Foreign policy wasn’t on the debate agenda last night, but Mitt Romney did say, “What’s happening in the Middle East? There are developments around the world that are of real concern.” Indeed. The latest being that for a second day in a row Turkey has shelled Syria in retaliation for Syrian mortar shells landing in Turkey and killing several people. This is only the latest sign of how the Syrian conflict continues to rage and to spill over Syria’s artificial borders. Yet President Obama seems to be acting as if he could wish the conflict away, presumably because to do anything would be to interfere with his campaign narrative that the “tide of war is receding.”
Though it hardly needs to be said, what is happening in Syria is not only a human-rights disaster but also a very dangerous situation from the standpoint of America’s interests and of America’s allies in the region. It is high time the U.S. and its allies acted more decisively. Yet even as the parliament in Ankara passes a resolution authorizing further military action inside Syria, it is clear that Turkey will not institute a no-fly zone or take other vital steps without American leadership. The region continues to look to Washington for action and instead is met with a “Do Not Disturb” sign. That is pretty disturbing.
Here's a bloody-minded, pinched, small-souled take on that issue. n nAwwwww, is Islamist, Jew-baiting, Kurd-suppressing Turkey being shelled with rockets? Well, Prime Minister Erdogan says that responding to rocket fire with military force is a war crime. Or is that only when Jews respond to Hamas rockets? Maybe the rocketeers are protesting the illegal Turkish "occupation" of Alexandretta–did anyone think of that? n nNATO ally my foot. The United STates helped defend Turkey from the Soviet threat for forty years–that does not create a moral obligation to defend Turkey forever against a much less serious threat of Syrian chaos. Especially since Turkey is of no help at all against the much more serious Iranian threat.
"It is high time the U.S. and its allies acted more decisively." n nWhy? You haven't made the case.
Do we really want the Sunni Islamic Republic of Turkey led by Obama's best friend Erdogan to be the victor in Syrian? Yes is the apparent answer of Max Boot, which is quite worrying since he is an adviser to Mitt Romney, who I hope not only wins the election but literally turns the US State Department upside down by getting rid of all those like Max, always desperately searching for the latest cross-dressed "Muslim moderate" to arm and finance. A much better strategy would be to allow the Sunni and Shiite to address both their high fertility rates and obscurantist hatreds with the blunt weapons of mortar and cannon fire; and if new-imperialist Ottoman Turks are caught up in the cross-fire all the better. Maybe then the too often neglected Kurds, Christians and Druse will have a fighting chance to survive and create a better polity. Certainly, the evidence from Civil War Spain now shows that the liberal wet-dream of backing the Stalinist-controlled anti-fascist Popular Front would not have made for a better or safer world.
Turkey may get into a war with Syria. n nWow, that would be a catastrophic development. n nTap, tap . . .tap . . .sorry. Urgency generator seems broken, n nLet's get together and talk about it in about 18 months.
We've seen Anschluss before, we know how that movie ends. Turkey will soon 'annex' their long lost province and 'reunite' with their heretofore cast away Turkic brethren. In fact it could be worse, it could fall to Iran which would then have a de jure confederacy that stretched from the Mediterranean to Pakistan.
"People" are not being killed in Syria, merely Sunni ans Alawi Moslem Arabs. n nCivilization has no dog in this fight. Let the world see what Arabs do to each other every evening on the nightly news! And if the Turkish leadership want to reassert their hegemony by sending their troops into the Arab inferno, so much the better! n nAmerica, stay out!