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Brooks Isoldi, editor
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http://www.intellnet.org
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