Who Your Friends Are
On this map there is all of the territory of one US ally, and a piece of another. These are countries with whom we have mutual defense treaty obligations, and regular joint training exercises. They are allies, not dependents, and they have fought in combat with the US military.
There is just a little piece of Greece on this map, but all of Turkey. They are both members of NATO and they both fought in the Korean War. Both have extended basing rights to the US and were staunch Cold War allies.
Turkey is our most important ally in this area and yet the Hedgemony continues to ignore them. The country has borders with Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Greece, but we failed to consult with them or to take their concerns into consideration in our actions in the area.
The plans for the invasion of Iraq had to be altered because the US didn’t consult with the Turks, and the plan to send aid to Georgia via sea have also been put off because the US didn’t talk to the Turks first. The Turks control entry and exit of the Black Sea, and no one goes through the Bosporus without Turkey’s approval.
This is not how you treat an ally. The Turks have a very good military, with the second largest army in NATO. Their air force and navy are first rate, and if the Georgians had talked to the Turks before launching their assault, the results may well have been different. I assume the Turks would have probably explained in great detail why they shouldn’t do it. If the Turks had gotten on board, the Russians wouldn’t be running around Georgia now.
The Turks are the end point for the petroleum pipeline from Azerbaijan that runs through Georgia, so they have an interest in what happens there.
McCain is apparently sending surrogates to Georgia. Obama might want to consider sending someone to talk to the Turks for an overview of their reading on the situation, and a prelude to repairing relations with our most reliable ally in the Middle East.
7 comments
hey, they could hire me as interpreter!
oh, wait… the only thing i remember from turkish class is how to say daylight and quick! hide! the police are looking for you! so maybe i should keep my day job.
yeah, the turkey problem puzzles me too. i’ve been saying all along that the idea wasn’t to fix iraq [or iran or_____] necessarily, but to keep the region in turmoil if we couldn’t control it. in that light, this administration has been very competent, rather than the incompetence that’s often alleged. but i have to admit, ignoring turkey does just make it look like it might be plain old incompetence after all.
Apparently on Faux News, a reality based witness “punked” out the faux folks…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/16/31435/2844/753/568761
It is totally stupid, Hipparchia, which is the hallmark of the Hedgemony’s foreign policy.
Anyone who thinks Ossetians are going to say anything bad about their new overlords, the Russians, is crazy. They survived under the Soviet system and know the rules – you back the group with the most guns.
…I went ahead (despite all the demons arguing in my head) and watched the Faux news interview, and was powerfully puzzled for just a moment that anybody who claimed to be a journalist could fail to understand that even a 12 Y.O. American girl visiting relatives in South Ossetia would have a less than favorable view of the Georgian government. South Ossetia is a breakaway region that stirs Russian souls in a way that Chetchnia does not, since they want to be Russian…or independent with Russian connections or whatever (or so is the current storyline)…
The Big News Of The Day that isn’t getting much coverage is that Gee Dub was writing those famous checks with his mouth that his government couldn’t cash and may well be as complicit in this disaster as he was in our disastrously failed occupation of Iraq…
I still haven’t heard on the corporate media detailed accounts on McCain’s Foreign Policy advisor who is also a lobbyist for the Georgian government and if we knew there were some rumblings escalating in that region, where the h**l was Condi Rice (the supposed Soviet expert?) Shouldn’t she have at least been over there conversing with folks?
Some people “hear what they what to hear and disregard the rest” as the song says. Saakashvili was bound and determined to do this and certain that the US and NATO would come riding to the rescue if things didn’t work out. He thought that sending troops to Iraq was the payment for support, and didn’t realize that the Hedgemony only takes.
It’s August, Jill. Like the French, the Hedgemony goes on vacation in August.
Well, Turks and Georgians don’t get along very well. Sort of like Greeks and Turks, for much the same reason (the western part of Georgia suffered Ottoman rule for some time and it apparently was not very pleasant). Accepting Turkish troops onto Georgian soil will happen about the same time that Iraq accepts Saudi and Kuwaiti troops onto Iraqi soil, i.e., when hell freezes over. Furthermore, the Turks don’t have any major air bases near Georgia due to the rugged terrain, their nearest major air base is near Ankara, no good for flying CAP over Georgia even if the Georgians had asked them. Still, failing to consult with the Turks just because half your population hates them isn’t good thinking. On the other hand, good thinking has been in short supply on the Georgian side of things for the past 20 years…