By Jim Lobe
Israel's raid on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship may have caused an outcry in many countries. Among American neo-conservatives it is Turkey that has come under attack.
The right-wing leadership of the organized US Jewish community defends Israel against international condemnation for its deadly seizure of a flotilla bearing humanitarian supplies for Gaza. Meanwhile neo-conservative hawks are going on the offensive against what they see as the flotilla's chief defender, Turkey.
Trukish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's has repeatedly denounced the May 31 Israeli raid and co-sponsored an agreement with Brazil to promote renewed negotiations with the West on Tehran's nuclear program. Some neo-conservatives are even demanding that the US try to expel Ankara from NATO. Of course, Israel is not a member of NATO.
"Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran," noted the latest report by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a hard-line neo-conservative group that promotes US-Israeli military ties and has historically had close ties to Turkey's military, as well.
JINSA's board of advisers includes many prominent champions of the 2003 Iraq invasion, including former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey, and former UN ambassador John Bolton.
'Ingrained hostility'
Neo-conservative publications, notably The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard and the National Review, have also been firing away at the AKP government since the raid.
"Turkey now represents a major element in the global panorama of radical Islam," declared the Standard's Stephen Schwartz, while Daniel Pipes, the controversial director of the Likudist Middle East Forum (MEF), echoed JINSA's call for ousting Ankara from NATO and urged Washington to provide direct support for Turkey's opposition parties in an article published by the National Review Online.
The Journal has been running editorials and op-eds attacking Turkey on virtually a daily basis since the raid, accusing its government, among other things, of having "an ingrained hostility toward the Jewish state, remarkable sympathies for nearby radical regimes, and an attitude toward extremist groups like the IHH (the Islamist group that sponsored the flotilla's flagship, the Mavi Marmara) that borders on complicity".
Meanwhile, in an op-ed published by The Forward, a Jewish weekly, Michael Rubin, a Perle protégé at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), accused Turkey of having "become a conduit for the smuggling of weapons to Israel's enemies", notably Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Backtracking
The onslaught is remarkable because of the neo-conservatives' long cultivation of Turkey and their avowed support for promoting democratic governance.
Neo-conservatives were among the most important promoters of the military alliance between Israel and Turkey that began to take shape in the late 1980s and was consolidated by the mid-1990s. Those days are now over particularly after Israel recently insulated a Turkish envoy.
Richard Perle and another of his protégés, former undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, worked as paid lobbyists for Turkey during that period, in major part to persuade the powerful "Israel Lobby" to promote Ankara's interests on Capitol Hill.
Disappointment
Despite its close links to both the US and Israel, however, the Turkish military badly disappointed the neo-cons in the run-up to Washington's invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Instead of insisting that the civilian government at the time grant US requests to use Turkish territory as a major launching pad into northern Iraq, the armed forces decided to defer to overwhelming parliamentary and public opposition to the invasion.
Erdogan, who became prime minister just a week before the invasion and whose political and economic reforms have been widely praised in the West, at first sought good relations with Israel. As late as 2007, he arranged for Shimon Peres to become the first Israeli president to address the Turkish parliament.
By then, however, many neo-cons had become concerned about Erdogan's efforts to weaken the military's power, his warm reception of a top Hamas leader in 2005, criticism of Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah in 2006, and rapprochement with Syria.
When the military not so subtly threatened to intervene against Erdogan and the AKP in 2007, some neo-cons, notably Perle, suggested that the US should not try to discourage it. Others, including The Standard's Schwartz and Pipes, encouraged it as the lesser of two evils, even as The Journal defended the AKP as "more democratic than the secularists".
Since Erdogan's furious denunciation of Israel, and Peres personally, at the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) after Israel's Cast Lead operation in Gaza, however, neo-cons of virtually all stripes such as those, like The Journal's editorial writers, have turned against Ankara. And the flotilla incident, combined with Erdogan's perceived defense of Iran's nuclear programme, has raised their animus to new heights.
". . . A neo-Ottoman ideology that envisions Turkey as a great power in the Middle East have made Turkey a state that is often plainly hostile not only to Israel but to American aims and interests," wrote Eliot Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, in a Journal op-ed on Monday.
Rightardia comment: The Turkey Armed Forces (TAF) is huge. The Turkish military is well-trained and rugged and could be compared to the ROK army. The TAF, with a combined troop strength of around 1,041,900 soldiers (including reserves and paramilitary forces), is the second largest standing force in NATO after the United States.
The Israelis would be smart to stop tugging on Superman's cape. Israel has had their way with lesser Muslim armies, but if Turkey entered the next Islamic War against Israel, Israel would be pushed to the brink. Since Turkey is a NATO member, any Middle East war that Turkey participated in would fracture NATO.
Neo-conservatives would be smart to maintain low tones.
Published under an agreement with IPS.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
source: GALLO/GETTY and Al Jazeera
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Israel's raid on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship may have caused an outcry in many countries. Among American neo-conservatives it is Turkey that has come under attack.
The right-wing leadership of the organized US Jewish community defends Israel against international condemnation for its deadly seizure of a flotilla bearing humanitarian supplies for Gaza. Meanwhile neo-conservative hawks are going on the offensive against what they see as the flotilla's chief defender, Turkey.
Trukish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's has repeatedly denounced the May 31 Israeli raid and co-sponsored an agreement with Brazil to promote renewed negotiations with the West on Tehran's nuclear program. Some neo-conservatives are even demanding that the US try to expel Ankara from NATO. Of course, Israel is not a member of NATO.
"Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran," noted the latest report by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a hard-line neo-conservative group that promotes US-Israeli military ties and has historically had close ties to Turkey's military, as well.
JINSA's board of advisers includes many prominent champions of the 2003 Iraq invasion, including former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey, and former UN ambassador John Bolton.
'Ingrained hostility'
Neo-conservative publications, notably The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard and the National Review, have also been firing away at the AKP government since the raid.
"Turkey now represents a major element in the global panorama of radical Islam," declared the Standard's Stephen Schwartz, while Daniel Pipes, the controversial director of the Likudist Middle East Forum (MEF), echoed JINSA's call for ousting Ankara from NATO and urged Washington to provide direct support for Turkey's opposition parties in an article published by the National Review Online.
The Journal has been running editorials and op-eds attacking Turkey on virtually a daily basis since the raid, accusing its government, among other things, of having "an ingrained hostility toward the Jewish state, remarkable sympathies for nearby radical regimes, and an attitude toward extremist groups like the IHH (the Islamist group that sponsored the flotilla's flagship, the Mavi Marmara) that borders on complicity".
Meanwhile, in an op-ed published by The Forward, a Jewish weekly, Michael Rubin, a Perle protégé at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), accused Turkey of having "become a conduit for the smuggling of weapons to Israel's enemies", notably Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Backtracking
The onslaught is remarkable because of the neo-conservatives' long cultivation of Turkey and their avowed support for promoting democratic governance.
Neo-conservatives were among the most important promoters of the military alliance between Israel and Turkey that began to take shape in the late 1980s and was consolidated by the mid-1990s. Those days are now over particularly after Israel recently insulated a Turkish envoy.
Richard Perle and another of his protégés, former undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, worked as paid lobbyists for Turkey during that period, in major part to persuade the powerful "Israel Lobby" to promote Ankara's interests on Capitol Hill.
Disappointment
Despite its close links to both the US and Israel, however, the Turkish military badly disappointed the neo-cons in the run-up to Washington's invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Instead of insisting that the civilian government at the time grant US requests to use Turkish territory as a major launching pad into northern Iraq, the armed forces decided to defer to overwhelming parliamentary and public opposition to the invasion.
Erdogan, who became prime minister just a week before the invasion and whose political and economic reforms have been widely praised in the West, at first sought good relations with Israel. As late as 2007, he arranged for Shimon Peres to become the first Israeli president to address the Turkish parliament.
By then, however, many neo-cons had become concerned about Erdogan's efforts to weaken the military's power, his warm reception of a top Hamas leader in 2005, criticism of Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah in 2006, and rapprochement with Syria.
When the military not so subtly threatened to intervene against Erdogan and the AKP in 2007, some neo-cons, notably Perle, suggested that the US should not try to discourage it. Others, including The Standard's Schwartz and Pipes, encouraged it as the lesser of two evils, even as The Journal defended the AKP as "more democratic than the secularists".
Since Erdogan's furious denunciation of Israel, and Peres personally, at the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) after Israel's Cast Lead operation in Gaza, however, neo-cons of virtually all stripes such as those, like The Journal's editorial writers, have turned against Ankara. And the flotilla incident, combined with Erdogan's perceived defense of Iran's nuclear programme, has raised their animus to new heights.
". . . A neo-Ottoman ideology that envisions Turkey as a great power in the Middle East have made Turkey a state that is often plainly hostile not only to Israel but to American aims and interests," wrote Eliot Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, in a Journal op-ed on Monday.
Rightardia comment: The Turkey Armed Forces (TAF) is huge. The Turkish military is well-trained and rugged and could be compared to the ROK army. The TAF, with a combined troop strength of around 1,041,900 soldiers (including reserves and paramilitary forces), is the second largest standing force in NATO after the United States.
The Israelis would be smart to stop tugging on Superman's cape. Israel has had their way with lesser Muslim armies, but if Turkey entered the next Islamic War against Israel, Israel would be pushed to the brink. Since Turkey is a NATO member, any Middle East war that Turkey participated in would fracture NATO.
Neo-conservatives would be smart to maintain low tones.
Published under an agreement with IPS.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
source: GALLO/GETTY and Al Jazeera
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
Netcraft rank: 13506 http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://rightardia.blogspot.com
trueky
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