Turkey Is the World's New Nuclear Menace
Sometimes it’s hard to tell friend from foe, even if he is standing right next to you. And if you take President Donald Trump literally (yes, I know, we’ve been warned not to do that) he was suffering from such myopia during Wednesday’s press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Turkey, as everyone knows, is a great NATO Ally, and a strategic partner of the United States around the world,” he said. “And I look forward to continuing to find common ground, harness common purpose, and to advance the vital interests of our people and the abiding friendship between our nations.”
Remarkable flattery from the same man who tweeted this a month ago:
So, is Turkey friend or foe? The answer at the moment, unfortunately, is “Yes.” The Turks have launched an offensive against America’s best allies in the war against Islamic State, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Front, and purchased the cutting-edge S-400 missile defense system from Russia. The U.S. and Europe have responded with sanctions, including booting the Turks from the Pentagon’s F-35 fighter program. Erdogan hit back with threats to flood Europe with captured Islamic State terrorists. Standing beside Trump on Wednesday, he accused the U.S. Congress of using “historical developments and allegations” to “dynamite our reciprocal and bilateral relations.”
So, how does one deal with such a frenemy? For advice, I reached out to Chuck Wald, a retired 4-star Air Force general who served as deputy commander of the U.S. European Command in the 2000s. Wald, a distinguished fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, has been a leading voice of caution in dealing with the Turks and, understandably for a former combat pilot, has particular concerns about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s reliance on Incirlik air base in southern Turkey. That base, in addition to hosting military aircraft, (reportedly) has around 50 American B61 nuclear bombs. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our exchange:
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-16/nato-nukes-erdogan-s-turkey-is-becoming-a-major-threat?srnd=premium