At issue is the candidacy of Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan is against Rasmussen. With the boldness which once brought the Turks to the gates of Vienna, Erdogan has pronounced Rasmussen as unacceptable to the "Muslim world." The sweeping rejection may have some validity considering that another Turk is the capo of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
Even if every Muslim on the planet holds his or her breath until blueness of the face ensues, the Erdogen Dictate is both unsupportable and irrelevant.
"Wait one, Geek!" You exclaim, continuing, "NATO is part of the not particularly successful war in Afghanistan. We can't piss off the Muslims."
Sure, the Geek replies. Can't hack off the Muslims. Everybody's favorite cop-out. But, let's try getting a grip on reality here.
The NATO SecGen is not a war fighter. He is not the chief policy maker for the alliance. He is not in charge of military strategy. There is little if any need for him to directly deal with the Muslims of Afghanistan, Turkey or Europe.
The NATO SecGen is the handholder-in-chief, the man who cozens, schmoozes and cajoles member states into some semblance of effective cooperation over time. To this end he may have to engage is person-to-person diplomacy with the Defense Ministers, Foreign Ministers and heads-of-state of the members. This implies rather strongly that he must have the support of critical countries before as well as after taking office.
Rasmussen has support. Throughout the alliance. Most notably, and perhaps most critically, he has the vocal and high-vis support of Germany. Ms Merkel has not been at all coy about that. The French and British have offered no public objections. Nor should they. Rasmussen meets or surpasses the tacitly defined requirements for a NATO SecGen. So far the US has maintained a low public profile. If the US does not support Rasmussen, if it bows to "Muslim sensitivities" as represented by Erdogan, it will be a significant self-inflicted defeat.
How's that, you ask?
De facto it gives an Islamist leaning Turkish government a totally undeserved, inappropriate and NATO Charter violating veto over selecting a SecGen. It would also hype the "Muslim sensitivities" to an unwarranted diplomatic importance. This would redound to American (and Western) disadvantage repeatedly in the future.
Consider the basis of Erdogan's disapproval of Rasmussen. The (in)famous Cartoon Contretemps of a few years back. You remember it? The cartoons published in assorted Danish media outlets and then around the world which were directed against Islamist rooted terrorism.
At the time Erdogan was one who demanded that the Danish government suppress the cartoons. It mattered not that such an action would violate such technicalities as the constitution of Denmark to say nothing of the long and honorable tradition of free expression which has marked the Kingdom. Showing the self-control and commitment to tolerance and diversity which has so long marked Islam, there were riots, street demos replete with shouts of, "Death to..." and ultimately boycotts and terror bombings directed against Denmark and its government.
The Cartoon Contretemps also kick started the global Muslim campaign against free expression which has been muscled through the UN Human Rights Council by the OIC. Erdogan hopes to expand the power of political Islam by barring the appointment of Rasmussen.
Traditionally the NATO SecGen has been chosen by consensus. As Merkel put it, the choice has "to be made unanimously."
There are other men under consideration who meet the minima, Canadian ForMin MacKay, the Norwegian ForMin Gahr Stoere, Polish ForMin Sikoriski and Bulgarian former ForMin Passy. All these men and probably many others would do as good a job as SecGen as Rasmussen.
The problem comes in that the selection of any candidate other than Rasmussen would appear to be a NATO cave in. If Erdogan had demonstrated even the slightest hint of diplomatic skill, he would have worked in deep cover to marshal support for one of the other possible selectees.
But, showing the propensity for highly public bluster and proclamation which seems to be a characteristic of Muslim foreign and domestic politics, Erdogan has put NATO in a position which is lose-lose.
If it elects someone other than Rasmussen, the odor of surrender to Islamist demands based upon the flimsy platform of "sensitivities" will erode the credibility of the alliance before it reaches its sixty-first anniversary. If it elects Rasmussen, Erdogan and his cronies will use that "unfriendly" act as cover for doing whatever they wanted to do before artificially creating the crisis.
This implies that Erdogan's objections may be carefully calculated. It may be that the agenda of the Turkish Islamists as well as those of OIC have nothing to do with NATO or free expression. Rather they have everything to do with naked power, its acquisition and expansion.
The US and Western European elites have handed the Islamists of Turkey, the OIC and others a potent weapon with their sensitivity to "sensitivities." We can't blame them for using the weapon we handed them.
2 comments:
"De facto it gives an Islamist leaning Turkish government a totally undeserved, inappropriate and NATO Charter violating veto over selecting a SecGen."
What a bunch of bullcrap. No member's consent or dissent is more or less deserved than the others'. Plus, the rule is to pick a SecGen based on full consensus. If a single member has reservations, it has to be dealt with and not brushed aside as "undeserved veto power".
"If Erdogan had demonstrated even the slightest hint of diplomatic skill, he would have worked in deep cover to marshal support for one of the other possible selectees."
And you have any evidence that he hasn't done so up until one day before the NATO meeting? Apparently, his reservations were not taken seriously by some higher-up European officials who thought, just like you, that his objections were undeserved and inappropriate. Wait until next time, not NATO's second largest military contributor, but a tiny Baltic member, blocks some other decision. With this kind of stupidity and tone-deaf attitude, I wonder whether the Europeans really have any serious intention to act as global players.
Thank you for an intelligent point of disagreement. The Geek always appreciates the opposing view.
The consensus approach is probably somewhat obsolete now, but is, of course, preferable. Erdogan has been riding the "NO DANES" horse publicly now for some weeks which somewhat enervates the contention that he has worked the backrooms first.
The Europeans are less than enthusiastic participants in out-of-theater operations and this will continue to be the case unless the OOTO is one which warms the cockles of the High Minded. Still, the tendency to be overly concerned about the purported sensitivities an a remarkably thin-skinned bunch such as represented by the OIC and the Erdogan Dictate is not productive in the long term. US and Western European interests have points of coincidence with those of Ankara as they do with Tehran and Islamabad but not to the extent that giving in to blatant threats such as those presented by Erdogan will facilitate the pursuit of those interests.
At root there is no reason to reject the contention that Islamist leaning regimes and individuals are, in paraphrase of George Washington Plunket, "seeing me opportunity and taking it." The Geek has no objection at all to Erdogan or any other Islamist leaner seeing and exploiting an opportunity.
The Geek does, however, take objection to any seeming capitulation on the part of the US or the Europeans as such will be injurious to the interests including core defining values over the long sweep. History shows that major shifts always start with very small events.
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