NATO Should Give Turkey the Boot

NATO Should Give Turkey the Boot

Ankara, helped by China and Russia, is vandalizing Western interests.

wsj.com/articles/nato-should-give-turkey-the-boot-1534201627

U.S.-Turkish relations are mired in the worst crisis of their history. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is demanding that President Trump turn over Mr. Erdogan’s sworn enemy, Fethullah Gülen. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, seeks the release of the American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was imprisoned on the pretext that he had been involved in Turkey’s July 2016 coup attempt. The U.S. government has levied economic sanctions on two senior Turkish officials, akin to those imposed on Russian oligarchs after the seizure of Crimea. Turkey responded by freezing the plainly nonexistent Turkish assets of two Trump cabinet members.

Mr. Erdogan posed with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and—in Ankara this April—with both! The trio met at a summit called to find a “solution” to the violence in Syria that they have fomented, spitting in the face of every friend of democracy and international law.

Mr. Erdogan’s relations with Mr. Putin are not limited to photo-ops. The sultan-in-the-making, who already had signed an agreement with the Kremlin to build massive nuclear power plants in Turkey, turned again to Moscow late last year for S-400 antiaircraft missiles that could pose compatibility problems with NATO weapons systems. Mr. Erdogan is going forward with the provocation even after the U.S. suggested it could jeopardize the Pentagon’s promised delivery of F-35 jet fighters.

Not long ago Europeans were debating, prematurely, whether to admit Turkey to the European Union. Now the time has come for the West collectively to demand not simply the release of a hostage, but the expulsion of Turkey from NATO.

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I find hard to believe that Russia and Turkey are buddies, their relation is worse than USA/Turkey because of Russian support of Syria.

But yeah, I agree that kicking Turkey out of NATO is a very good idea.

Nothing wrong with nuclear power plants.
Though Turkey has been opportunist for a long time and trying to play superpowers on both end, finally getting the boot from NATO would do Turkey some good.

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Turk here, the situation is getting worse day by day. The government is constantly spouting a siege mentality, encouraging people to exchange their foreign currency and gold. The main opposition is preparing for a party coup that may or may not succeed. One of the founders of the nationalist opposition just went back into the government coalition. Under the state of emergency that was lifted last month, strikes were illegal and police here is more brutal so nearly nobody broke the law. Even now, seeing police armed with submachine guns is not rare. The left opposition mostly fleed, the rest were arrested years ago. Erdogan relies on NATO, the EU will not take it and the US base is too valuable for America to give us over to Russia. I see this ending in either an "apolitical" coup, or Erdogan declaring another State of Emegency. If the former happens, Turkey will turn into another technocratic neoliberal state. If not, I expect either Erdogan dictatorship until he dies or a velvet revolution.

Feel free to ask anything.

they're not. Geoplitics dictates that they aren't, no matter how buddy-buddy their respective leaders are, the two countries won't ever be "friends", for the same reasons that throughout history, countries on opposing sied of the Bosporous have hated each other. Maybe, if you nuke western turkey so much that all of the land between edirne and istanbul becomes a sea.

no such things as friends in geopolitics, but if push comes to shove Turkey would jump camp. Which is what this whole thing is about, Turkey has been playing both sides and the US isn't happy about it since it makes them look weak, so they're moving to remove Erdo from the equation more openly than they did back in 2016.

What's up with this?
Why Trump suddenly hates Erdogan?

long story that goes back several years
the US has been unhappy with Turkey for a while and specifically with the watermelon king

The crux of the recent issue is that Turkey has imprisoned an American pastor and the US is trying to srrongarm him back. Trump has put tariffs to Turkish goods causing the Turkish Lira to take a dive.

What do the common people want? How popular is Erdoğan? Does communism have any sort of popular support?

that's just an excuse, the pastor is a convenient means of justification without admitting that your system of alliances is failing and you have to strong arm former client states into a agreement

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The common people can be divided in 2: The petty bourgeoisie liberals watching FOX(which is liberal in Turkey) who want mild social democracy-neoliberalism and the proles who profit from the construction boom under Erdogan and only care about stability, even if it is shitty.
Popular, because he is a honest populist who has cultivated a pseudo cult of personality around him. He managed to win elections with only some cheating.
I will give 2 anecdotes but in short, no, because people equivocate them with PKK. I once bought a newspaper the local Communist Party sold. I was walkibg with it under my arm when somebody grabbed me, pointed at the newspaper and exclaimed "They are brainwashing you, son!" and left without saying another word. The other anecdote is, when I told my grandmother I was a communist she gasped and said "Please, god, no!" When I asked her if she knew what communism was she said that she didn't know, she only knew it was a bad thing.


I do agree with your general thesis, but I do not think the pastor issue is just an excuse. In my opinion, while tensions were steadily building up, the pastor issue was the straw that broke the camels back.

This sounds very optimist but I hope it's true.

Will Erdogan go against the Shia Axis if NATO drops him from the label? I can't imagine they'd do well completely on their own, no way the Saudis are jumping into the fray with them.

...

Fun fact: A leftist student teacher of my friend was wanted and went radio silent so we assumed they were caught. Only recently have they contacted my friend to say that they managed to escape to greece. Most of the old DHKP-C members are also in greece. Since the greeks hate us, they refuse to give them back.

Based Greece

How democracy function there? Can anything bad happen to you if you are not publicly speaking anything against government?

Turkey spit in US face since their backing of the failed coup, and decided to buy some of those sweet S400 precisely to be protected from USA potential bad mood. They also concluded assad wasn't going to go and russia was a far better partner in negotiation than us ever was so… you reap what you sow I guess, but USA would be pretty dumb to to not try to keep them, even if not in nato, they need the military base and influence.

They mostly do not care about passive discontent. If you show a desire to join PKK though, the MIT will be on you. Democracy is weird here, in that there is not very much cheating, but the entire state apparatus is mobilised to support the ruling party in and out of election season, which creates a very unbalenced field.

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And this exact reason is why turkey leaving NATO is good idea. Middle East must be kept to sort their problems without interference.