Baffling Turkish Foreign Policy Statement of the Day
This comes from someone fully authorized to speak on behalf of the Turkish foreign policy apparatus. The conversation was on background, and in fairness to him, most of what he said was very thoughtful and coherent. While I didn't agree with all of it, it didn't make me roll my eyes. In fact, he swayed me on a few points. I don't want to be unfair and to suggest the whole conversation was like this, it wasn't. But this exchange really happened. Now remember, everyone connected to Turkish foreign policy repeats, as a mantra, "Trust us, we know the region better than you." This guy was no exception.
Claire: Explain this to me. Why is Turkey so sanguine about the Iranian nuclear program compared, say, to the Gulf States? I mean, the UAE Ambassador is publicly begging the US to bomb Iran--
Interlocutor (thoughtfully): Well, the Gulf States ... don't forget there are religious differences there. They're Sunni, and the Iranians are Shi'a ...
Now, like I said, the whole conversation wasn't like this. But this is the kind of comment that makes me think the words "Trust us, we know the region better than you" actually mean, "We truly believe that Americans are genetically incapable of knowing the first thing about this region, so we'll just say anything."
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Re: Baffling Turkish Foreign Policy Statement of the Day
Ne?! Vay…
Re: Baffling Turkish Foreign Policy Statement of the Day
Bill, seriously--how do you interpret a comment like that? Is it just, "I'm not thinking, I'm winging it here," or is it, "I assume you're not thinking, so I'll just say something that you Americans will probably overlook, seeing as not one of you grasps the first thing about this region," or is there some very subtle theological point I could be missing? I did say, "What on earth are you talking about, Turkey is a Sunni country too!" but that only resulted in a further baffling argument--"Yes, but they've had conflicts with Iran," to which I again replied with the obvious point; to which he said, "Yes, but think about it, the UAE is very small and weak," to which I said, "You will be too, my friend, when Iran has a nuclear weapon" ... to which he basically said, "Well, we'll worry about that when the time comes."
(This was the low point of the conversation, I stress--on other issues he was very coherent and persuasive.)