Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Turkey Drifts Away

See the poll results, in an article on the German Marshall Fund blog. It reports that the public opinion trend lines in our former ally Turkey show continued drift toward the Islamic nations and away from Europe and the United States. This is no surprise, but unpleasant nonetheless.

Some examples from the poll. On the question of the similarity of Turkish values to those of the West, 48% say not similar, 30% say similar. Over the past six years, from 2004 to the present, the percentage of Turks who favor joining the EU has dropped from 73% to 38%. And Turks are much less concerned than Americans or Europeans about Iran becoming a nuclear power.

A cynic would say that in the mid-twentieth century Turkey needed NATO to protect them from their then-powerful neighbor, the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet menace collapsed, they no longer need NATO. A realist would say Turks could no longer sustain the ideological conflict between political Islam and the secular state created by Ataturk. COTTonLINE says it is darned sad to lose an ally, but the ally is, for all practical purposes, lost.