The West Is in Denial over Turkey

Last week, I criticized Israel’s schizophrenia toward Turkey. But Israel is far ahead the rest of the West, where outright denial still reigns. Three reports this week highlighted Turkey’s growing role as an international problem child, yet Western governments seem oblivious.

One, which Jennifer cited yesterday, is the news that Turkey is deliberately undermining new sanctions on Iran by boosting its own gasoline exports to the mullahs. As this report notes, the sanctions were actually having an impact: “Iran’s gasoline imports fell 50 percent last month as sanctions spurred traders to halt supplies, according to Energy Market Consultants Ltd.” But Turkey moved quickly to fill the breach and has already become one of Iran’s top two suppliers (the other being China).

Western countries have repeatedly asserted that a nuclear Iran would be disastrous, but so would military action against Tehran. That means they have a vital interest in the success of sanctions because they have no Plan B. Yet Turkey has now openly pledged to do its best to make sanctions fail — and the Western response has been a deafening silence.
Then there is Corriere della Serra’s report that Turkey plans to ship arms to Hezbollah. This, too, directly undercuts a professed Western interest, that of preventing another Mideast war. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the better armed Hezbollah is, the more confident it will feel about launching military assaults on Israel — and eventually, Israel will have to respond.

Moreover, aside from the quantitative boost they would give Hezbollah, Turkish arms could provide a major qualitative boost, as Turkey has access to all the most sophisticated NATO weaponry. This means that any new Israel-Hezbollah war would be far more devastating than the last because Israel would be forced to use more of its own capabilities to counter Hezbollah’s bigger, more sophisticated arsenal.

Western intelligence agencies reportedly “view the Turkish-Iranian plot with concern.” But Western governments haven’t uttered a peep.

Finally, there is Der Spiegel’s report that the Turks have used chemical weapons against the Kurds. German experts have deemed the evidence credible, and some German politicians, to their credit, are demanding an international investigation. Yet the German government has declined to take any diplomatic action, and other Western countries have been similarly mute.

Given the West’s professed concern for human rights, one might think it would be bothered by a NATO member adopting Saddam Hussein’s tactics. But where Turkey is concerned, it would apparently rather shut its eyes.

The accumulating evidence all points to the same conclusion: Turkey has switched its allegiance from the West to the radical axis led by Iran. And it seems doubtful that any Western action could reverse this shift totally. But because Turkey still needs the West in many ways, a strong Western response probably could at least moderate its behavior.
Instead, Ankara has able to undermine Western interests ever more blatantly without the West exacting any penalties whatsoever. And as long as Turkey can keep spurning the West cost-free, its slide toward Iran will only accelerate.