Turkey Goes From Pliable Ally to Thorn for U.S.

From The New York Times:

For decades, Turkey was one of the United States’ most pliable allies, a strategic border state on the edge of the Middle East that reliably followed American policy. But recently, it has asserted a new approach in the region, its words and methods as likely to provoke Washington as to advance its own interests.

The change in Turkey’s policy burst into public view last week, after the deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish flotilla, which nearly severed relations with Israel, Turkey’s longtime ally. Just a month ago, Turkey infuriated the United States when it announced that along with Brazil, it had struck a deal with Iran to ease a nuclear standoff, and on Tuesday it warmly welcomed Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, at a regional security summit meeting in Istanbul.

Turkey’s shifting foreign policy is making its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hero to the Arab world, and is openly challenging the way the United States manages its two most pressing issues in the region, Iran’s nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Turkey is seen increasingly in Washington as “running around the region doing things that are at cross-purposes to what the big powers in the region want,” said Steven A. Cook, a scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations. The question being asked, he said, is “How do we keep the Turks in their lane?”

From Turkey’s perspective, however, it is simply finding its footing in its own backyard, a troubled region that has been in turmoil for years, in part as a result of American policy making. Turkey has also been frustrated in its longstanding desire to join the European Union.

“The Americans, no matter what they say, cannot get used to a new world where regional powers want to have a say in regional and global politics,” said Soli Ozel, a professor of international relations at Bilgi University in Istanbul. “This is our neighborhood, and we don’t want trouble. The Americans create havoc, and we are left holding the bag.”

Turkey’s rise as a regional power may seem sudden, but it has been evolving for years, since the end of the cold war, when the world was a simple alignment of black and white and Turkey, a Muslim democracy founded in 1923, was a junior partner in the American camp.

Twenty years later, the map has been redrawn. Turkey is now a vibrant, competitive democracy with an economy that would rank as the sixth largest in Europe. Unlike Jordan and Egypt, which rely heavily on American aid, it is financially independent of the United States. And, paradoxically, its democracy has created some problems with Washington: Members of Mr. Erdogan’s own party defected in 2003, for example, voting not to allow the Americans to attack Iraq from Turkish territory.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said in an interview that economics was at the heart of the new policy. The party he belongs to, led by Mr. Erdogan, is made up of merchants and traders, who are more devoted to their business interests than to advancing Islamic solidarity.

“Economic interdependence is the best way to achieve peace,” he said at his home in Ankara last weekend. “In the 1990s we had severe tension all around us, and Turkey paid a huge bill because of that. Now we want to establish a peaceful order around us.”

But that vision has led to friction with Washington, particularly over Iran, Turkey’s only alternative energy source after Russia.

“They are ambitious, and this gives them a major role on the world stage,” said a senior American official. “But there is a risk that Americans won’t understand what Turkey is doing, and that will have consequences for the relationship.”

It is Mr. Erdogan’s confrontation with Israel, which he accused of “state terrorism” in the flotilla raid, that raised the loudest alarms for Americans. Many see his fiery statements as a sign that he has not only abandoned the quest to join the European Union, but is aligning himself with Islamic rivals of the West.

Yet, for years Mr. Erdogan encouraged closer ties with Israel, even taking a planeload of businessmen to Tel Aviv in 2005. While the relationship has deteriorated badly in recent years — with Mr. Erdogan lambasting Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, over the Israeli military’s tactics in the Gaza campaign — Jewish leaders in Istanbul say that it is more about Mr. Erdogan’s dislike of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than his view of Israel.

“The Jewish community in Turkey is not at all alarmed,” said Ishak Alaton, a prominent Jewish businessman in Istanbul. The tough talk, he said, is simply Mr. Erdogan’s style, an attempt to score points ahead of an election.

Mr. Erdogan, though a pragmatist, is also a devout Muslim, a category that was once the underdog in secular Turkish society, and sympathy for the Palestinians is ingrained. He is hotheaded, with a street fighter’s swagger that becomes more pronounced in crises. He took personal offense, for example, when Ehud Olmert, then Israel’s prime minister, began without warning the bombing of Gaza while Mr. Erdogan was mediating talks between Israel and Syria.

Shafeeq Ghabra, a political science professor at Kuwait University, argued that Turkey had stepped into a vacuum left by a failed peace process, and that it was trying to “save the Palestinians from becoming desperate again and save Israel from itself.”

That may be so, but Mr. Erdogan’s tough talk eliminates Turkey’s place at the table as a moderator with Israel, analysts said, and also boxes in the Obama administration, forcing it into a choice between allies that the Turks are sure to lose.

Behind the friction between the United States and Turkey is a larger question about how to approach crises in the Middle East, argues Stephen Kinzer, author of the book “Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future.” Turkey calls for talks, while Washington seeks sanctions. “Turks are telling the U.S.: ‘The cold war’s over. You have to take a more cooperative approach, and we can help,’ ” said Mr. Kinzer, a former New York Times correspondent. “The U.S. is not prepared to accept that offer.”

Turkish and American officials play down their differences, saying they share the goal of peace in the Middle East. But certain viewpoints — on Hamas and Israel’s security concerns — do seem to be throwing up insurmountable obstacles, and some see the Turkish stance as ignoring the realities.

“The world hasn’t changed in 48 hours just because a boat was raided,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a columnist for the Turkish daily Milliyet. “Ankara thinks it is remaking the world, but in the long run this could backfire.”