Does Turkey Still Belong in NATO?
by Daniel
Pipes
Philadelphia Bulletin
April 6, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/pipes/6269/does-turkey-still-belong-in-nato
Smack on its 60th anniversary, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization finds itself facing a completely novel problem – that
of radical Islam, as represented by the Republic of Turkey, within its own
ranks.
Ankara joined NATO in 1951 and shortly after Turkish forces
fought valiantly with the allies in Korea. Turks stood tough against the
Soviet Union for decades. Following the United States, Turkey has the
second-largest number of troops in the alliance.
With the end of the Cold War, NATO's mission changed and
some saw Islamism as the new strategic enemy. Already in 1995, NATO
Secretary General Willy Claes compared Islamism to the historic foe: "Fundamentalism is at
least as dangerous as communism was." With the Cold War over, he
added, "Islamic militancy has emerged as perhaps the single gravest threat
to the NATO alliance and to Western security."
Indeed, NATO first
invoked Article 5 of its charter, calling on "collective
self-defense," to go to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001,
responding to the 9/11 attacks launched from that country.
More recently, former Spanish prime minister José
María Aznar argues that "Islamist terrorism is a new shared threat of
a global nature that places the very existence of NATO's members at risk"
and advocates that the alliance focus on combating "Islamic jihadism and
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." He calls for "placing
the war against Islamic jihadism at the center of the Allied
strategy."
Claes and Aznar are right; but their vision is now in
jeopardy, for Islamists have penetrated the 28-state alliance, as was
dramatically illustrated in recent days.
Prime ministers Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan (left) and Anders Fogh Rasmussen in
2002. |
As the term of Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
concludes in July, a consensus had emerged to make Danish Prime Minister
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, 56, his successor. But Fogh Rasmussen was in office
in early 2006, when the Muhammad cartoon crisis erupted and he insisted
that as prime minister he had no authority to tell a private newspaper
what not to publish. This position won him much criticism from Muslims,
including Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
who instructed Fogh Rasmussen at the time that "Freedoms have limits,
what is sacred should be respected."
When Fogh Rasmussen came up for the NATO post, Erdoğan continued
his grudge, saying that his government looks "negatively" on Fogh
Rasmussen's candidacy because, Erdoğan explained, "I asked for a meeting
of Islamic leaders in his country to explain what is going on and he
refrained from doing that. So how can I expect him to contribute to
peace?"
Eventually, Fogh Rasmussen was selected as the consensus
candidate, but at a steep price. The Dane won the job only after engaging
in intensive negotiations
with Turkish president Abdullah Gül hosted by Barack Obama. Fogh
Rasmussen promised to appoint at least two Turks and publicly to
address Muslim concerns about his response to the cartoons. More broadly,
Erdoğan announced. Obama "gave us guarantees" concerning Turkish reservations
about Fogh Rasmussen.
The hoops that Fogh Rasmussen had to jump through to win
Ankara's support can be inferred from his cringe-inducing, dhimmi-like remarks
on winning the appointment: "As secretary general of NATO, I will make a
very clear outreach to the Muslim world to ensure cooperation and
intensify dialogue with the Muslim world. I consider Turkey a very
important ally and strategic partner and I will cooperate with them in our
endeavors to ensure the best cooperation with Muslim world."
We appear to be witnessing the emergence not of a robust
NATO following the Claes-Aznar model, one leading the fight against
radical Islam, but an institution hobbled from within, incapable of
standing up to the main strategic threat for fear of offending a member
government.
Nor is Islamism NATO's only problem with Turkey. In what is
emerging as a Middle Eastern
cold war, with Tehran leading one faction and Riyadh the other, Ankara
has repeatedly sided with the former – hosting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
advocating for Iran's nuclear program, developing an Iranian oil field,
transferring Iranian arms to Hezbollah, openly supporting Hamas, viciously
condemning Israel, and turning Turkish public opinion against
the United States.
Noting these changes, columnist Caroline
Glick urges Washington to "float the notion of removing Turkey from
NATO." The Obama administration is not about to do that; but before Ankara
renders NATO toothless, dispassionate observers should carefully think
this argument through.
Related Topics: Radical Islam, Strategic alliances, Turkey | 
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