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Some Urgent Questions About Turkey

October 14, 2017 by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

Turkey has been a vital ally of the United States since World War II. It fields NATO’s second-largest army, after America’s, and anchors the alliance’s eastern flank. It hosts military bases that are central to American operations in the Middle East, including Incirlik, where some 50 tactical nuclear weapons are stationed, and serves as a bridge between the Muslim world and the West. After Recep Tayyip Erdogan took office in 2003 and began reforms, Turkey seemed on course to becoming a model Muslim democracy.

In recent years, however, the relationship between Turkey and the United States has deteriorated dramatically. Mr. Erdogan has violated basic civil liberties and other democratic norms, is buying a Russian air defense system and is now holding Americans hostage.

Given Mr. Erdogan’s anti-American hostility as well as mounting security concerns, the Trump administration should give serious consideration to removing the United States nuclear weapons in Turkey.

Wait, Turkey is holding Americans hostage ?

Mr. Erdogan, who heads an Islamic political party, has long used America as a whipping boy to divert attention from his political problems. He reached a new low last year by falsely implicating Washington in a failed coup and using a post-coup roundup of alleged enemies to jail about a dozen Americans , some Turks who work at American diplomatic missions in Turkey, foreign nationals and more than 50,000 other Turks. The recent arrest of a Turkish citizen employed by the American consulate in Istanbul heightened tensions, leading both sides to stop issuing non-immigrant visas this week and to curtail travel between the two countries.

What are these people accused of, exactly?

Most of them are accused of ties to the Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen, a one-time Erdogan ally living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania who Turkey says orchestrated the aborted coup. They face long prison sentences.

Legitimate governments have a perfect right to defend against illegal actions like a coup. Still, Mr. Erdogan’s dragnet is indefensible, and the Turkish leader has steadily eroded the rule of law. Last month, he acknowledged what many feared, that he considers the American detainees to be potential bargaining chips in efforts to force the extradition of Mr. Gulen. This is not how allies behave.

Why not agree to extradite Mr. Gulen?

Under American law, there are rules for extradition. The United States is asking Turkey to present credible evidence that Mr. Gulen committed a crime. Turkish authorities have not done that, despite repeated American requests.

Hasn’t President Trump endorsed Mr. Erdogan?

Mr. Trump has a disturbing fondness for authoritarian leaders like Mr. Erdogan, whom he praised as a friend who gets “high marks” for “running a very difficult part of the world.” However, along with Vice President Mike Pence and 78 members of Congress, Mr. Trump has appealed for the release of some of the Americans — with no apparent effect.

Are there other issues?

Yes. After the recent suspensions of non-immigrant visas shook Turkey’s financial markets on Monday, the two sides signaled a willingness to ease tensions, but an American official warned, “We haven’t hit bottom yet.”

Mr. Erdogan is worried about the impending trial in the United States of Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer accused of violating sanctions on Iran, because he is connected to a corruption scandal that almost brought down Mr. Erdogan’s government in 2013. The Turkish leader is further incensed by America’s indictment of 15 of his personal bodyguards after a brawl with protesters in May during his visit to Washington. The two countries are at odds over American support for Kurdish fighters in Syria; Turkey considers those fighters to be terrorists allied with a Kurdish group in Turkey that has waged an insurgency there for 30 years. Washington is concerned that Turkey is distancing itself from NATO, as evidenced by its pro-Russia tilt in the Syrian war and its bid to buy a Russian missile defense system that cannot be integrated with NATO’s defenses.

Why can’t the U.S. simply kick Turkey out of NATO?

NATO has no provision for that, and besides, the United States wants Turkey to stay. Having an influential ally in the Mideast and access to the region is critical. But Mr. Erdogan’s anti-Western behavior is sowing deep mistrust about his commitment to an alliance that is supposed to be based as much on the common values of “democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law” as on a common military defense. So NATO experts are debating Turkey’s future and the wisdom of keeping the tactical nuclear weapons at Incirlik.

Doesn’t it help the U.S. to have nuclear weapons in Turkey?

No. Experts have long worried about the weapons’ security. During the coup attempt last summer, the Turkish government locked down the base for 24 hours, and the electricity was cut. Incirlik is near Syria, with its warring extremist forces. Mr. Erdogan’s anti-American behavior and his drift toward Russia have heightened anxiety.

The weapons were deployed decades ago as proof of America’s commitment to Turkey’s security but are symbolic. No one expects them to be used, and no planes at Incirlik can deliver them. The security commitment is better demonstrated in other ways. When the United States withdrew nuclear weapons from Greece, also a NATO ally, in 2001, it sold Greece F-16 fighter jets. If it becomes necessary to defend Turkey, America can use conventional weapons.

Can you really just move 50 or more nuclear weapons?

It’d be smart to move the weapons before Turkish-American relations collapse. A withdrawal would probably best be done quickly and covertly after the American-led coalition captures Raqqa, Syria, from the Islamic State.

Would this be a wake-up call to Mr. Erdogan? Or simply end the two nations’ alliance?

NATO is a consensus organization, and Turkey could make mischief by thwarting its decision-making. It could also withdraw from the alliance. But Turkey has prospered as a NATO member. That means it is likely to be the big loser if it forsakes the West for, say, closer ties with Russia. Mr. Erdogan needs to face up to the reality that the problem, like the provocations, are not NATO’s but his. He still has time to mend his ways.

Filed Under: Opinion Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, US Foreign Policy, NATO, Reza Zarrab, Incirlik Air Base, Nuclear weapon, Opinion, Erdogan, Recep Tayyip, United States..., life's most urgent question, urgent questions

U.S. Will Base Mammoth Ship in Greece, Near Disputed Territory

September 29, 2020 by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

CRETE, Greece — In a move that could be construed as a symbolic show of support for Greece in its tense standoff with Turkey , America’s top diplomat said on Tuesday that the United States will base a mammoth Navy ship at a military base it shares with Greece, just 600 miles from the Turkish coast.

The Hershel “Woody” Williams, a Expeditionary Sea Base ship, is assigned to the U.S. Africa Command and is not the kind of vessel that might intervene in a high-intensity conflict, should rising strains between Turkey and Greece — two NATO allies — boil over.

But its deployment at Souda Bay, a joint U.S.-Greek base near where Turkey earlier this year sent survey and drilling ships to search for gas , could serve as a symbolic warning of America’s growing irritation with Ankara.

The dispute with Turkey — along with how to resolve it — was chief among the priorities of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece following a series of meetings and tours at Souda Bay on Tuesday with the American secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

Mr. Mitsotakis accused Turkey of violating international laws with its expansionist strategy to claim waters and resources in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean that are controlled by Greece and other countries.

“It is a very sensitive area that has been recently tried by Turkey’s aggressiveness with provocative actions,” Mr. Mitsotakis told journalists after a private meeting with Mr. Pompeo. He said Turkey had stoked the tensions with extreme rhetoric and misleading communications about its intent: “In other words, actions that are contrary to the values of the Western world,” Mr. Mitsotakis said.

The widening rift puts the United States in an unenviable position, and not only because it risks being torn between two fellow NATO states. The U.S. alliance with Turkey is central to the Trump administration’s campaign to rout Shiite militias and other Iranian-backed efforts in Syria, where Iran supports the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The United States also has a massive air base in Incirlik, Turkey, where it stores tactical nuclear weapons .

But the Trump administration also has sought, with mixed success, to reel back some of Turkey’s aggressions.

Turkey’s incursion in northeast Syria, sending forces into areas held by Kurdish fighters whom Ankara considers a terrorist organization, has threatened the key ground force that beat back the Islamic State. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has detained U.S. citizens, governed in an increasingly authoritarian manner and hosted Palestinian militia who have been designated as terrorists by the United States.

The United States has not formally sought to mediate the dispute between Turkey and Greece; that is a task most recently handled by Germany.

In his public remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Pompeo gamely sought to straddle the division.

“We strongly support dialogue between NATO allies Greece and Turkey and encourage them to resume discussion of these issues as soon as possible,” Mr. Pompeo said in the remarks with Mr. Mitsotakis.

He described progress in mediation efforts by NATO, and said developing the eastern Mediterranean Sea “should promote cooperation and provide a foundation for the durable energy security and economic prosperity of the entire region.”

Earlier this month, Mr. Pompeo visited Cyprus — which has also objected to Turkey’s activities in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean — and declared the United States “deeply concerned” over Turkey’s use of warships and jet fighters in its energy exploration efforts. Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and claimed the island’s north as its territory, which is recognized nowhere else in the world.

Greece and Turkey nearly went to war in 1996 over an uninhabited island, a crisis defused by U.S. diplomacy.

Mr. Mitsotakis noted that Mr. Pompeo “had a chance to realize” Turkey’s aggressions off the Cypriot coast during that trip and said after Tuesday’s talks that he believed Greece and the United States were “fully aligned” on the issue.

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Conflicting statements on Erdogan by Trump and the State Dept. highlight a disconnect.

August 25, 2020 by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

President Trump has long resisted criticizing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — despite the authoritarian leader’s detention of American citizens and diplomatic employees , offensive against U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria and crackdown on protesters in Washington.

And hours after the Republican convention aired an interview on Monday in which Mr. Trump called Mr. Erdogan “very good,” the State Department issued a statement denouncing Mr. Erdogan’s recent meeting with leaders of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, highlighting the disconnect between Mr. Trump and the rest of his administration’s policy toward Turkey.

The statement, from the State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, said the United States “strongly objects” to a meeting that Mr. Erdogan hosted with two Hamas leaders in Istanbul on Saturday. The U.S. has designated Hamas a terrorist organization , and Ms. Ortagus said the leaders Mr. Erdogan met have been specifically designated global terrorists.

“President Erdogan’s continued outreach to this terrorist organization only serves to isolate Turkey from the international community, harms the interests of the Palestinian people, and undercuts global efforts to prevent terrorist attacks launched from Gaza,” Ms. Ortagus wrote. She said it was the second time that Mr. Erdogan had invited Hamas leaders to Turkey this year.

Contrast that with Mr. Trump’s comments in the convention segment: “I have to say that, to me, President Erdogan was very good,” he told the Rev. Andrew Brunson, who was detained in Turkey for two years until negotiators were able to convince Mr. Erdogan to release him in 2018. “So,” Mr. Trump said, “we appreciate that.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized U.S., conflict of interest trump, erdogan trump, united states dept of commerce, united states dept of defense, united states dept of education, united states dept of state, united states dept of treasury, united states dept of veterans affairs, free state dept of education, alabama state dept of education

Iran’s Influence Operation Pays Off

September 28, 2023 by www.theatlantic.com Leave a Comment

When news comes out that someone has suffered an email breach, my first instinct is to pity them and practice extreme charity. I don’t remember any emails I wrote a decade ago, but I’m sure there’s something in there appalling enough to sour my relationships with every friend, ex, or co-worker I ever had. Give me your email password, and I will ruin your career.

This week, the careers in jeopardy belong to a handful of Americans and Europeans who were, by the looks of their emails, groomed by the Iranian government to promote conciliatory policies toward Tehran. According to reports by Semafor and Iran International , Iranian foreign-policy bigwigs such as Mohammad Javad Zarif identified think-tank staffers of Iranian origin, sponsored meetings with them, and used the group to coordinate and spread messages helpful to Iran. The emails, which date from 2014, suggest that those in their group—the “Iran Experts Initiative”—reacted to Iranian outreach in a range of ways, including cautious engagement and active coordination. The Iranian government then paid expenses related to this group’s internal meetings; cultivated its members with “access to high-ranking officials and extended invitations to visit Tehran,” according to Iran International; and later gloated over how effectively it had used its experts to propagate the Islamic Republic’s positions.

Graeme Wood: Talk to coldhearted criminals

The government had reason to gloat. It picked excellent prospects, some of whom sucked up to Tehran over email and echoed its negotiating positions publicly. A few of them ended up in and near positions of prominence in the U.S. government through connections to Robert Malley, a veteran Middle East hand in Democratic administrations. Malley, who led Obama teams focusing on the Islamic State, Syria, and Iraq, is known to favor negotiation with unfriendly governments in the region and to scorn the “maximum pressure” approach that replaced nuclear negotiation when Donald Trump entered office. Earlier this year, Malley lost his security clearance for reasons still not explained, and he is on leave from government service. (He did not reply to a request for comment.)

One of Tehran’s targets, Ariane M. Tabatabai, joined the Biden administration’s Iran team with Malley and is now the chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Another, Ali Vaez, formerly worked as an aide to Malley on Iran issues. That is the disturbing upshot to the reports: Witting participants in an Iranian influence operation have been close colleagues with those setting the Biden administration’s Iran policy, or have even served in government and set it themselves.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, dismissed the reports as “an account of things that happened almost a decade ago, most of which involved people that do not currently work for the government.” I assume he meant the U.S. government. Anyway, the accusations are serious and can’t be batted away by the suggestion that 2014 was a long time ago.

One sign of the gravity of these accusations is the unconvincing attempts to minimize them. The commentator Esfandyar Batmanghelidj said opponents of Tehran had smeared the analysts merely because they “maintained dialogue and exchanged views with Iranian officials.” He went on to note Semafor ’s links to Qatar and Iran International ’s to Iran’s archenemy, Saudi Arabia. The journalist Laura Rozen tweeted that the stories were “McCarthyistic” and targeted blameless analysts “because they try to talk to everybody and because of their Iranian heritage.”

Defending the emails as maintaining “dialogue” so ludicrously misrepresents the accusation that I am forced to conclude that these defenders find the actual accusation indefensible. No one is alarmed that Americans of Iranian descent are talking with Iranian-government officials. What’s alarming is the servile tone of the Iranian American side of that dialogue, and the apparent lack of concern that the Iranian government views them as tools for its political ends. Rozen and Batmanghelidj don’t dispute the emails’ authenticity. Comparing the Iranian influence operation to supposed Qatari and Saudi ones is, in turn, tacit admission that the emails are probably real.

Cultivating a source is fine. But any self-respecting analyst, journalist, or politician wants to be the one cultivating, not the one being cultivated. This mutual back-scratching can erode one’s integrity and independence. That is why the Iranians do it: to turn influential and otherwise smart people into their pets, and eventually condition them to salivate at the issuance of a visa, or an email from Javad Zarif. Responding to these overtures is fine. You can butter up an official (“Your Excellency”), maybe grovel a little for a visa. But the writing itself, and the analysis behind it, must be independent to the point that even the most cynical observer could not accuse you of altering your views to please a subject.

By this standard, some of the reported exchanges between the Iran Experts and their convenor are mortifying. After the report, Vaez, a deputy to Malley, admitted on X (formerly Twitter) that he’d sent a full draft of an op-ed to the Iranian government. “I look forward to your comments and feedback,” his email to the Iranians read. If I sent a source a draft of a story, I would be fired. (I asked The National Interest , where the article appeared, if its policy also forbids sharing drafts. The editor, Jacob Heilbrunn, did not reply.) Sending questions is laudable. Checking facts is standard practice. But a magazine article is not a Wiki whose contributors are also its subjects. Sharing a full draft of an article, whether for approval or just improvement, makes the recipient an unacknowledged co-author.

Vaez later pledged to the Iranian foreign minister to “help you in any way,” by proposing “a public campaign” to promote Iran’s views on its nuclear program. He offered these services “as an Iranian, based on my national and patriotic duty.” Vaez, like his former boss Malley, has written widely about Iran and U.S.-Iran relations, for magazines including this one. (Attempts to reach Vaez through his employer to verify the authenticity of the emails and their context were not answered by the time of publication.)

According to the same reports, Adnan Tabatabai, CEO and founder of the German think tank CARPO, “offered to prepare articles for Iran’s foreign ministry.” “We as a group [could] work on an essay,” he suggested. “It could, for example, be published under a former official’s name.” Tabatabai, the report says, worked as a contractor for Malley’s International Crisis Group. (He did not respond to a request for comment.)

Ariane Tabatabai (who is not related to Adnan) wrote to her contact at the Iranian foreign ministry and asked his advice on whether to work with officials in Saudi Arabia and attend a meeting in Israel. “I would like to ask your opinion too and see if you think I should accept the invitation and go,” she asked Mostafa Zahrani of the foreign ministry. She made clear that she personally “had no inclination to go” to a workshop at Ben-Gurion University, but she thought it might be better if she went, rather than “some Israeli,” such as Emily Landau of Tel Aviv University. Zahrani told Tabatabai to look into Saudi Arabia and avoid Israel. She thanked him for the guidance, and she went to Tehran herself in 2014. In another email to the Iranians, she noted that she had recently published an article arguing that Tehran should be given more leeway to spin up centrifuges for uranium enrichment.

These emails look bad. So would mine, if they came out in a selective leak, and so would yours. But I’m not sure that they would look this bad, or that my excuses would be so weak.

Vaez tweeted that he “shared the draft as a courtesy after [Iranian] officials claimed I had been too harsh on their position in my writing.” Even if sharing a draft were permissible, would he extend the courtesy to Trump officials? “[ICG’s Iran] work has always been informed by the perspectives of all relevant stakeholders,” he claims. I am confident that if you plumbed his inbox, you would find no fan mail addressed to “Your Excellency” Mike Pompeo, offering his devoted and patriotic service. Nor would he soften the blow of criticism of Trump officials (whose Iran policy was built on sanctions and drone strikes) by giving them a “courtesy” peek at his next work.

Roya Hakakian: Ebrahim Raisi has blood on his hands

For once, the Iranians themselves are blameless. As conspiracies go, the one alleged here is mild. They found Westerners of Iranian extraction who did not despise their religious government, as so many Iranian expatriates do. They made a list. They flattered its members and waited to see who welcomed the flattery and reciprocated with offers of service. These techniques paid off splendidly when the Biden administration started appointing the very people Tehran had been grooming. (Vaez was poised to join Malley at State, but the appointment was never made.)

The emails do not demonstrate or suggest that Ariane Tabatabai, now in the Defense Department, or others not in government, became agents of Tehran. The Pentagon says that Tabatabai was “thoroughly and properly vetted” for her current job but refuses to say whether her emails were accurately and fairly quoted. Even if they do not show that she is a security risk, they do show that she and others responded to Tehran’s blandishments and sought its approval. The administration should find staff who know Iran and its leaders, ideally well enough to recognize Zarif by the smell of his cologne or the sound of his footfall. To get that close takes some ingratiation. The method of ingratiation matters, though, and in this case, it stinks.

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The Meaning of ‘Despacito’ in the Age of Trump

August 4, 2017 by www.nytimes.com Leave a Comment

On Friday, “Despacito,” the hit song by the Puerto Rican artists Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, became the most watched video on YouTube ever, with nearly three billion views. And it got there faster than any music video in history. Just over two weeks ago Universal Music announced it was also the most streamed song in history, if you combine the number of times people played the original song or video with a remixed version featuring vocals from the Canadian singer Justin Bieber.

The ascendance of “Despacito” is remarkable for a number reasons: Except for Mr. Bieber’s intro, the song is almost entirely in Spanish. (Despacito means “slowly,” and depending on how you interpret the lyrics, the song is about what you’d do slowly to someone you really like.) The rhythmic backbone of the song is reggaeton, a style with roots in Jamaica that developed in Puerto Rico and has long been popular in Latin America but has only occasionally broken through to the English-speaking world. The video is set in a storied Puerto Rican slum called La Perla and features a joyously multiracial cast.

And maybe most notably, the song has achieved worldwide fame at a time when nativism is surging, anxiety over borders and immigration is rising, and the executive branch of this country seems determined to make it whiter.

The song’s success highlights the truism that the soul that moves so many of us, that we groove to, that animates our lives, that in some ways binds us as a global community — pop music — is the opposite of nativist. It’s promiscuous. It doesn’t respect borders or stick to racial categories. It borrows willy-nilly, encouraging cross-fertilization of cultures and styles. It courses with energy from the African diaspora. And those billions of views say that people, lots of them American, can’t get enough of it.

Of course, the song’s success doesn’t mean that President Trump’s project will fail, or that cranky nativism will give way to happy multiculturalism. Plenty of people might be willing to watch a video by Puerto Rican artists and still not want a Spanish-speaking neighbor next door. (Although Puerto Rico is a United States territory, so if you’re American, get over it.)

But the song’s success does highlight a side of humanity that, these days, often seems overshadowed by uglier tendencies. We know that humans can be tribal, that we quickly organize ourselves into in-groups and out-groups, that we can treat those out-groups cruelly and even savagely. These tendencies probably predate our being human. Even groups of chimpanzees wage war against one another.

But we have this other side that’s curious, that doesn’t cringe from difference so much as find inspiration in it. A transcendent side that takes joy in bringing together disparate parts, in creation, in play.

Take “Despacito” itself. It begins with a steel-stringed Puerto Rican guitar called the cuatro , which most likely descended from an instrument brought to Spain from North Africa by Moors. The rolling reggaeton beat came out of Jamaica and, long before that, probably originated in West Africa. In rapping, Daddy Yankee employs an art form developed by urban African-Americans, infusing it with the unique feel of Puerto Rican Spanish and slang. Mr. Fonsi’s deliciously suggestive lyrics arguably belong to a tradition that stretches back to the lovelorn troubadours of medieval Spain, and beyond.

The song is a fusion, an amalgam. As such, it doesn’t just illustrate the genius of pop music but also serves as a model of how creativity works generally. Innovation often involves organizing old pieces into new configurations. Tech companies, like Apple and Google, know this. Hence their emphasis on cross-pollination — their open work spaces and public areas designed to encourage intermingling.

And this was also, until recently, how I’d conceived of the American project. Then came President Trump and the news that some still viewed the United States as a fundamentally white, Christian nation with European roots. Which means what, exactly? Modern genetics tells us that Europeans are themselves a mixture of different peoples, a hunter-gatherer population mixed with farmers who, thousands of years ago, immigrated from what’s now Turkey (near Syria), topped off by herders from what’s now the Russian steppe. Christianity, the supposed glue of Europe, was imported from the Levant. And I’m writing this in a language — English — that consists of French and Latin grafted onto an Anglo-Saxon base, sprinkled with Old Norse and grains of Celtic.

Yes, nations exist. Yes, they have borders. Yes, distinct cultures and languages arise. There are bedrock ideas that we can perhaps call Western. But when you look closely at the boundaries demarcating these supposedly discrete entities, you find them to be remarkably porous.

In the battle for hearts and minds represented by pop music, of course, all this goes without saying. “Despacito” has won the day.

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