The downing of Russia’s Su-24 bomber by the Turkish Air
Force is “one of the nightmare scenarios that military planners had envisaged
as a result of Moscow’s decision to enter the conflict,” reports The Financial
Times. In turn, The Washington Post believes that “NATO faced being thrust into
a new Middle Eastern crisis… The incident marked a serious escalation in the
Syrian conflict that is likely to further strain relations between Russia and
the NATO alliance.” The Guardian argues that we’ve witnessed “a nerve-jangling
event, that raised the spectre of a direct confrontation between two large
powers: one a Nato member, the other nuclear-armed”.
While it’s clear that neither Russia nor NATO wants to go to
war against each other, each side is trying to deal with the situation and
identify the reasons that provoked the recent crisis and, what’s even more
important, to establish who’s at fault.
In this context one cannot help but remember a short report
that was published by the Daily Star, citing unnamed sources in the UK
government. According to this report all NATO pilots were given clearance to
attack “unfriendly” Russian planes if perceived to “threaten the lives” of
NATO’s military personnel. For this reason all RAF aircraft were equipped with
short-range “air-to-air” missiles, which are to be fired at Russian fighters.
However, to resolve the difficult crisis that followed the
destruction of the Russian Su-24 quickly, the West is now searching for those
“guilty” of this blatant attack, which is, without a doubt, the Turkish leader
– Tayyip Erdogan. It seems that NATO states are not afraid to criticize Turkey
for its actions against Russia. Vice-Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany and the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) Sigmar
Gabriel expressed harsh criticism of Turkey after the downing of Russia’s Su-24
bombers by labeling it an “unpredictable player”, reports the German Die Welt.
The members of NATO fear that the “impulsive actions” of
Turkey’s President will force them into a new major conflict, and NATO is not
prepared to fight it yet. These “impulsive actions” may trigger the response
that is required by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. No wonder Hollande,
while declaring war against ISIL, made no reference of Article 5, by quoting
the EU Lisbon Treaty instead.
France is convinced that once the “Muslim Brotherhood” came
to power in Turkey, headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become a major
headache for Western politicians, says Le Figaro. According to its journalists,
Turkey used to be an ally of the West, however, it is nothing of the kind
anymore. Relations with Turkey took a U-turn once Erdogan started
systematically “undermining” Turkey’s strategic relations with Israel which
were stable since 1949. Anti-Turkish sentiments in the West were aggravated
even further by the games Erdogan had been playing during the “Arab Spring”,
when he first became a close friend of Bashar al-Assad, and then stabbed him in
the back by allowing jihadists from around the world to swarm into Syria by
crossing through Turkey’s territory. When the sworn enemies of Erdogan – local
Kurds were dying in a heroic defense of the city of Kobani, Turkey did nothing
to relieve their suffering, waiting for Western countries to save the
population of the city instead.
In this context it’s curious what the former NATO commander
of Europe, Ret. General Wesley Clark, has been saying about Turkey : “Let’s be
very clear: ISIL is not just a terrorist organization, it is a Sunni terrorist
organization. It means it blocks and targets Shia, and that means it’s serving
the interests of Turkey and Saudi Arabia even as it poses a threat to them All
along there’s always been the idea that Turkey was supporting ISIS in some way…
Someone’s buying that oil that ISIL is selling, it’s going through somewhere.
It looks to me like it’s probably going through Turkey, but the Turks have
never acknowledged it.” Here’s the reason why Russia was stabbed in the back by
a NATO member country.
Once Russia began military operations against ISIL in Syria,
Ankara’s relations with Washington started deteriorating rapidly. The situation
we have on our hands now is further complicated by the fact that it was
“defenseless” Turkomans who were shooting Russian pilots as they descended with
parachutes, along with bringing down a Russian helicopter that was sent to
rescue the pilots. All the recent NATO meetings have been stained by concerns
that the Turkish agenda in Syria has little to do with the position of the
West. Now that Erdogan’s arrogance has become apparent to everyone, even though
he allowed the US Air Force to use a base in Turkey’s territory, he has also
been launching attacks against Syrian Kurds that remain the most faithful
allies of Washington in the fight against ISIL.
It is, therefore, hardly surprising that a retired US Major
General Paul Vallely accused the Turkish government of an attempt to create a
new Ottoman Empire. According to him, due to all well-known facts of Ankara’s
assistance to the Islamic State, Turkey should be expelled from NATO.
The Washington Times is also questioning Turkey as a member
state of NATO, while underlying that the attack on the Russian Su-24 makes this
debate particularly relevant and timely. The newspaper notes that Ankara has
been providing ISIL units with close air support when the latter was fighting
Kurds in Syria and Iraq. Its journalists are convinced that Turkey has been
turned into a theocratic Islamist dictatorship, where the freedom of the press
is gradually been destroyed.
The conservative American Thinker goes even further by
claiming it’s about time to replace Turkey with Russia in NATO, since the West
has more in common with Russia than with the Islamist Turkey. To support this
position, the magazine notes that when Turkey joined NATO back in February
1952, the advocates of this step argued that they need an Islamic state to
prevent Soviet expansion in the region from happening. But it’s clear that this
was a deal with the devil. After all, it was the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in
1974 that broke the alliance apart, forcing Greece to withdraw its troop from
under NATO command. In 2012, Syria shot down a Turkish fighter since it was
deliberately violating its airspace. Later that same year, Turkey bombarded
government facilities in Syria.
For decades, Turkey has used NATO membership, in order to
achieve its own objectives, which, as a rule, do not coincide with the
interests of the alliance. In the early 2000s, Turkey chose to demonstrate its
support of Islamism, which has always been a more serious threat to the West
than the Soviet Union. Therefore, it seems that the American Thinker has
expressed the opinion of a larger part of the western public, by urging NATO to
get in an alliance with Russia against Islamism, including the “Islamic state
of Turkey.”
Martin Berger is a Czech-based freelance journalist and
analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook
First appeared:
http://journal-neo.org/2015/11/27/the-west-wants-turkey-out/
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