Yankee-stani
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We think that this is a bad idea.”
A senior State Department official told reporters yesterday that the Turkish attacks on northeastern Syria targeting Kurdish fighters who have been America’s best partners in defeating ISIS in the country would help no one—not even Turkey. “This will not increase their security, our security, or the security of anybody else in the region.”
Donald Trump, after a call with the Turkish president on Sunday, promptly moved U.S. troops out of the area, clear of the coming bombardment. Otherwise they risked death at the hands of a NATO ally.
But what kind of ally forces Americans to flee from their friend’s American-made F-16s? For that matter, on America’s part, what kind of ally would arm and support a group Turkey considers a band of terrorists? How did the United States and Turkey end up tied together in NATO, when both their values and interests seem so far apart?
“We wanted Turkey in NATO because of the Cold War,” Steven A. Cook, a Turkey expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. Back in 1952, with the alliance just a few years old, it expanded for the first time, welcoming two new members: Greece and Turkey. At the time, President Harry Truman offered membership to both as a way to contain Communist expansion—Greece’s Western-backed government had just defeated Communist forces in a civil war. It helped that Turkey also gave the alliance a foothold close to the Middle East.
Read: The U.S. moves out, and Turkey moves in
This soon became a case of more allies, more problems. When Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 following a Greece-backed military coup, the two allies came into direct conflict; in fact, Greece left NATO over it, before later rejoining. Later, the U.S. flew bombing raids on Iraq from Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base during the 1990–91 Gulf War; in 2003, though, Turkey refused to station U.S. troops on its territory to attack Baghdad. (Other U.S. allies, namely France and Germany, also opposed the 2003 Iraq War, though France was not fully participating in NATO at the time.) As for that whole democratic-values thing, the military stepped in to run the country about every decade or so.
MORE STORIES
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/10/turkey-and-nato-troubled-relationship/599890/
A senior State Department official told reporters yesterday that the Turkish attacks on northeastern Syria targeting Kurdish fighters who have been America’s best partners in defeating ISIS in the country would help no one—not even Turkey. “This will not increase their security, our security, or the security of anybody else in the region.”
Donald Trump, after a call with the Turkish president on Sunday, promptly moved U.S. troops out of the area, clear of the coming bombardment. Otherwise they risked death at the hands of a NATO ally.
But what kind of ally forces Americans to flee from their friend’s American-made F-16s? For that matter, on America’s part, what kind of ally would arm and support a group Turkey considers a band of terrorists? How did the United States and Turkey end up tied together in NATO, when both their values and interests seem so far apart?
“We wanted Turkey in NATO because of the Cold War,” Steven A. Cook, a Turkey expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. Back in 1952, with the alliance just a few years old, it expanded for the first time, welcoming two new members: Greece and Turkey. At the time, President Harry Truman offered membership to both as a way to contain Communist expansion—Greece’s Western-backed government had just defeated Communist forces in a civil war. It helped that Turkey also gave the alliance a foothold close to the Middle East.
Read: The U.S. moves out, and Turkey moves in
This soon became a case of more allies, more problems. When Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 following a Greece-backed military coup, the two allies came into direct conflict; in fact, Greece left NATO over it, before later rejoining. Later, the U.S. flew bombing raids on Iraq from Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base during the 1990–91 Gulf War; in 2003, though, Turkey refused to station U.S. troops on its territory to attack Baghdad. (Other U.S. allies, namely France and Germany, also opposed the 2003 Iraq War, though France was not fully participating in NATO at the time.) As for that whole democratic-values thing, the military stepped in to run the country about every decade or so.
MORE STORIES
Trump Is Killing a Fatally Flawed Syria Policy
KATHY GILSINAN
The Danger of Abandoning Our Partners
JOSEPH VOTEL ELIZABETH DENT
SPONSOR CONTENT
Eighteen Zeros
HPE
The Kurds: Betrayed Again by Washington
JOOST HILTERMANN
The Threat Within NATO
ROB BERSCHINSKI
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/10/turkey-and-nato-troubled-relationship/599890/
