(Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
German Marshall Fund Senior Transatlantic Fellow Ian Lesser has an important piece on Turkey’s dilemma with regard to the Iran nuclear issue.
On the one hand, Turkey is loathe to support sanctions that will threaten its growing commercial and energy relationship with Iran and that are unlikely to change the Islamic Republic’s nuclear plans.
At the same time, Turkey’s long-standing alliance with the United States and its European Union aspirations put Ankara in a difficult position as a member of the United Nations Security Council.
Lesser predicts that Turkey will split the difference and ultimately abstain if and when a sanctions resolution is voted on at the Security Council.
One of the themes of this blog has been to catalog the strategic consequences of the Obama administration’s decision to pursue a sanctions policy that runs the realities that a serious, “crippling” sanctions resolution with international support is unlikely and that additional sanctions will not change Iran’s nuclear calculations in any strategically meaningful way.
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett have also pointed out that Washington’s sanctions-centric Iran policy is imposing costs on the United States and opening up opportunities for geopolitical rivals such as China.
At the same time, the United States’ ill-conceived drive for sanctions is putting one of Washington’s most significant allies in the region, Turkey, in a very uncomfortable position. As Lesser points out in his piece, Turkey’s uneasy European Union accession process is likely to deteriorate further if its position on Iran ultimately diverges from that of the large European states – a prospect that appears increasingly likely.
Obviously the United States cannot base its Iran policy on Turkey’s or any other country’s needs, but it is important to note that those who say “sanctions probably won’t work, but we might as well try” are failing to take into adequate account the policy’s unintended consequences for both America’s allies and its competitors.
– Ben Katcher
Eric,
Do you think Seantor Schumer is incapable of comprehending that applying sanctions against Iran, to restrict its importation of gasoline, would let the Iranian government blame the gasoline shortages on the US (and foolish countries following the American “lead”)? Or is he just a duplicitous schemer, playing for the idiot Israel lobby faction?
Eric,
I had considered Chuch Schumer a horse’s arse. But maybe that was rating him too highly! What amazing crap, from a senior senator hoping to replace Harry Reid! Did you hear Schumer’s bloodcurdling yowl at the Aipac conference? He screamed, in Hebrew: “Jews live!!!!” And who has suggested that they are not living, one might ask.
Lest any of you doubt whether the proposed sanctions being crafted in Congress have been thoroughly thought out, consider a few statement’s from Chuck Schumer’s interview on the Nachum Segal show (printed at http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0410/Schumer_Obamas_Counterproductive_Israel_policy_has_to_stop.html):
“If we tell any major oil company that if they sell gasoline to Iran, directly or indirectly, they can’t sell any oil product in the U.S., then they will stop selling gasoline to Iran and the Iranian economy will have real problems.”
Yep – that should work. And if it does, it’s hard to overstate the benefits it could shower upon us, not to mention the Iranian people:
“Iranians do not produce their own gasoline, and by the way the Iranian people are ready to rebel and overthrow this regime, and if we would squeeze them economically that could happen.”
And some people say our leaders have an unrealistic view of sanctions!
Dan,
Of course I remember the ridiculous “45 minute” claim. However, my understanding is that the British generals would not have allowed the invasion of Iraq to take place if they had the intelligence that Dick Cheney kept out of the White House and withheld from the British. Maybe Tony Blair duped the British defence establishment? Blair was not given the intelligence that Cheney did not want even to go to Bush. Possibly, Cheney was preserving Bush’s (and his own) deniability.
James
I think both “Bush and Blair” knew in advance that Sadam did not have WMD but still went ahead and deliberately deceived the public to justify military attack and a regime change.
Do you Remember Blair’s 45 minutes scare-mongering?
Kooshy,
My wife has some Iranian-American friends in LA, whom she visits occasionally though I’ve never met them. I understand the Iranian community is quite large down there.
Eric
LA is cool not much change at least in the west side, there is a reason LA is called Tehrangeles some even call it the 6th largest city of Iran, it’s also “Entertainment capital of Iran” politically after the green stuff is even more entertaining you can guess why. But really the answer is no. I think folks in here early on knew that Iran and Iranians were never involved in the 9/11, in west side and the valley area, practically everywhere you go you will meet Muhammad or Reza, and soon will get used to that. I even got wrong number calls that people apologies in Persian for miss dialing.
Eric,
Many of the Iranians in Southern California are Jewish.
Rehmat,
I think Turkey’s accession to Nato had much to do with its centuries of conflict with Russia and fears of the USSR.
Certainly it seems in the best interests of the EU for Turkey to increase as much as possible its imports of gas from Iran, so that the Russian supplies are relatively larger and therefor less likely to be disrupted.
Turkey will need Iran’s energy for growth to even be able to join EU, same goes for India, wondering after 08 financials, and Greece and Portugal if there is much enthusiasm left to join EU? Turkey needed and was needed when there was a fear of USSR across the black sea, what is the use of NATO for Turkey today except alienating it from its core base and let Iran take the leadership of the Muslim ME street base by being against the western hegemony in the region, while at that price Turkey still is not accepted in Europe so some calculation is at works.
Kooshy,
“At least here in LA a lot of the private school’s students and parents have similar names as the parking attendant in La Mirage, me included.”
You’re in a good position to comment. (There are fewer Iranians in SF.) What’s your impression of Americans’ attitudes toward Muslims in LA? Has it changed since the days shortly after 9/11? I’d like to think my account of this joke overstates the prejudice.
Turkey’s past friendly relations with the US, Israel and NATO were based of Kemalist Army generals’ hatred of Islam and the Arabs for siding with British colonial power to dismember the Ottoman Empire. The current “mildly Islamist” government of AKP is trying to lean toward its past glorious roots – Islam and country’s nextdoor Muslim nation-states. One has to recognize the fact that even after eight decades of extreme secular rule – 99.7% of Turkey’s population is Muslim and over 80% of its womenfolks still wear hijab.
AKP leaders especially its FM has come to the conclusion that EU will never accept Turkey as its full member and its membership and alliance with the US is costing the country very dearly. The American military bases in Turkey have been used as launching-pad against other Muslim nation-states and Ankara’s relations with Tel Aviv is considered as a treason against Muslim Ummah.
Turkey should forget about being considered as the sixth permanent UNSC member – because the West will never accept a Muslim-majority country in that “colonial forum”. India or Israel has more chances to gain that position than Turkey. Many lobby groups are known to be pushing for their UNSC membership.
The Wall Street Journal in March spilled the beans on Turkey’s unacceptability in the so-called “civilized world”.
WSJ -Islamist Turkey is “EU’s Real Problem”
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/wsj-islamist-turkey-is-eus-real-problem/
Eric
At least here in LA a lot of the private school’s students and parents have similar names as the parking attendant in La Mirage, me included.
It occurred to me that some readers – especially Iranian readers – might find illuminating a joke told in early 2002 at a night-time parent’s event at my children’s primary school. The audience’s reaction to the joke probably illustrates, better than mere insistent explanations, the attitude of many Americans toward Muslims. (In fairness, though, bear in mind that this occurred about six months after 9/11.)
Though opinions on such matters differ, many locals would say this is San Francisco’s top private school. The parent body is about 80%+ highly educated and well-to-do professionals – investment bankers, venture capitalists, hedge fund managers, lawyers, doctors – most with the same general political leanings one can undoubtedly find at similar private schools in many other large American cities. I suspect most American readers understand intuitively the mind-set I’m describing.
The joke was told by a Los Angeles-based comedian who had attended the school and now was back in town for this big event – living, breathing evidence of how successful the school had been in instilling certain values in its students. Until this joke, his comedic efforts that night had largely fallen flat – a few groans could even be heard after some of his jokes.
That was about to change. Here’s the joke:
Roger Winston had it all – a successful career, a $10 million home in Malibu, invitations to all the right parties, a constant stream of beautiful women. But Los Angeles was getting him down. The crime, the danger, the constant fear. He needed to get away. So one Friday night, Roger drove alone up into the hills north of LA, heading for his favorite getaway spot – the exclusive La Mirage Resort – his sanctuary from the unrelenting danger of life in the big city.
When he was well up into the hills, Roger put the top down on his Mercedes convertible. The night sky was full of stars, the clean air smelled of mountain pines. “At last. Peace,” Roger said out loud. “Peace, quiet, safety – if only for a weekend!”
Roger turned in at the entrance to La Mirage and punched in the security code on the gate keypad – he knew it by heart. The ornate front gate quietly swung open, and he proceeded along the winding entry drive until he reached the parking lot. He turned off his car, climbed out, and handed his keys to the young, uniformed parking-lot attendant, who had approached him with a smile and “Welcome back to La Mirage, Mr. Winston!”
“I don’t recognize this one,” Roger thought. “He probably got my name from the records.” He glanced at the attendant’s name badge. It read “Mohammad.”
Waiting for the punch line? That was it. The audience laughed uproariously. The comedian bowed, shook hands with the Head of School, waved to the crowd, and walked off the stage. The audience stood and clapped and cheered for nearly a minute.
And this is what you might call “elite” opinion in the United States. It’s safe to say that few if any of those parents listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio or watch Glenn Beck on TV.
Does this help Iranian readers to understand why one living here in America might consider the risk of a US attack on Iran – not today, or tomorrow or the next day, but some day – to be a bit greater than they might imagine?
Dan,
I think there is virtually no chance whatever, that Dick Cheney actually believed Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. He had access to CIA interviews with wives, brothers, sisters, parents, etc etc, of Iraqi scientists known to have worked in WMD programs. All of them confirmed the WMD was destroyed in the 1990s. Plus the Iraqi foreign minister was on the CIA payroll, and he too confirmed there was no Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Cheney withheld this intelligence from the British – - who would not have invaded with the US had they known it.
Watch the 5 minutes Video, very interesting
Ron Paul – Todays Conversation was nothing but War Propaganda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0A9wtdDj24&feature=player_embedded
The Nobel Peace Laureate who is temporarily managing the Death State is now pushing hard for even more sanctions on the Iranians for the crime of … developing a nuclear energy program as allowed by international treaty and inspected to a fare-thee-well by international observers.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25297.htm
It is a dismaying reflection that the facilitators of major violence thus far in the 21st century have been lies told by democratic governments. The lies are continuing to be told, about the supposed “existential” menace posed by Iran to Israel, America and (if you believe some European leaders) Western Europe … Injustice and lies in the Middle East were responsible for unnecessary new wars in the new century, in which the United States took the lead. This time the lies were ideologically motivated and expedient lies—first, that Saddam Hussein bore responsibility for the September 2001 attacks on United States. He did not.
Next was the fiction that Hussein’s government, during the period of U.N. sanctions before 2003, was able to secretly construct nuclear weapons, despite the efforts of Western intelligence to detect them or deter him, and the presence of U.N. inspectors. There were no such weapons. …
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reportedly sent a secret letter to President Barack Obama in January reviewing the military options available if diplomacy and the new American attempt to intensify international sanctions on Iran fail to produce the desired halt in Iran’s effort, if that is what it is, to build a nuclear deterrent. If Iran does pursue a nuclear capability, once again it is to deter attack. Precisely the same objection exists to theories of Iranian aggression as to those lies put forward in 2002-03 about Iraq posing a nuclear menace to the world. Once more, the threat is a polemical invention, intended to frighten American and Israeli (and European) voters and to prompt a preemptive attack on Iran …
Turkey has a much more sensible policy toward Iran than does the US. Writing in the Wall Street Journal today, Gerald Seib argued that more sanctions are needed to bring Iran back to the negotiating table! What total crap! Not a hint from Seib, to his readers, that Iran has had counter-offers on the table for many months now. Typical distorted commentary from the WSJ.