Euro-Centric?
Well, in percpetion, at least, which is what's intended, given the push on these days to get Turkey into the EU.

It being a benefit to US policy is altogether dependant on what you perceive US policy to be as regards the EU, as well as visa versa.

Even if it Turkey does become more Eurocentric, that's a hell of a lot better than it becoming more radical Islamic. The US wants Turkey in the EU to solidify the reformers. If the EU rejects the reformers, two things could happen: (1) the military could come back into play again and make the country more pro-US or (2) it would reject the modernist reforms and move toward a more fundamentalist form of Islam. Given the latter possibility, I would rather see it in the EU.

If this change is genuine, it makes Turkey more democratic -- but it would also make Turkey a more "Eurocentric" country.

That "but" is an odd comment - Turkey being more Eurocentric (as opposed to Middle East/Islam-centric) would be a good thing, period.

I would have said: "but it might also reflect the Turkish military's willingness to allow the country to become less secular and more Islamic."

Now, THAT would be a serious "but".

More democratic and lawful is ultimately always better for America. Havent we learned that lesson yet?

Also note that the price of Turkey typically increases in Nov.

Though, as we learned a couple of years ago, it can be pretty high in February and March

THIS is actually the kind of story news organizations should sit on until after the election, when serious people are more likely to read it rather than just skim for the next-Tuesday implications.

More democratic and lawful is ultimately always better for America. Havent we learned that lesson yet?

a good point, but In my case, that lesson got tempered with what we see of the EU member states involved with such as Iraq, the PLO, and Syria.

I will wonder openly... does their membership in the EU, which has shown itself to be corruptable and anti-American..(Can YOU say, Oil for Food? Can YOU say, arms sales by Russia and France?) really give us any benefit at all, if we can't realy trust the EU?

The EU is amazingly undemocratic, everything about it attempts to subborn democracy as much as possible. Its no coincidence that the closer Europeans get to submiting to their EU overlords, the less friendly they become to American interests and values.

I believe that Turkey will retain its strategic relationship with Israel so long as Turkey's primary foreign concerns are the destabilizing influences from its southern and eastern borders.

The U.S., on the other hand, becomes highly dispensible once Turkey joins the EU.

Still, I agree it is a net benefit to U.S. foreign policy even though we lose an "ally" in the process.

>>>>>>>>>>>
The EU is amazingly undemocratic, everything about it attempts to subborn democracy as much as possible. Its no coincidence that the closer Europeans get to submiting to their EU overlords, the less friendly they become to American interests and values.

This post confuses me. It seems to imply the more democratic a European country is, the more friendly it is to US. But the publics of many/most/all European countries are furious at and skeptical of the US. Britain's alliance with the US is the exception that proves the rule, since Tony Blair had such a huge majority he could afford to take risks and ignore public sentiment.

"It seems to imply the more democratic a European country is, the more friendly it is to US."

The more friendly they are to US interests. Not to be confused with 'liking' us. And as I said, the more socoialist and quasi-fascist Europeans have become, the less friendly they have become to US interests.

"But the publics of many/most/all European countries are furious at and skeptical of the US."

What else is new? Europeans were furious/skeptical of the Reagan administration but supported US interests by and large. We will see the actual level of opposition to US aims increase as the EU gains control. As we have seen in the Middle East especially, lack of economic, political, and social freedom results in frustration often channeled outwards. That the US and Israel garner the shared hatred of Arabs and Euros is not a coincidence, they are growing increasingly alike.

If you look at what the Euros you are talking about support these days (Arafat, soc-ialism, pacifism, world government) its little wonder they hate us. It means we're on the right track. International diplomacy isnt a popularity contest.

Dan Drezner wrote:

"If this change is genuine, it makes Turkey more democratic -- but it would also make Turkey a more "Eurocentric" country, as the country bends over backwards to gain entry into the European Union"

Bending over might be the more appropriate descriptor. Particularly if the French view prevails on EU entry requirements.

Offer the Turks membership in NAFTA, just for laughs.

Good post, Dan

Insider stuff: So "EuroCentric" in fact, that it looks like they'll be abandoning their own industrial/military complex" goals of a domestic Tank program for purchasing Leopard Re-builds from Germany. That's the vibe we're getting from the industry types - their should be something to read on it in Jane's, AFJI or Defense Weekly in the next couple of weeks.

A victory of accomodation and budgets over an, admittedly, show-horse program - at least now-a-days, but times were, you weren't nobody unless you had your own Tank.

Witness the resources spent by India and Iran when plenty of suitables are available - or fopr the matter, the LeClerc...

I never heard of a domestic tank program, it was said they'll could get some improved Israeli tank based in M-60 but not the more advanced Merkava.
There is a big possibilty that Leopards will be second hand and be upgraded, there are hundreds of them in depots. Leclerc will be new. I dont see it in Turkey.

Mark,

Being an ex-pat American living in Europe for ten years now, I can only thank you and tell you how right you are about Europeans, especially their indefensible support for that horrific tyrant Yasser Arafat. What’s hilarious is that if you mention it to them all they do is whine about how he was actually democratically elected by the Palestinian people to be their leader. Can you believe this garbage? Is there no shame in these Euroweanies to lie like that?

I tell them that they have to get with the Democracy program and follow America’s lead and start supporting the true rock stars of global democracy.

King Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia
King Abdallah II of Jordan
President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak of Egypt
General Pervez Musharraff of Pakistan
King Mohammad VI of Moccoco
President Islom Karimov of Uzbekistan

Only when the Europeans get behind these humanitarian giants and tireless champions of democracy will they ever atone for their crime against humanity in supporting Arafat.

If they would only study a little history they would know that during the entire post-WW2 era America has been shown steely resolve in its unwavering crusade for that simple Jeffersonian idea that the people should rule. Just look at this list of luminaries that American has supported, these are all proud members of the Democracy Hall of Fame:

The Shah of Iran
Pinochet in Chile
Suharto in Indonesia
Marcos in the Philippines
Somoza Jr. and Sr. in Nicaragua
Garrastazú Médici in Brazil
Videla in Argentina
P.W. Botha in South Africa
Bautista in Cuba
Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier in Haiti
Noriega in Panama
Trujillo in the Dominican Republic
Cerezo in Guatemala
Cordova in Hondoras
Stroessner in Paraguay
Diem in Vietnam
Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan
Park Chung Hee in South Korea
Abacha in Nigeria
Franco in Spain
Mobutu in Zaire
Ozal in Turkey
Papadopoulos in Greece
Pol Pot in Cambodia
Salazar in Portugal
Smith in Rhodesia

This list is undisputable proof of America’s endearing and unshakable belief in the transformational power of democracy. It sickens me to see Europeans making a mockery of democracy by supporting Arafat, and I am so proud of you Mark for having the wherewithal to call them on it.

Kevin-

Well put

Matt-

Thanks

Well, Kevin, interesting diatribe. However I dont think you want to match historical scenarios of who supported which dictator when between France et al and the US. You may recall it was the French and British decolonization policies that set up most of the brutes you just mentioned. The Europeans arent in bed with all the folks you mentioned? Plus Castro, the Mullahs, and previsosly Hussein who at the very least the US has had some measure of ethics to abhor?

Aside from Israel, who we all know to be the absolute most evil and immoral nation on earth (witness more UN resolutions of condemnation than every other nation put together), what nations have the French or Germans condemned/ cut off relations with? Was it Americans that set up a fake hijacking to let the Munich gunmen (Arafats buddies) walk? Has it been America blindly financing Arafats terror machine?

Living happilly in Europe, I suppose you have spent reems of time examing the proposed EU constitution. Are you comfortable with the representation process? Is it a good sign when EU honchos are urging _not_ submitting it to national referendums? Good luck with your elitist EU masters. If Arafats buddies decide not to blast them to peices. Its probably all Israels fault anyway.

(tips hat to Mark)

Kevin, I followed most of your sarcastic message, but Pol Pot? Did we support Pol Pot? It seemed to me we were mostly opposing him, though I could amagine us giving temporary aid when the vietnamese invaded on the assumption that anybody who fought against vietnam couldn't be all bad. Anyway, I didn't keep track and missed that one.

Also I have to agree with Mark's criticism. Europeans have supported governments just as bad about their own client states, and they mostly criticise us when it's our client states.

And he's right that a lot of the bad guys who ran our client states were running client states for europeans first. We kind of inherited some of their empires. So it isn't unreasonable to say they're almost as hypocritical as we are, since they used to do all the same bad things we're doing now.

Kevin, I followed most of your sarcastic message, but Pol Pot? Did we support Pol Pot? It seemed to me we were mostly opposing him, though I could amagine us giving temporary aid when the vietnamese invaded on the assumption that anybody who fought against vietnam couldn't be all bad. Anyway, I didn't keep track and missed that one.

Also I have to agree with Mark's criticism. Europeans have supported governments just as bad about their own client states, and they mostly criticise us when it's our client states.

And he's right that a lot of the bad guys who ran our client states were running client states for europeans first. We kind of inherited some of their empires. So it isn't unreasonable to say they're almost as hypocritical as we are, since they used to do all the same bad things we're doing now.

Nowhere in my sarcastic comment did I imply that Europeans are any less (or more) likely to support tyrants that the US. In fact, I just watched “The Battle of Algiers” yesterday and I am something of an avid reader of French history so I hardly think I am naïve enough to much such a false comparison. Many of the torture techniques the French developed in Algeria were directly exported to South America.

That said, please name one dictator on my list that we inherited from European colonialism. Most of those names are from the Americas, so it is kind of hard to blame them on Europe. With Diem I suppose you could almost make a case, but that just points out our post-WW2 folly of supporting European colonialism instead of helping to fight it. Ho Chi Minh included portions of the American Declaration of Independence when he declared Vietnam free in 1945, in response we chose to back France and by 1954 were paying 90% of the war costs in Indochine. We left the Third World with a pretty stark choice: colonialism or communism.

We set the conditions for Pol Pot’s rise to power by foolishly bombing Cambodia (killing 500,000 civilians) back to the Stone Age. You are correct though that it was only after the Vietnamese invasion that we really supported him.

The point of my comment to Mark was that people in glass houses should not throw stones. Another reason for my comment is that—even though Mark has wisely said that we need to dump the tyrants and support democracy—he continues to deny the incredibly anti-Democratic tendencies within US foreign policy and mocks the democratic choices other make. Europeans want so****ism, they support the Palestinians, they prefer peace to war, and they want good global governance. They express these ideas democratically through the governments they elect. It is not America’s duty to embark on a messianic neo-liberal crusade to make the world just like we are. Mark represents a segment of the population that is so intolerant to differences that the only other countries that many of these people identify with is Israel and sometimes, maybe Britain.

As for the EU (my wife is a eurocrat there) it is stuck in the ether between being a nation state and an international organization. It is far more democratic than most international organizations but far less democratic than any of the European nation states. The new constitution is indeed not worth the paper it is written on, IMO they should have taken the US constitution—sans the Second Amendment and the Electoral College—and called it a day.

The best and only long-term weapon long-term America has to fight the disease of militant Islam is Democracy. The condition sina qua non for scum like bin Laden to breed and multiply is the cesspool of tyranny that we find in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. But for America to ever lead a drive to democratize these countries we must—like an alcoholic must recognize his weakness for drink—come to terms with our distinctly undemocratic preference for dictators and despots, before we can ever start to take the steps necessary to prepare these countries for democracy. We must come clean about the fact that in at least four cases, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Brazil 1964 and Chile 1973 we actively overthrew democratically elected governments because we saw these governments as not being pro-American—or more precisely—not pro-American business enough for our tastes. The recent events in Venezuela, where we backed an attempted coup against Hugo Chavez, show that we have not at all exorcized these tendencies from our body politic. The notion that America can snuff out democracy with impunity is going to lead to our defeat in the war against militant Islam, for even if we succeed in wiping out al-Qaida to the last man—just as the French totally wiped out the FLN from Algiers in 1957—it is only a matter of time before al Qaida II and al Qaida III emerge from the breeding grounds of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. The symptom is militant Islam, the disease is despotic American-baked dictators.

Note: I am not able to submit unless I use So****ism, I have no idea why

Support for Pol Pot was considerably more explicit than "setting the conditions". After the Vietnamese invasion that overthrew Pol Pot, the US continued to recognise his regime, refused UN seating for the new government and backed the anti-Vietnamese insurgency, for which the Khmer Rouge provided the main fighting force (the royalist component provided a fig leaf through which aid could be channeled).

John,

You are absolutely correct; I meant to cover that with the following sentence:

You are correct though that it was only after the Vietnamese invasion that we really supported him.

This was of course after Pol Pot killed 1,500,000 people that we decided he was better than the Vietnamese. Now I am all for the integrity of borders and it is clear that at some point the Vietnamese needed to withdraw but it wasn’t like they were looking to create a Greater Vietnam or that they thought their God had promised them that land, they went there to stop the slaughter.

BTW why can't I post with the word "soci*lism" included?

Kevin, we inherited indonesia from the british, though Suharto came in our time. I might make a couple of other doubtful cases but I mostly have to concede your point. Maybe I could find some better examples that aren't on your list but it isn't worth it, you're mostly right regardless.

I tend to disagree that democracy is a necessary or sufficient defense against militant islam. I figure that when the time is ripe for an idea, people run with that idea. Right now militant islam is a compelling idea and if muslims choose to run with it, democracy just gives them a method. Some people have suggested that setting up consumerist societies in arab nations would help, but the world doesn't have enough oil for that. Not until we get plentiful alternative energy.

Anyway, for the american defense industry militant islam is not a problem, it's a solution. When the USSR fell we had no credible enemy. We wound up doing as much military spending as the rest of the world put together with no enemy to justify it. Islamic terrorists give us an enemy who doesn't need to spend much money, a much better enemy than our only reasonable alternative enemies, the EU and china.

We can't possibly solve the problem of militant islam until we find a better solution to the problem of finding a credible enemy.

I wish I could say all this with an air of sarcasm. I'd much rather not believe it.

Oh, the way I understand it, a prolific spammer posts with a name that includes many of the letters in soc.... starting with the c. I gather it's a message like "Refinance your home....". The spam filter that blocks that automated posting also blocks the word soc.... .