President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan share a warm friendship. The Turkish PM is considered a close foreign friend to a president who notoriously has very few. And though American diplomatic cables concluded years ago that the AKP harbors neo-Ottoman ambitions, risking “‘creeping’ Islamization, naivete, and anti-Westernism,” the president has continued boosting Turkey’s regional posture and insulating the AKP’s domestic position.
The Obama administration has supported a leading role for Turkey on Syria. It has tried to put Bulgaria in Turkey’s orbit. It has even transferred Super Cobra helicopters from Afghanistan to Turkey so Turkish troops could use them against Kurds, part of the Turkish army’s cross-border bombing campaign. For the first time in 100 years, the Turkish navy is conducting general-purpose patrols in the Mediterranean. They’re threatening Israel and Cyprus, telling energy companies that they might get attacked by Turkish troops, freaking out the Greeks, and pledging maritime dominance. The White House is seemingly unable or unwilling to stop these provocations.
The Turks have responded to Obama’s indulgence by sabotaging American policy in Central Asia and the Middle East: voting against international Iran sanctions, refusing to implement U.S. Iran sanctions, and undermining the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty,which has been the central pillar of U.S. strategy in the region for decades.
Now Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Davutoglu have dragged NATO into their campaign to force Israel to “kneel down” to Turkey.
In the last few months, Turkey has vetoed a new Israel office from opening at NATO headquarters. It has blocked joint military exercises between Israel and NATO. It has categorically refused to share any intelligence from NATO’s X-Band missile defense radars with Israel – forever – over the objections of Congress but apparently with administration assent. As the radars were deployed, Turkey even demanded that NATOremove all references linking the arrays to Iranian threats, emptying what could have been a symbol of international unity against the mullahs.
Many of the AKP’s worst inclinations converge at blocking Israeli/NATO cooperation. The neo-Ottoman itch to throw around Turkish weight gets scratched by asserting “control” over the radars. Turkey also gets to exert some influence over NATO itself, which currently imposes some constraints on Ankara (the Turks had also previouslyblocked alliance action in Libya). Even Turkey’s strategy of isolating its enemies in international forums – something Ankara also does to Cyprus in the EU – gets advanced.
Above and beyond the harm this does to Israel directly, Turkey’s actions are directly endangering American national security. As a matter of like-it-or-not geostrategic reality, Israel is a critical Western ally and a regional power. Coordination between Israel and the U.S., and Israel and NATO, is critical to American power projection in the region. Turkey is undermining that cooperation out of sheer pique, and hurting American interests in the process. The diplomatic onslaught is also making the Israelisincredibly nervous about the constancy of multilateral and bilateral assurances and alliances, at a time when sraeli nervousness on those issues is less than opportune.
And yet the anti-Israel foreign policy experts, who regularly invent newer and more fantastic scenarios as to why Israel is a net drag on U.S. interests, are either silent or blaming Israel for Turkish intransigence. Strange, that.
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India Slaps 10-Year Ban on Israeli Defense Company
Defense Ministry officials are consulting with Israel Military Industries Ltd. on how to respond to Delhi’s decade-long ban on defense bids.
By Gavriel Queenann
3/7/2012
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153543
Israeli officials said they were “surprised” at a ten-year ban slapped on Israel Military Industries Ltd. Barring the company from competing for Delhi’s defense contracts.
India announced on Tuesday it was blacklisting IMI and five other firms from India, Switzerland, Russia and Singapore, over allegations of bribing an Indian official to win contracts.
India’s Ministry of Defense froze all contracts signed with the six companies in May 2009, when the scandal came to light.
Delhi officials also say they only made the decision after giving the companies a chance to respond to the allegations.
A statement Wednesday by Israel’s defense ministry said IMI had “very good claims” against the Indian allegations.
India is a key market for Israeli defense companies. The ban could cost IMI billions in defense contracts.
IMI, a government-owned company, is the IDF’s main manufacturer of defense platforms for land, sea and air forces, and has several international clients.
Israel’s defense ministry, however, has said it is considering privatizing IMI, and that it will consult with the company about how to respond to the Indian ban.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153543
For all of its factual accuracy, this comment seems to misperceive the present-day relationship among the US, NATO and Turkey. NATO is no longer what it used to be. Once it was the extended province of a North Atlantic old boy’s club. In today’s middle east NATO is increasingly an instrument of Turkish, not American, foreign policy. The ever growing influence of Turkey, so noticeable during the Libyan uprising and visible today with reference to Syria, obliges any Washington administration to take Ankara’s wishes into account. It would be a grave mistake if Israel were to ignore Turkey’s growing importance in the region. Not only is Turkey’s good will and cooperation more important to the US than that of Israel; it is in many respects more important to Israel. A prudent Israeli government would take care to rebuild the former relationship with Ankara. The Turks may be muslims but they are not Arabs. The two nations will fare better as allies than as rivals.
George Friedman, founder and president of Stratfor Intelligence, considers Turkey one of the three rising geopolitical powers. The other two are Japan and Poland. The “warm friendship” of Pres. Obama and P.M. Erdogan is better perceived as a recognition of mutual interests and complementary needs. Turkey’s is by far the strongest military in the middle east, not so dependent on the US and NATO as many seem to imagine, and will become increasingly more determinative in crises such as the present conflict in Syria. Simultaneously the Turkish economy is strong and continues to grow steadily. There is indeed a “neo-Ottoman” look to Turkey’s rise as a regional power. Israel would do better to resume its former relationship with Ankara, that of trusted military ally and economic partner. The affair of the ridiculous “flotilla” need never have occurred and it is a mistake to ignore its consequences. Nor is islamism a core ideology for Turkey. It is rather a convenient handle whereby influence over the middle east may be grasped and held.
Wedge?
Soetoro has re allocated 90 nuclear bombs B 6 1 type, latest configuration, strategic variable yield devices, forty of which are allocated to the Turkish Air Force.
According to our latest information some five months ago they were at the INCIRLIK TAFB, along with nearly 6000 US airmen and technical personnel as well as aircraft.
Mr. Soetoro and his military are far more than just “wedging”.
Look who is the Boss: Turkey dictating to both America and Israel.
Successful US-Israel radar test launches US missile shield’s operational phase
What is so strange? The Manchurian Candidate, BHO has done more to empower political and radical Islam than anyone since Mohammad. If one stops for a moment and ignores everything BHO says and instead look at what he does, who he hangs with and who he rewards and who he punishes. What is strange is that he has been able to bamboozle American media, academia and a large portion of the American population and continues to do so.