Time to Rethink Turkey, the Sick Man of NATO | Opinion
N ATO is arguably the most profound and consequential alliance in modern times. An attack on one is an attack on all, states Article 5 of NATO 's founding document. But beyond the pact of collective defense, the NATO charter represents something deeper: a shared worldview, strategy, and vision for peace. But a closer examination of Turkey, NATO's increasingly unreliable ally, suggests something very different.
Recent world events have offered a stark reminder the evil exists in the world. On Oct. 7, more than 1,000 Hamas terrorists breeched into Israel by land and air and murdered over 1,200 innocents in a shockingly barbaric assault that would do ISIS proud. The Hamas hordes dismembered and burned babies, raped and sliced the bellies of pregnant women, mowed down entire families in their homes, and dragged scores of children and elderly back into Gaza as human pawns.
Most civilized observers were left in shock by the carnage, unreservedly condemned the barbarism, and voiced support for Israel's right to uproot the Hamas terror mafia. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, criticized the Jewish state and justified the brutality of the Hamas assailants.
Erdogan's refusal to condemn the perpetrators of single bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust continues a long and ignoble history of his providing aid, comfort, and refuge to Hamas. Not only is Hamas dedicated to the destruction of Israel, but also to the disruption of any currents toward peace in the Middle East.
Now consider events that preceded the Hamas massacre by less than three weeks. On September 19, salvos of Azerbaijani bombs destroyed the Armenian Christian exclave, Nagorno-Karabakh, after its captive citizens were subjected to an Azerbaijani blockade for nearly 10 months, an event that international legal experts widely recognized as genocide.
The Armenian-populated exclave has a long and complex history. Despite being the indigenous home of Armenians for millennia, the Soviet Union gifted the parcel to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, resulting in a simmering dispute when communism collapsed some three decades ago. Since then, it had operated as a fiercely embattled, self-governing Armenian entity.
Within days of the September 2023 Azerbaijani attack, almost all 120,000 of Nagorno-Karabakh's indigenous Armenians fled for their lives to neighboring Armenia, thus consummating the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Armenian exclave.
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They say there is no mechanism to remove a country from NATO.
I would suggest that they write and pass one.
Turkey and Hungry have become more of adversaries than allies, both are once again threatening to keep Sweden out of NATO.
In a NATO conflict involving Russia I think it's a pretty good bet Erdogan and Turkey would side with Russia.
Sadly, Doc that well may be true.
If Turkey wasn't so necessary for military access to the ME we'd already have pressed sanctions on them until they went back to a more secular governmental world view. As it is Edrogan walks the line between various world factions trying to keep himself politically important. He courts Russia and other Arab nations until the West reigns him back in. It similar with Orban. They both try to play all sides.
That is true, evilone, and one of these days he is going to take a step too far.
he's already had one close call. I'm thinking he's quite a few million heartbeats short of seeing the ottoman empire reconstituted. another strong-arm leader that hires somebody to taste his food.
He has taken Turkey from a secular country to one that backs Hamas. Hopefully he doesn't have much time left as PM of Turkey.
in reality, he's one unguarded moment and a sweet tea away from a cedar box.
Erdogan backs Hamas and accuses Israel of attempting genocide. This from the man whom he and his country have refused any historical responsibility for the Armenian genocide of over a century ago and continue to this day denying that it ever happened.
One million Armenians died in the genocide and there is the Kurds you he has been trying to crush for years.
Issues such as these always come from nationalist conservative hardliners. This is why we fight them at home as much as we fight them around the world.
I cant exactly put my finger on it, but I have never trusted Turkey. It seems to be a place of endless intrigue.
Turkey knows full well that as long as they control the strategic Bosporous and Dardanelles Straits they have NATO by the short hairs.
They do have a hole card there but then again when inflation is running at over 50% things can crash from the inside, Doc.
True.
I have no time for that bastard. He has truly engaged in ethnic cleansing and still refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide. He pretends to be modern but would love to have what Turkey had 150 years ago.
How do you really feel about him?
I agree he is no ally and is completely untrustworthy.
I don't remember the exact circumstances but a while back while Erdogan was in DC, his bodyguards beat the crap out of somebody they thought got too close to Erdogan. He just stood there and watched with a meh kind of look. He just walked away with zero consequences from anyone.
I believe the bodyguards got diplomatic immunity, but I might be remembering wrong.
Pretty sure you are correct on that the more I think about it.
If I remember correctly they did not have immunity and Congress voted overwhelming to press charges against them but by that time they were all back in Turkey.
Actually it wasn't one person but a large number and they were not close to him more than 100 feet away.