What can I say, I’m not a big fan.
I used to be a bigger fan of this Turkey:
patara-beach-turkey
Then they started with the latest round of anti-Israel attacks and now I’m not a fan of that Turkey either.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Photo courtesy of Sinan Unur
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I believe the best part of the nineties was the cooperation among the Israel, Turkey, and the U.S. in the Middle East. It is hard to pinpoint a specific factor in the detoriation. The social dynamics that brought about the AKP government are part of it, but that cannot tell the whole story.
IMHO, there is a game of chicken being played in the Middle East. In this game, the current U.S. administration is giving all the signs that they would like to avoid confrontation no matter what. Which, as anyone who has dealt with bullies knows, only delays the confrontation and allows your opponent to become stronger in the mean time. That creates a somewhat chaotic environment where everyone is trying to figure out a deal to save their own backsides.
In terms of internal forces, I do think Prime Minister Erdogan has been trying to bolster his standing with people whose votes he must get to stay in power. Those people can easily stray to even more radical parties if they do not think Turkey is being sufficiently anti-U.S. and anti-Israel (as strange as it may sound to anyone outside, people in Turkey tend to treat the U.S. and Israel as a unit).
I do think the Game of Chicken provides a good mental model of what we are going through in the world today and I am afraid too many people in the Obama administration are playing the wrong game.
http://blog.qtau.com/2010/04/mr-president-your-experts-are-wrong.html
Interesting. Thanks for the response.
The photo above was taken from my web site at http://www.unur.com/turkey/
You can also find some of my notes on the Free Gaza flotilla issue and my thoughts on the blockade at http://blog.qtau.com/search/label/israel
Sinan, that’s a beautiful image. Thanks for sharing your blog with us, it was interesting to read. I realize you’re in the US now, but it would be interesting to hear from you what you think has happened in the last few years to the Turkish-Israel relationship. It was friendly, and Turkey apparently believed that Israel would be a good strategic partner. These days, it appears the strategic relationship with Iran has become more important. Do you agree?
I dont think Turkey is Anti-Israel, Turkey was anti what happened to the Palestinians in Gaza, & i think any human being with any kind of feelings would agree that killing as many civilians as Israel continues to do is not right! What Israel does is only give the fanatical idiots like Hamas a poduim to stand & recruit from..