{"id":65554,"date":"2003-04-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-04-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/04\/05\/lorientation-de-la-turquie-est-dores-et-deja-dans-un-sens-europeen-et-plus-du-tout-americain-who-lost-turkey-de-srdja-trifkovic\/"},"modified":"2003-04-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-04-05T00:00:00","slug":"lorientation-de-la-turquie-est-dores-et-deja-dans-un-sens-europeen-et-plus-du-tout-americain-who-lost-turkey-de-srdja-trifkovic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/04\/05\/lorientation-de-la-turquie-est-dores-et-deja-dans-un-sens-europeen-et-plus-du-tout-americain-who-lost-turkey-de-srdja-trifkovic\/","title":{"rendered":"L’orientation de la Turquie est d’ores et d\u00e9j\u00e0 dans un sens europ\u00e9en et plus du tout am\u00e9ricain \u2014 \u00abWho lost Turkey?\u00bb, de Srdja Trifkovic<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

L’orientation de la Turquie est d’ores et d\u00e9j\u00e0 dans un sens europ\u00e9en et plus du tout am\u00e9ricain<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tCi-dessous, nous publions un texte paru dans le magazine Chronicle<\/a>, et publi\u00e9 le 2 avril 2003 : \u00ab Who lost Turkey ?<\/em> \u00bb. Il est de Srdja Trifkovic, qui est un chercheur au Rockford Institute, et a \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9dig\u00e9 apr\u00e8s un tr\u00e8s r\u00e9cent voyage en Turquie. Il nous dit quelques points extr\u00eamement int\u00e9ressants sur l’\u00e9volution de la Turquie.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tEn voici deux, comme nous les percevons, avec quelques commentaires :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• L’alliance privil\u00e9gi\u00e9e entre les USA et la Turquie, c’est du pass\u00e9. La chose est pr\u00e9sent\u00e9e comme \u00e9tant compl\u00e8tement int\u00e9gr\u00e9e, aussi bien chez les Turcs que chez les Am\u00e9ricains. Dans cette optique, la visite de Powell \u00e0 Ankara est la premi\u00e8re pour \u00e9tablir de nouvelles relations et les concessions (tr\u00e8s minimes) obtenues par l’Am\u00e9ricain marquent effectivement les nouvelles relations entre USA et Turquie. Pour les Am\u00e9ricains, la chose est d’autant plus acceptable que leurs conceptions \u00e0 tr\u00e8s court terme et leur vision d\u00e9mocratique pleines d’esp\u00e9rance leur font penser qu’ils sont les ma\u00eetres du jeu dans la r\u00e9gion en tenant l’Irak. Ils n’ont sans doute pas remarqu\u00e9 que la Turquie est le premier pays musulman de la r\u00e9gion \u00e0 \u00eatre vraiment d\u00e9mocratique, depuis les derni\u00e8res \u00e9lections, avant l’Irak ; et que le r\u00e9sultat de la d\u00e9mocratie, c’est la d\u00e9faite des hommes de Washington et le succ\u00e8s des islamistes mod\u00e9r\u00e9s avec une tendance \u00e0 mettre des distances avec Washington.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• En effet, c’est le deuxi\u00e8me point qu’on doit souligner dans cette analyse, c’est la tendance pro-UE en Turquie que signale l’auteur, et pro-UE vers le noyau ind\u00e9pendantiste actuel (France-Allemagne), d\u00e9sormais \u00e0 partir d’arguments de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 et de d\u00e9fense.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab The prospect of membership in the European Unionand the benevolence of such Old European powers as France and Germanyis more important to Turkey than the unequally special relationship with Washington.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tOn se trouve dans une situation in\u00e9dite et int\u00e9ressante : les Turcs ne sont plus tr\u00e8s loin de penser qu’ils peuvent se rapprocher tr\u00e8s vite de l’Europe, voire d’y entrer, au nom de l’argument compl\u00e8tement inverse de celui qu’ils utilisaient. Jusqu’alors, ils comptaient sur l’appui de Washington pour cela, d\u00e9sormais ils comptent sur leur nouvelle ligne politique ind\u00e9pendante de Washington pour s\u00e9duire les Europ\u00e9ens. Le contraire exact des nouveaux pays d’Europe de l’Est. Cette \u00e9volution contredit de nombreuses analyses ouest-occidentales qui estimaient qu’une \u00e9ventuelle politique \u00e9trang\u00e8re et de d\u00e9fense commune serait impossible avec la Turquie, alors qu’ils la jugeaient \u00e9videmment possible avec les bons (ethniquement bons ?) Europ\u00e9ens de l’Europe de l’Est. C’est le contraire qui devrait peu \u00e0 peu s’imposer. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Who lost Turkey?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

\tThere is a country in the Middle East where irate villagers shouting abuse pelt U.S. soldiers with eggs and American trucks have wire mesh mounted over their windshields to protect them from rocks. Over ninety percent of its people oppose the war in Iraq, and its legislators reflected the popular sentiment by denying American troops the use of its territory for the wartwice in one month. Its leftists and Islamists, usually at loggerheads, are united in chanting death to America in street demonstrations. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOnly a year ago that country was described by a key Bush Administration official as a truly indispensable nation with an indispensable partnership with the United States, a nation central to building peace from Southeastern Europe to the Middle East and eastward to the Caucasus and Central Asia crucial to bridging the dangerous gap between the West and the Muslim world. In the preceding half-century that country supported each and every military intervention of the United States around the world, from Korea to Kosovo.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe country is Turkey, for decades routinely described as the key to U.S. strategy in eastern Mediterranean, in the Middle East, andmore recentlyin the oil-rich Caspian region and the sensitive ex-Soviet Central Asia to the north of Afghanistan. Its partnership with Washington is in tatters in the aftermath of its refusal to accept American soldiers on its territory, and Colin Powell’s just completed visit to Ankara did little to dispel the feeling on both sides that things would never be the same.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tTurkey’s refusal to act like a Qatar or a Kuwait, let alone like a truly indispensable American partner, has several interconnected causes. Three of them may be singled out as key contributing factors for the present imbroglio:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t1. Its post-Islamist government is very different to its secular predecessors in its outlook and assumptions, and does not readily identify with the U.S. view of the world in general, and its regional agenda in particular.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t2. The Administration took Ankara’s support for granted, to the point of wounding a proud nation’s sensibilities.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t3. The prospect of membership in the European Unionand the benevolence of such Old European powers as France and Germanyis more important to Turkey than the unequally special relationship with Washington.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThat Turkey was on the way to being lost as a reliable and often-subservient ally of the United States should have been evident from the results of last November’s general election. Political Islam triumphed with the landslide victory of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) over its secularist opponents, but that fact was curiously ignored or else played down in Washington. In his pitch to the West Mr. Erdogan was unsurprisingly eager to minimize his party’s Islamic connections by stressing his secular and conservative credentials. His assurances were keenly accepted in Washington, so keenly in fact that some European commentators wondered if the AKP had given prior assurances to the U.S. that there would be no change in the relationship.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThere had been no prior deal with Erdogan, as we now realize, although the propensity of this Administration to deceive itself in accordance with its ideological preferences may have created a different impression. Just as its officials had convinced themselves that Saddam’s regime would crumble as soon as shock and awe tested its nerves and that the people of Iraq would greet U.S. soldiers as liberators, the Turkish policy was based on the assumption that the scenario of 1991 would be the model for 2003.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDuring a recent trip to Turkey by The Rockford Institute’s fact-finding team we were repeatedly warned that things were no longer as they used to be a decade ago. Our hosts talked of the Turks’ deep unhappiness with the outcome of the first Gulf War. The country allowed the U.S. unlimited use of its bases, including its key air force facility at Incirlik, and Turkish ground troops joined the fray in the border zone. But Iraq had been Turkey’s main trading partner and Ankara subsequently lost tens of billions due to that war. We were told that the Turks had received exuberant assurances and promises from Washington, but in the end they were but inadequately compensated by the U.S. The result was an economic slide that culminated three years ago in a financial meltdown and the political crisis that eventually propelled Erdogan to victory. A related Turkish complaint is the rise of Kurdish assertiveness in the north of Iraq following the first Gulf War, with predictable consequences for the restive Kurds of eastern Turkey. The ensuing conflict in Turkish Kurdistanthe belated flare-up of a conflict going on for decadesclaimed thousands of mostly civilian lives.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe escalating crisis of Turkey’s economic and political system over the past decade reflected a deeper malaise, the loss of confidence of the old Kemalist elite. The implicit assumption in Washingtonthat Turkey would remain secular and pro-Western, come what mayshould have been reassessed already after the Army intervened to remove the previous pro-Islamic government in 1997. Since then many voices, some of the Turkish, have warned that democratization would mean Islamization, and that America needed alternative scenarios and regional strategies. The reality check came with Ankara’s reluctance and eventual refusal to accept 90,000 U.S. servicemen on its soilthe number subsequently reduced to 62,000who would provide the muscle to the northern front against Iraq. Pressures and promises from Washington were accompanied by the setting of an altogether arbitrary deadline (February 18) and statements by U.S. officials that created the impression that the Turks had made binding commitments to come on board.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe Turks also miscalculated, by interpreting the pressure from Washington as a sign of its readiness to pay almost any price for the opening of the northern front. Yasir Yakis, the former Turkish foreign minister who played a key role in the talks with the United States, admitted that Ankara’s bargaining position was based on that assumption: We did not consider the possibility that they would apply Plan B, he said, referring to the plan of American attack that did not include Turkey at all. His extravagant demand for close to a hundred billion dollars over five years was badly received by Bush and Powell, and Rumfeld’s optimistic assurances that the northern front would not be needed in any event provided a welcomed relief. Some Turkish politicians, including the former Prime Minister Gul, seem to have expected that their refusal could even help prevent the war altogether and thus help Turkey’s rapprochement with its Arab neighbors to the east.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSome Turks privately admit that the affair may turn out for the best because Turkey’s display of independence vis-\u00e0-vis Washington should earn it some brownie points in Paris and Berlinand it is in those capitals that the future of Turkey’s EU application will be decided. As if to confirm such views, on March 28 Turkey’s National Security Council, a powerful advisory body of military and civilian leaders, issued a strongly-worded statement calling on Washington to end the war in Iraq and to put an end to civilian casualties and take steps to prevent instability in the region. This statement went down like a ton of bricks in Washington, of course, but from the Turkish point of view there is little to be lost and much to be gained in showing to the Old Europe that Ankara may be clubbable after all.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCompared to the enticing vision of EU membership there is little that Washington can do or say, or indeed pay, to turn the tide. That may be just as well: a new Turkish policy is long overdue. Turkey was pretty much indispensable in the darkest Cold War days when it accommodated U.S. missiles aimed at Russia’s heartland. Today it is just another country, a regional power of considerable importance to be sure, with interests and aspirations that may or may not coincide with those of the United States. Both Turkey and the rest of the Middle East matter far less to American interests than we are led to believe, and it is high time to demythologize America’s special relationships throughout the region.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L’orientation de la Turquie est d’ores et d\u00e9j\u00e0 dans un sens europ\u00e9en et plus du tout am\u00e9ricain Ci-dessous, nous publions un texte paru dans le magazine Chronicle, et publi\u00e9 le 2 avril 2003 : \u00ab Who lost Turkey ? \u00bb. Il est de Srdja Trifkovic, qui est un chercheur au Rockford Institute, et a \u00e9t\u00e9… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analyse"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}