President Obama's upcoming state visit to Turkey on March 30 brings up the question: Why is Turkey important? What benefits accrue to the U.S. and its global strategy to have Turkey on board, and what is lost by the absence thereof? Yes, yes, NATO ally, moderate Islamic democracy, bridge between Europe and Asia, but what in practical terms does it all mean?
Mr. Obama's visit will surely furnish a massive photo-op on many levels--he will demonstrate how, in his administration, diplomacy will be the first recourse in a way that never convincingly happened in the Bush era. There will be a lot of noise about showing respect to Muslim nations; words like "dialogue" and "dignity" will be intoned gravely. The visit will make Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan look like a real statesman again after his mercurial behavior at Davos toward the Israeli president. But beyond the diplomatic and symbolic, what?
Not so fast. Actually the diplomatic and symbolic matter tremendously in this region, something that the younger Bush grievously underestimated and the older Bush understood precisely. In Turkey specifically, such things matter for a host of reasons. Like the U.K. and Russia, Turkey suffers from post-Imperial confusion about its role, its identity and importance in the world.
The Turkish language as spoken in Turkey no longer translates easily across borders to other Turkic countries, and former Ottoman non-Turkic provinces have adopted other languages. Unlike Russia and the U.K., Turkey feels painfully isolated, under-informed, unarticulated. Nobody understands the Turkish point of view automatically, the way Aussies might understand the Brits or Belarusians the Russians. Conversely, it's not easy for Turks to eavesdrop on or gain clues from other cultures. As a result, they are prone to all sorts of paranoias.
During the second Gulf War, Turks developed acute suspicions about the long-term goals of the second Bush administration. Highly placed sources in the Turkish military told me that before the war they had sounded out their American counterparts on pre-war U.S. clandestine activities in the Iraqi Kurdish zone.
Here's what the Turks said in effect: "We kept being told, no, the U.S. keeps no secrets from you--but we knew otherwise. We had pictures of secret meetings with local Kurdish tribal leaders. We had sources there for years. We also knew that Iranians had spies everywhere, that the U.S. was blundering into minefields. We could have been helpful, but we were kept out in the cold. So we wondered, what are they up to with the Kurds that they don't want us to know?"
Even then, top Turkish leaders, Erdogan and the generals, publicly endorsed formal collaboration with the war. One top general said on television that even though the military was against the war and didn't think it was good for Turkey, they understood that being locked out of it would be worse. He advised cooperation.
In the end, a handful of Turkish parliamentarians mistakenly voted "no" to U.S. plans, that is to give U.S. troops access to Iraq via Turkey. The parliamentarians thought the "yes" vote was locked in, and they could grandstand harmlessly by voting "no." Suddenly, it was up to the Speaker of the House to cast the deciding vote, and he knew that his political career would be finished if, with all the cameras rolling, he voted "yes"--because a "yes" vote was seen as agreeing with the entire George W. Bush project for the region, known in Turkey as the "Great Middle East Project."
A top U.S. bureaucrat who happened to be in parliament visiting--a close friend to the Bushies--told me, "It was very frustrating: such an important event and I was the only American there. I was there completely by accident. Not officially at all. If I'd been empowered, I could have talked to a few of them, twisted a few arms, made assurances, soothed egos and changed the vote. That's all it needed. And no one was there to do it. The administration has only itself to blame."
See what I mean about the importance of diplomacy? Now, what about the "Great Middle East Project?" The Turks were convinced of a long-term neoconservative-designed blueprint to change the borders of the region. Pundits and papers discussed it incessantly. In this scenario, the Iraqi Kurds would be emboldened to unite with the Turkish Kurds to create a "Greater Kurdistan," which would become a new, more pliant, client state of the U.S.
This paranoid vision simply didn't take into account how the U.S. functions, especially these days. That kind of thing was possible during the British or Russian Great Game era but really makes no sense in the present. Nevertheless, the Turks were convinced that U.S. strategy planned for a fragmenting of their country as the Brits had intended after World War I, and as happened unintentionally with Bosnia and Kosovo more recently.
In many cases and places, diplomacy and symbolic actions matter. A lot. In the case of the second Gulf War, it mattered in unintended but important ways. The absence of massed U.S. troops in the north didn't affect "Shock and Awe." All the problems arose after that, with the occupation, when the allies could already move forces freely anywhere within Iraq. And when the Turks finally offered to send in 10,000 troops to help the allies, it was the Kurds who nixed it. Still, inadvertent damage ensued from the misunderstandings. The Turks grew noticeably warmer to Moscow. Erdogan began to make friends with Iran and Damascus, and stoked pan-Muslim sentiments for his own political gain.
None of these new friendships are good for Turkey. Or for the West. President Obama's first task then is to re-convince the Turks of America's good intentions. He should clear away the paranoias and show how Turkey benefits if the U.S. succeeds. Having a nonregional friend is a tremendous asset for the Turks--they should take another look at their neighbors and wake up. But Mr. Obama should also find ways to re-initiate the westernization process in Turkey. Money and support should flow from Europe, too, not just to industry and politics but to culture and education, to counteract the Islamizing influences from the oil states.
What are the practical benefits to the U.S.? Let us list them: Turkish troops in Afghanistan. Freer NATO naval access to the Black Sea to bolster Ukrainian and Georgian morale. Turkish help for Georgia. A pro-U.S. Turkish flanking threat to distract Iran. Ditto Syria. The continued flow of non-Arab, non-Russian oil from Azerbaijan to the world. Increased U.S.-friendly Turkish influence in Central Asia's Turkic states to counteract Russian and Iranian influence (remember those U.S. bases?). A secular Muslim buffer in the region against Islamization.
If the U.S. and Turkey act in unison, as they did in the Cold War, Turkey can tip the balance as a pro-Western force in the region's new politics. But it will take all of President Obama's diplomatic and symbolic skills, sustained over time, to turn things around.
Melik Kaylan, a writer based in New York, writes a weekly column for Forbes.com. His story "Georgia In The Time of Misha" is featured in The Best American Travel Writing 2008.
