The Empire Wants To Strike Back

This time around the "empire" is not the US, pace Comrades Hugo and Fidel.  The empire in question does not yet exist in its desired, reincarnated form.  But, given the ambitions of Turkish prime minister Erdogan and the almost done deal between his country and the mullahs next door in Iran, it is not unfair.

The jefe grande of the Ottoman Empire 2.0 is, like his predecessors, terribly upset by the Kurds.  Again in imitation of his non-Islamist forebearers, Erdogan is dreadfully keen on wiping the several groups fighting for Kurdish independence out of existence for once and all.  The Supreme Guardian of the Revolution, just like the Shah during the days of the ancien regime, shares the sentiment heart and soul.

The US as well as the (presumably) US backed regime in Iraq are caught somewhere in the middle.  Baghdad has a much larger dog in the fight to be sure.  Iraqi Kurdistan, which is legally semi-autonomous, is the most stable and prosperous place in the partially rebuilt country.  It is not simply Kurdistan's wealth and security that has raised hackles not only in Baghdad but through much of Iraq.  No.  Rather the deep distaste for Kurds and their region is about the only thing upon which the minority Sunnis and majority Shia can and do agree.

Way back in the mists of history (that is before World War I resulted in a massive exercise in creative cartography), Kurdistan was a territorial whole.  It had so existed for a mort of centuries both before and after the Ottoman Turks came to supremacy in Stamboli (or Istanbul, if that is your preference.)  The carving up of the old Empire was accomplished courtesy of the machinations of mid-level bureaucrats serving their masters in France and Great Britain.  In what was one of the greatest sins committed against the self-determination of nations principle dear to the heart of Woodrow Wilson, the Kurds found their tight little nascent state divided between French run Syria and English operated Iraq with small amounts allocated to the Turkey of Ataturk and the Shah of Persia.

Had this violation of American policy not been allowed to take place, Kurdistan would have long ago been recognized as the independent sovereign state its people wanted (and want) it to be.  But, as was so often the case, Wilson believed that the League of Nations (his centerpiece ideologically) would solve the injustice--an injustice he himself acknowledged.

For many decades, the issue rested silently in the mountains which constitute most of "Kurdistan."  But that came to an end when the respective "occupying" governments came to realize what resources resided in them thar hills.  Oil and hydroelectric resources to be precise.  Iraq battened fat off the oil while Turkey saw the rivers as the source of both agricultural and industrial riches.  The Iranians and Syrians saw potential in the fast running waters if not the oil and vowed to get their share.

With every passing year, the resources of "Kurdistan" have become more and more critical to Turkey and Iraq.  While the other two states have not profited so much, both Tehran and Damascus see the danger resident in a successful separatist movement.  The Syrian government both before and after the Baathist came to power sought to suppress the language, culture, and political identity of the Kurdish population.  The same has been the case in Iran under both secularist shah and Islamist grand ayatollahs.

Right down to the present day, the central government of Iraq has used all methods fair and foul alike to limit the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan.  The only thing keeping Baghdad from emulating the muscular methods of Saddam Hussein in the region has been the military capacity of the Kurdish peshmerga, which could fight the national army to a bloody standstill.

Over the past quarter century, the Kurds have been waging a low level defensive insurgency against both Iran and Turkey.  The PKK (shooting Turks) and PJAK (doing the same with Iranians down range) have been a thorn in the side of their target states.  Because Turkey is a NATO "partner," the US determined that the PKK is a terrorist organization.  Since Iran is a hostile state, the US has not yet made the same determination regarding the other group, the PJAK (aka "good terrorists.)

Comes now Recip Erdogan to announce an impending agreement with Iran to mount a joint effort presumably involving ground as well as air forces against those pesky Kurds and the heavily fortified base camps high in the mountains.  The reason to presume a ground effort is the abject failure of air assaults conducted by the Turkish air force to do more than move a few rocks around as well as kill a small number of civilians who did not find shelter in time but who in their deaths provided excellent propaganda material for the Kurds.

So far there has been no reported word from the Iraqi government regarding this proposed violation of sovereignty.  Perhaps the Iraqis are more easy going about such matters then are, say, the Pakistanis.  Or, the central government might be hoping for a good excuse to move large forces into Iraqi Kurdistan, forces which once there will not be quick to leave.

Nor has the Obama administration made comment on the proposed joint action--except implicitly.  For some while the US has been providing intelligence information to Ankara concerning the PKK.  This shared catch includes imagery and ELINT obtained by Predators.  Now, the word has leaked out that the Obama crew is contemplating basing Predators in Turkey.

Not one to be asleep at the switch, Erdogan has responded by offering to purchase or lease a few Predators so as to cut out the middleman.  Considering that the Paks have wanted to do this for a long while now, it would be quite a diplomatic and political coup for Erdogan to achieve the goal.

Not to put too fine a point on the Kurdish Question, there is ample evidence to the effect that the Kurds and their proposed state meet the tests provided in the UN Charter as well as subsidiary conventions.  With Iraqi Kurdistan as the linchpin, there is no doubt but the hypothetical Kurdistan would meet the requirements of the Montevideo Convention.  Considering this inconvenient context, US policy regarding the Kurds is flatly wrong.

The finding that PKK is a terrorist entity was based simply on the role Turkey theoretically plays in NATO while the similar act by the European Union dates back to the days when Turkey was knocking on the EU door.  In short, these actions had little if anything to do with "terrorism" per se and much to do with extraneous political considerations.

Silence in the Oval regarding the odd couple military plans must fall in the same category.  Arguably, the decision to share catch with Ankara and the basing of Predators in Turkey constitute another bribe to Erdogan for allowing the installation of the US X-band radar.  The decision to allow this anti-Iran move has resulted in severe blowback from Tehran, so the Turkish prime minister probably wants additional compensation.

There is only one open question.  No, that question is not will the US switch its policy regarding the Kurds and their right to and desire for a state of their own.  Nor does this question involve the notion of granting the government of Iraqi Kurdistan its request of redeploying US forces within its borders.  The present administration lacks both the depth of regional understanding and the political will to do either--even if each would be in American national interest.

The only remaining question is whether or not Obama and his "team" will cave and sell-lease a few spare Predators to Erdogan, and through him, the Iranians.

Wanna make a bet?

Ethno-Religious Democracy And The Next Mideast War

Turkey has declared rhetorical war on Israel.  To err on the side of accuracy, the Islamist leaning government in Ankara has been escalating words to almost the this-means-war level over the past few days.  Behind this development resides not only an ambition of regional power status but the explosive growth of a new Turkish nationalism based on the merging of ethnic and religious identities, which has substantially replaced the strongly secularist predicated sense of national self inaugurated by Kemal Attaturk.

The target of Turkey's ever more intemperate attacks has likewise reinvented its sense of national identity on the merging of religion and nationalism.  When founded, Israel was both a Jewish state and an outpost of European socialist thought which centered upon secularism.

The seismic shift in Turkey's national identity came only in the past decade when the long ignored peasant population of the Anatolian highlands moved to the urban centers of Ankara and Istanbul in large enough numbers to form an effective political base for the AKP, a party whose roots ran deeply into the rich soil of political Islam.  When the internal migrants, searchers for a better life, joined with the equally ignored Muslim clerical establishment, it became possible to organize the discontented and marginalized new arrivals into a potent political base.  This, in turn, brought the AKP to power--a power it has developed further by defanging the military and the secular elites of the cities.

The shift of Israeli politics from the secular left to the ethno-religious right started back in 1977 when Likud tapped the pool of resentment felt within significant segments of the Israeli population.  By melding a new coalition of expansive hyper-nationalists, new immigrants, and the more religiously minded, Likud was able to gain power.  As the years went by, the nationalist and religiously observant right was strengthened in numbers by arrivals from the Soviet Union, and, after the collapse of that state, its ruins.

The movement to the right was accelerated by the First Intifada and the consequent bloodletting imposed by the Palestinian terrorists.  This reaction on the part of the Israeli public was to be expected.  Terror is normally counterproductive.  With every suicide bomber, every rocket, every new outrage, the median of Israeli politics moved more and more into the right hand lane.

The external pressure joined with the Second Intifada to push Israelis even more into the harsh and uncompromising position of national identity based on the juncture of Jewishness and Israeli-ness.  This dynamic was fully predictable as pressure consolidates political will long, long before it fractures it.  In this context, it is easy to see why the ill-advised efforts by the Obama administration to put the screws to Israel generally and the Netanyahu government in particular were counterproductive failures.

The result is the current loggerheads relation between mirror image politicians--Erdogan and Netanyahu--along with the daggers drawn nature of Turkish-Israeli relations.  A larger consequence of national identities based on the merger of ethnic and religious definitions is looming as the "Arab Spring" rolls into Fall, a Fall which will be marked with a very early freeze.

Democracy is dangerous.  The power of this truth informed the thinking of the authors of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Democracy is nothing more or less than the popular expression of whatever fad, fancy, or fantasy can be employed effectively to move voters to mark one person's name preferentially.

Among the many fads, fancies, and fantasies which can be employed to this end, none are more powerful than nationalism and religion.  The advocates of political Islam in Egypt, in Libya, in Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Arab Muslim states know this perfectly.  Knowledge need only to be put into action.

In the classic treatment of revolution, Anatomy of Revolution, the author makes a key point.  Although only ancient offensive insurgencies were considered in this book, the power of this one observation has been enhanced by each and every revolution which has succeeded in the post-World War II years.

The point?

Revolutions move to the extreme.  That is to say, the group with the most radical agenda for change following the overthrow of the old regime will win.  The reasons for this inevitable move to the extreme are few and simple.  The more extreme the group, the more sweeping will be the changes contained in its agenda.  In addition, the more extreme groups are tightly organized, their action plan is simple, easy to understand, and addresses fundamental fears and aspirations held by the majority of the public.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Salifists, and others advocating political Islam are all tightly organized.  All have agendas which are virtually interchangeable, making group merger thinkable.  And, most importantly, all have action plans which are predicated on the strictures and requirements of Islam as well as the notions of dignity and pride resident in nationalism.

In all the countries involved in the dramatic events of the past nine months, the advocates of political Islam enjoy great advantage over their secular opponents.  Not only are the assorted groups well organized and possessed of a radical agenda, all make profound appeals to both Islam and national pride.  "Stand tall, you are Egyptian" is a chant virtually identical to the more recent, "Stand tall, you are Muslim."

The necessary inference from what has been observed and reported throughout the Mideast and North Africa  is simply that Egypt, Libya, and perhaps others will move to the totalistic national sense of self which has been in play in Turkey and Israel.  One implication of this trajectory is that Turkey will fail to reestablish the Ottoman Empire.  Another, far more disturbing one considering all that has been at work in the Israeli political system is that war will become far more likely in the near to mid-term.


The next war will sneak up on the West.  This is to be expected.  The elites of the West generally discount nationalism as a spent force, a ancient relic which has outlived whatever usefulness it once may have possessed.  At the same time, the Western elites of politics, the media, and academia pretend that religion does not exist as a real force in the lives of people and the policies of governments.

In the US, in the West, the leaders of state and molders of opinion alike will not see what is happening on the Arab streets and states alike.  What will not be seen, cannot be prevented.

Pleasant thought, eh?

What Is Erdogan Smoking?

The Islamist-leaning jefe grande of the AKP and prime minister of Turkey, Recip Erdogan, is proving to be something of a regional loose cannon.  It is one thing to demand an apology from Israel for the badly mishandled boarding of the Mavi Marmora, but it is a far different matter to threaten war.

Make no mistake about it, the bellicose prime minister's promise/threat to provide naval cover for future "aid" flotillas headed for Gaza is the next best thing to a declaration of war against Israel.  Erdogan might not like it, but the Israeli blockade of Hamas ruled Gaza does conform with international law as well as the customs of war at sea.  That inconvenient truth has been made clear time after time, most recently in the Palmer Report.  The report severely criticized the Israelis for the conduct of the blockade but emphasized that the blockade per se was and is totally legal.

This means that any Turkish naval units convoying the "aid" vessels would be seeking to break an internationally recognized and legal blockade by armed force.  That is a pretty good operational definition of war.  Perhaps the huffing and puffing PM did not realize that as he allowed his mouth to run away from adult supervision, but if the Turkish navy shoots, the Israelis will shoot back, just as sure as it is hot as hell in Texas.

Having made the promise/threat, the AKP government now had best hope that no pro-Palestinian group will take up the offer.  Given that the "humanitarian" NGO behind the Mavi Marmora flotilla has very close ties to the government, it may be expected that at least that group, IHH, will be controllable.  But there are many other entities willing to use the specious cover of humanitarian aid convoys to embarrass Israel and, given the Erdogan commitment, perhaps start a war which will end the Zionist menace once and for all.

Certainly there are enough entities, including both state and non-state actors, which fervently desire an end to Israel.  Of these, most would be willing to manipulate a face off between Turkey and Israel into the long hoped for War of the Final Solution.  Erdogan's promise/threat darn near invites some group to do just that.

There is the chance that Erdogan was motivated not only by his ambition to recreate the Ottoman Empire in an updated form but also by an exaggerated belief that his navy could simply intimidate the Israelis into allowing the Turk protected "aid" convoy to steam unimpaired to port in Gaza.  The Turkish navy is much larger than its Israeli counterpart.  The TCG has eight former US Perry class frigates as well as more modern classes including eight MEKO vessels.  The Turks also can deploy an impressive number of smaller combatants headed by six French built corvettes.

The Israeli navy is small in comparison.  However the almost microscopic coastal defense oriented IDF naval forces include three highly competent Dolphin class submarines whose tube launched missiles constitute a serious threat to any surface opponent.  Far more importantly, any confrontation between Turk and Israeli would occur within very easy range of the Israeli land based air force.  The Turks have no credible way of countering the Israeli air threat.  Period.

Israeli air dominance means it is game, set, and match to those fighting under the blue and white flag of Israel.

Erdogan is apparently too busy contemplating his diplomatic brilliance to remember the hortatory advice which ended the sci-fi classic, The Thing, "Watch the skies!"

The Islamist PM has also overlooked the vast difference between impressing the Arab street with anti-Israeli oratory (very good) and saber rattling (which scares the hell out of the same street.)  Turkey has gained a whale of a lot of traction in the Mideast by cocking a snoot at Israel by way of words and diplomatic rupture. This does not mean the Arabs or their governments, either new or old, are hoping for a return of the Ottoman Empire under any guise.  Nor are all hands thrilled by the prospect of a new regional war whether initiated by intent or miscalculation.

The same dynamics and considerations apply to the second of Erdogan's promises/threats.  The expansive, not to say delusional, PM also declared that the Turks will guarantee the maritime commons and subsea resources against Israeli exploitation.  This is a more comprehensive commitment than the convoying of humanitarian flotillas.  At the same time, it places the Turks in a more vulnerable position by greatly enlarging the possibility of starting a war of miscalculation.  It also places Turkey in the role of regional semi-hegemon pretending that no one can drill below the water of the Eastern Mediterranean without Ankara's remit.  This is a preposterous assertion which will alienate not only the government of Cyprus but a host of others as well.

Alienation takes many forms.  And, alienation can have a host of consequences, none of which is positive from Ankara's perspective.

For example, the present Egyptian government (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) may be happy with the new military agreement between itself and Turkey.  It may be pleased with the prospect of joint military, naval, and air exercises to be held early next year.  But, neither SCAF nor any successor government other than one dominated by the more extreme Salifists would be thrilled by a joint war against Israel.  After all, the Egyptians are a lot closer to Israel and know from experience what that can mean if the bullets fly and the bombs fall.

Every Arab state is too preoccupied currently with internal problems to seek a war.  If a war of miscalculation would ensue after a Turk-Israeli shoot out at sea, there would be few Arabs rushing to the frontline.  The Turks would find themselves rather alone in the matter.

Erdogan (who now deserves the Joe Biden Award) has no choice in the real world now other than to back down.  Fortunately for him the walking back can be done quietly.  He and the AKP will lose a bit of street cred, but that is preferable to losing a war.

They Just Have The Wrong Enemy

Back in 1918, the Great Powers, victors over Germany, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire did a bit of practical work, redrawing the maps of Europe and the Mideast.  Supposedly high on the list of priorities for this exercise in practical cartography was the uniquely American proposition called, "self-determination of peoples."  This noble bit of High Mindedness was honored more or less with respect to the splitting up of the old Hapsburg domains, but was it observed only in the breech when it came to dismembering the Ottoman lands.

When the hyper-idealistic Woodrow Wilson confronted the real world of secret deals and the fruits of wartime exigencies, he discovered that his notions of self-determination had been preempted by an assortment of understandings both formal and otherwise between Great Britain and France.  One of these rather under the table deals dealt with the area called Palestine.  This area along with the coterminous Trans-Jordan had been divided according to two contradictory undertakings.  One, the Balfour Declaration, promised Jews a "national homeland."  The other, an agreement between two bureaucrats, Sykes and Picot, created two protectorates, one under British rule and the other under French.

This exercise in international can kicking is still with us today in the form of the seemingly endless conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  (By the way a body of American experts on the region advised President Wilson to fight this one to the death as the result would be a century of bloodshed.  Rarely have experts been so right.)

Almost overlooked was the simultaneous division of Iraq and Syria into British (Iraq) and French (Syria along with its appendage, Lebanon) protectorates.  Embedded in both Iraq and Syria as well as in the rump state of Turkey and the country then called Persia was a people long separated from their neighbors by language, customs, and culture but not religion.  This nation now split among four states was the Kurds.

The Kurds were not at all happy with this division.  Nor should they have been.  According to the principle of self-determination, the Kurds merited their own state, the state of Kurdistan.  But, these unfortunate folk lacked any representative in Versailles.  Unlike the Arabs way down south, the Kurds had provided no service to the Allied cause.  Unlike the Arabs, the Kurds had no access to powerful British political figures.  Neither did they gain the attention of imperial minded bureaucrats.  As a result, they were casually and cruelly consigned to minority status within four states.

Almost immediately, the Kurds commenced a defensive insurgency in each and every of the four countries to which they had been so cavalierly assigned.  The insurgency has not ended to this day.  Like the conflict between Arab Palestinian and Israeli Jew, the conflict gives no hint of ending soon, or ever.

The Kurdish people are an ancient hill folk.  Like hill dwellers almost everywhere, they are excellent warriors.  It deserves mention that the great Muslim fighter who kicked Crusader butt with great effect, Saladin, was a Kurd.  While today's Kurdish fighters may not have either the military genius or bent to chivalry which marked the legendary Saladin, they are not slouches in the craft of guerrilla war as may be attested to by the marked lack of success enjoyed to date by Turks and Iranians alike.

Other than in Iraq where the Kurds have a semi-autonomous province under sole Kurdish control, it is accurate to say the Kurds live under occupation by a foreign force.  In Turkey, in Syria, and in Iran, the majority Kurdish areas are under direct military control.  Indeed, in at least two of these countries, the degree of military control equals or exceeds that exercised by Israel over the Palestinians of the West Bank and far outstrips that of Gaza.

The Kurds are denied equal treatment in all three states to a degree never reached in the West Bank or Gaza.  They are denied the use of their own language.  They are not allowed to conduct their own education.  They are not provided with the same level of governmental services including access to economic development as the majority populations in all three states.  In short, the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iran have been pushed to the margins, had their culture and language robustly attacked as a matter of policy, and are subject to an array of legal disabilities as well as informal discrimination.

From any perspective, the Kurds have suffered far more deprivation of status, rights, and opportunities at the hands of the governments and majority populations of Turkey, Syria, and Iran than the Palestinians ever were during the years since June 1967.  At the same time, the Kurds have a claim on statehood which equals or exceeds that made by the Palestinians.

In sharp contrast with the Palestinians, the Kurds have waged their multi-generation insurgency with remarkable humanity.  Unlike the Palestinians down to the present day, the Kurdish fighters sharply limit their attacks to military and constabulary targets.  The intentional attack of civilians is almost unheard of.  Compared to the Palestinian way of war, the Kurds take care to reduce collateral damage to a minimum.  In the usually dirty business of insurgent warfare, the Kurds are relative good guys.  The Palestinians are very much of the opposite hue.

These ground truths demand a question or two.  Where are the liberal groups in the West?  Where are the groups espousing boycotts, divestiture, or deligitimatization of Iran, Syria, and Turkey?  Where are the UN resolutions condemning the suppression of the legitimate rights of the Kurds by Ankara, Damascus, Tehran?  Where is the UN Human Rights Council with resolutions, special rapporteurs, and other displays of condemnation or concern?

In the last few years, advocates of Palestinian statehood have proliferated with a speed which boggles the imagination.  Campaigns of boycotts, divestiture, and sanctions have spilled forth in mighty torrents.  The UN and its lesser creatures have shown a tender concern for the Palestinians without precedent.  The High Minded and Lofty Thinking of the West have taken the Palestinians--rockets, suicide vests, and AK-47s  included--into a warm embrace.

All blame for whatever happens in the Mideast between Israel and the Palestinians is quickly, automatically, ascribed to the evil doing, racist, Zionist occupiers.  Even when a Jewish infant dies, throat slit as it slept near the dead parents and elder siblings, it is seen as the direct result of the Zionist occupier.

Meanwhile, the Turkish air force bombs civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan while Iranian artillery does the same without even the mildest whimper coming from the assorted advocates of self-determination around the world who are so quick to condemn the Zionist occupiers.  Even Syria is exempt from criticism as it denies the most basic rights to Kurds resident in its borders.

Why?

Why two "victims" (one, the Kurds, arguably more deserving of the term) with two such wildly disparate responses from the "international community," the human rights congeries, and politicians around the world?

The answer is as simple as it is ugly.  The Kurds are predominantly Muslim.  So also are the oppressive majority populations in each and every of the four states.  The Palestinians are mainly Muslim.  Their putative oppressors are Jewish.

And, now the really nasty part, antisemitism is as rife in the West as it is endemic to the Muslim states.  In the West, this ancient, evil mindset hides behind the currently respectable facade of being "anti-Zionist" or, even better, as a euphemism, "opposition to aspects of Israeli policy."

It is OK in the West to look at Muslim oppression of Muslims with total indifference.  In the Muslim majority states, the same is true to an even greater extent because to condemn the Muslim majority for oppressing a Muslim minority is to commit that great Islamic sin of fitna, of introducing fission in the great Islamic ummah.  The single towering fiction in Islam is that of holding the community of believers to be one huge, happy family.  So, no hand is raised, no voice either, to stop the oppression of Kurds by Muslim Turks, Muslim Iranians, or Muslim Arabs.

The fiction of Islamic unity is nothing compared to the larger concoction in the West.  The concealing of antisemitism behind the thin and torn scrim of "anti-Zionism" or "opposition to aspects of Israeli policy" is not simply hypocritical, it is a moral delict of the highest order.

Any way you cut it, the groups and individuals in the West who brandish the cudgels on behalf of the Palestinians while maintaining a discrete silence with respect to the Kurds are examples of moral decay without equal.  It is a very severe indictment of the High Minded in the West who by their careful selection of who deserves support show themselves to be both dishonest and antisemitic to the core.

The people and groups so staunchly supporting the Palestinians (including the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, the assorted NGOs, and the individuals who espouse sanctions, boycotts, and divestiture) will deserve respectful attention when and only when they exhibit the same level of concern for the Kurds as they do the Palestinians.  Unless and until these worthies are as willing to condemn and seek to delegitimatize the Turks, the Iranians, and the Syrians, they merit no hearing.

Rather, these groups and individuals should themselves be blackguarded as the antisemites they are.  Any less is to endorse their wicked position.

Yes, Bibi, Great States Do Apologize

The apparent center of gravity in the current degradation of relations between Turkey and Israel is the failure of the latter to offer an acceptable, formal apology for the nine deaths which occurred at the hands of IDF personnel during the encounter between Israel and the utterly bogus "relief" flotilla headed by the Mavi Marmora.  The Palmer Report concluded that while Israel had international law and custom on its side as regarded the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, the enforcement of the blockade as well as the resultant deaths constituted an egregious act of overreach.

The incident on board the ship handed anti-Israeli elements, including the Islamist leaning AKP government of Turkey a heaven sent opportunity to make much propaganda at the expense of the Jewish state.  In this context the Turks have demanded repeatedly that Israel not only provide compensation for those wounded and killed by IDF members but also provide an acceptable apology.  Israel has agreed to compensation but has balked over the idea of an apology.  Prime minister Netanyahu has maintained that doing so would damage Israeli public morale among other sinister things.  In this he has been backed (or exceeded) by the always ready to breath fire foreign minister, Lieberman.  The far right of the Israeli political spectrum has been monolithic in the rejectionist stance adopted by Netanyahu.

It seems that the Netanyahu government believes that an apology for an action seen as being defensive in nature and not overdone in view of the provocations offered by activists on board the Mavi Marmora who were armed with bludgeons and similar weapons would somehow lessen Israel in the eyes of its citizens and the world generally.  This is an utterly specious notion.

The first reason for declaring the Netanyahu stance specious is simply that the raid was poorly conceived and even more poorly executed.  It seems preposterously arrogant that the raid's planners and commanders did not anticipate any armed resistance to the IDF boarding party.  Did these experienced military officers really, really believe the activists sponsored by a group with a long record of hostility to Israel would not seek a confrontation?  Or, were they of the view that the simple arrival of the dreaded IDF would cause an instant collapse of will on the part of the activists?  Either flies in the face of both experience and realistic military planning.

To put it bluntly, the boarding was as badly botched as, for example, the special operations force attempt in Somalia twenty years back which resulted in Blackhawk down.  The IDF blew it pure and simple when they mounted the assault.  This is not a mark against the troops who fast roped down to decks filled with men ready and eager for a violent confrontation, men who were willing to court and accept death at the hands of the IDF, men willing to be martyrs for the faith and the cause.

Apologizing for your own side's errors is no shame--only a transient embarrassment for those in charge.  Admitting that better thinking, better planning, better timing, better methods and tactics would have resulted in a death free takeover of the ship is no sin,  no humiliation, but rather an expression of a willingness and capacity to learn from mistakes.

The second reason the Netanyahu posture is specious not to say vacuous is simply that great nations can and do apologize.  By this the Geek does not mean the bogus exercises of mea culpa engaged in by President Obama for American "transgressions" both real and imagined but in all cases resident in the far distant past.  No, the Geek means such examples as that provided by General Stanley McChrystal, sitting, legs crossed, feet bootless, on the rug covered floor of an Afghan stone hut apologizing for fatalities inflicted by forces under his command upon civilians, upon members of the family in whose house he sat.

The humble, human gesture of offering apologies for lives cut short in no way humiliated the general, nor the forces in his command, nor the nation in whose service he and his people fought.  Rather, it demonstrated that a great and powerful country disposing military force of nearly unlimited power could admit it did inadvertent wrong, wreaked unintended havoc and death--and, most importantly, could acknowledge and apologize for it.

Unlike General McChrystal, there will be no need for Mr Netanyahu to face the kin of those who died at the hands of the IDF.  Mr Netanyhu will not have to take off his shoes, sit on the floor, and personally say, "I am truly sorry for the deaths my men caused and the pain inflicted upon you by our actions.  Mr Netanahu can do the job by written words, words carefully crafted by diplomats and vetted by politicians, words which can be totally insincere provided they do not read as such.  It can be an antiseptic charade without any requirement for the direct person-to-person dynamic which involved McChrystal.

True, the Turks will crow over an apology.  The Erdogan government will distort it, use it to advance Turkey's status in its ambitious plan of a neo-Ottoman Empire.  That will be to the shame of Ankara not Israel.  And, it is debatable that the resultant propaganda will be any more destructive of Israel's interests than is the ongoing festering crisis of diplomacy and trade.

Best of all, the issuance of an apology puts the ball back in the Turk's court.  The apology would place the onus on Ankara to put up or shut up, to restore the status quo ante or admit the whole issue was false, a gambit intended to put Israel on the unending defensive, a way to back out of the previous policy of cooperation between the two countries.  This manner of clarification is in Israel's interest, is it not?

Get a grip, Mr Netanyahu!  An apology is in your interests.  It is in the better interests of your country.  Offering one will not diminish Israel; it will buff the country's image and status around the world and in the US.  It will not even bruise your ego.  It might even enhance your sense of self.  It will have been you who called the Erdogan bluff.

Turkey's Foreign Policy--Clever Calculation Or Flat Out Stupid

Until very recently, the announced foreign policy of Turkey under the Islamist leaning AKP has been one of "zero problems" with its regional neighbors.  This exercise in fantasy started to crumble under the bitter winds of the "Arab Spring."

Ankara did not know whether to go with the new flow or stand resolutely alongside the embattled regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Qaddafi.  The Erdogan government blew first hot and then cold on the uprisings in Bahrain.  The name of the Turkish diplomatic game regarding Syria was vacillation.

After a long period of agonizing indecision, Ankara finally did come down on the side of the Egyptian protesters.  Then, after more of the same, the Turks reluctantly sided with the Libyan rebels.  In the latter case, it is not trivial to note that Ankara robustly opposed the use of force--either to protect civilians or to provide the anti-government forces with an air capacity.

Only after the longest possible period of watching and waiting did the Erdogan government come out publicly against Bashar al-Assad.  The delay and equivocation in this case was due to a powerful desire in Ankara not to damage their rapprochement with Tehran.  Possibly this was enhanced by the pending announcement of the decision to host the basing of the new American X band radar on Turkish soil, a move which would raise the hackles of the ayatollahs.

The alternative to irritating Iran over Syria was to court further distancing from the majority of the Arab street which was strongly supportive of the "Arab Spring" movements and saw the Syrians as martyrs to the cause of freedom.  Biting the bullet, Erdogan and his fellow Islamists denounced the Assad regime as having lost Turkish governmental "confidence."

The Syrian demarch was too little too late to satisfy the pro-freedom groups proliferating in the Mideast to the disadvantage of Ankara's desire to recreate the Ottoman days.  At the same time, the twin moves of condemning Syria and accepting the X band radar did infuriate the ayatollahs and their frontmen.  By poor timing, the Turks fell between the two stools and emasculated the "zero problems" gambit.

The effect has been to put more pressure on Erdogan to take the strongest possible anti-Israel stance.  Only by Israel baiting of the highest sort could Turkey hope to keep or rebuild its stature not only on the Arab street but within the chanceries of the region.

The attractions of playing the Israel card are self-evident.  Erdogan came to prominence in 2009 by stalking off the stage at Davos while loudly accusing Israel president Peres of being a "murderer."  The next year the Israelis enhanced Erdogan's status as the champion of the Palestinians by a heavy handed but legal stopping of the bogus aid flotilla with nine fatal casualties among those on board the lead ship.  Ever since that day, the Erdogan government has made rich PR hay by flogging the dead horse of the Mavi Marmora.  Most recently his demand for an apology has been reinforced by a downgrading of diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey with highly positive results among the denizens of the Arab street.

The escalation of the diplomatic contretemps has assured Turkey's "zero problems" is not only defunct but stinkingly so.  The sickly sweet smell of death hangs around Turkey's regional diplomacy.

As if alienating the Iranians, the Israelis, the Libyans, the Egyptians, and the Syrians was not enough, Ankara has undertaken a number of high casualty attacks by air and artillery against targets in Iraqi Kurdistan.  The series of air strikes and artillery stonks was purportedly in retaliation for an ambush conducted on Turkish soil by members of PKK, the long lived Kurdish insurgent group seeking the creation of a true Kurdish state.

It is true that PKK has sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan.  So does the group PJK which has been waging low intensity war against the Iranians.  It is this geographic and political locus which gives Tehran and Ankara a coinciding national interest.  The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stages the same sort of hyperactive response to guerrilla attacks as does the Turkish army.

Stripped to its essentials, both Turkey and Iran have been waging undeclared international war against Iraq.  While the Shia dominated pseudo-government in Baghdad sheds no tears for dead Iraqi Kurds, the recent attacks by Turkey have produced an unacceptable number of civilian deaths and, thus, have cast doubt upon the Baghdad government's will and ability to guarantee the integrity of its national borders.  This is a very poor idea just months before the final expulsion of the Americans from Iraq.

One more problem for the Turks "zero problems" approach to regional life.

It is not out of line to wonder when the Iraqi Kurds will say, "Enough is enough" and move robustly to protect their own population regardless of what the Shias of Baghdad may want.  The Kurdish peshmerga are numerous, well armed, very well motivated, and reasonably well armed.  They have the advantage of fighting on home ground in terrain which favors the defense.

The Turks have deployed a regimental sized combat group near to the Iraqi border.  This as well as recent oratory from Erdogan's boys seems to indicate a ground assault may be in the offing.  The Turks have done this in the past with limited results--if any.  In the past they have gotten away with incursions but may find the going far more difficult in the future--if the Kurds allow the peshmerga to return fire.

Of course, this will present the Obama administration with a very real challenge.  They will have to placate the Turks, if such is possible.  They will have to deter the Kurds, if such is possible.  They will have to work overtime to prevent a defacto split of Iraq into an Arab Iraq and a Kurdish Kurdistan.  Given that the US has no leverage in Baghdad and the Turk's decision to allow basing of the X band radar gives them the whip hand, it is difficult to see what the US can do in the event the Turkish army moves into Iraqi Kurdistan and meets resistance from the provincial militia.

The "zero problems" stance bodes well to be replaced in reality with a "problems everywhere" policy.  The Deep Thinkers of the AKP have to decide where Turkey's national interests reside.  True, it would be best for Ankara if it could be the balancing point between the West and the Muslim states of the Mideast and Central Asia, but it seems the reach of Turkish ambitions far outstrips the competence of its policy grasp.  Thus, it seems appropriate that the Turks decide if it is better for their longer term interests to back down and align with the West as has been the case for the past sixty plus years or side with the mullahs, the ayatollahs, the imams of the Muslim states including Iran and Pakistan but against the Saudis and the other Gulf countries.

Erdogan is obviously a good politician in the context of Turkey.  But, like other good politicians he has made the mistake of conflating public adulation with total support.  As Woodrow Wilson learned nearly a century ago at Versailles, there is a world of difference between cheers on the street and cutting effective policy deals with foreign leaders.  Applause is nice, but policy success is much better.

Well, just one more problem for the "zero problems" guy.

A Slick Trip Down The Islamist Tubes?

The Islamist AKP has gained an apparent unassailable superiority over the armed forces of Turkey.  The shocking simultaneous "early retirement" of the military chief of staff and three other service commanders over the weekend seemed to have put the final nail in the coffin of the military's role as the ultimate guarantor of Turkish secularism and the legacy of Ataturk.

The act came on the eve of the semi-annual meeting of the combined armed forces senior leadership with the head of the civilian government, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and has been seen by many observers, Turkish as well as foreign, as a welcome sign of Turkey having become a normal democracy where civilian supremacy over the military is a given.  In the past, there has been a great deal of discomfort in the US and Western Europe over the periodic military excursions out of the barracks and into the presidential palace.  The European Union (or at least France) demanded that the armed forces be defanged as a prerequisite for membership.

The recent mass resignation must be taken in conjunction with the ongoing trial of nearly three hundred past and present senior commanders (ten percent or so of the entire flag officer complement) on charges which are at best politically motivated and most likely fabricated in whole or major part.  The massive series of arrests over the past year or so constituted the AKP's direct attack on the military, which was the only plausible obstacle to permanent Islamist domination of Turkish politics.

The armed forces and AKP have been at daggers drawn since the once-banned AKP won power in 2002.  The military missed its chance to send the Islamists packing in the wake of the narrow electoral victory mainly out of regard for EU sentiments and a proper regard for the benefits of EU membership.  As the years slipped by, the chances for a military coup slipped away until they were lost beyond any hope in the most recent election where AKP took no prisoners at the polls.

Erdogan had made much of his stated intent to pursue EU membership even though it was more than slightly obvious that France would spare no effort to block the application.  The economic success of the AKP has been based not on trade with the EU but upon increased ties with the Mideast and the Turkish speaking Central Asian Republics.  In the process, a new class of very rich middlemen and entrepreneurs drawn from urban migrants originating in the Anatolian highlands has become a key component of the AKP base.  These new millionaires join with displaced peasants in the slums of Istanbul and Ankara and "conservative" clerics to provide the electoral majority.

The rivals to the AKP drive to the east have been the senior officers of the armed forces along with the "traditional" business and commercial elite of Istanbul.  The military has at its upper ranks men who are far more Western in their outlook, far more liberal in their views as well as far more educated than the mass of the political class and the new moneyed class.  Their instinctive perspective is Western.  That of AKP and its base runs to the East, to the Muslim marches of Central and Northwest Asia--and the states of the old Ottoman Empire.

The seemingly decisive victory of AKP over the inheritors of Ataturk is not universally welcomed in Turkey.  There are more than a few Turks who fear that without the army as a counterweight there will be no limits on Erdogan and AKP.  There is an undercurrent of apprehension that now the Islamists will be free to pursue the goal of reestablishing the old caliphate with all that implies.  Others, unsurprisingly, pooh-pooh that notion and welcome AKP confining the armed forces to a subordinate role and, thus, allowing a return to the values and norms of the pre-Ataturk era.

Very few Turks are aghast at the new diplomatic muscle enjoyed by Ankara in the Mideast and Central Asia. Likewise, very few resent the new economic options brought by the "Ost politik" practiced by Erdogan.  Other than some trepidations over Turkey's ever closer ties to Shia Iran, there have been few complaints over the foreign policy of Erdogan and company.  There is definitely majority support for the very hard line drawn by Erdogan over Israel, particularly the IDF takeover of the Mazi Marmora "humanitarian relief" ship over a year ago.

The net effect has been the tilting of the longstanding conflict between nationalist and Islamist, secularist and Islamist in favor of the latter.  For the moment this is just jake with the majority of Turks.  But, there is likely to be a quick withdrawal of support for AKP should there be heavy handed attempts to "purify" Turkish society of "infidel" aspects.  So far, the party has been sensitive to this dynamic and has moved only slowly to "Islamify" Turkey.

Almost overlooked in the political discussions of the resignations has been another, critical subject: The impact of Turkey's Muslim oriented "Ost politik" on NATO.  In as much as Turkey's membership in the alliance has been considered, it has been in the boilerplate terms of "NATO's second largest army."  As if size matters.

Turkey's large army is also quite irrelevant to NATO in the post-cold war period.  Not only is the army incapable of any effective action outside of Turkey, it has not shown any particular utility in the local "forever war" against the Kurdish defensive insurgency.  Pace NATO public statements (or those of Admiral Mullen), the armed forces of Turkey are totally irrelevant to NATO today and into the future.

The armed forces of Turkey, while large, are also largely immobile, poorly trained, indifferently equipped, overly expensive, a drain on the Turkish fisc, and a political drag on the alliance.  The new Erdogan ministry strongly opposed the US driven invasion of Iraq making much political hay from proclaiming the operation as a "war on Islam and Muslims."  In addition, the Turks have been a major non-participant in the NATO mission in Afghanistan.  And, the AKP government bitterly opposed the no-fly zone and its follow-on in Libya.

There is no reason not to believe that Turkey has passed along critical NATO information to Iran as a part of its charm offensive with Tehran.  The same may be true regarding the opposition in Afghanistan and, possibly, Libya.  Having Turkey in NATO today is tantamount to having the Italy of Mussolini sitting in on the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II.

If it is true, as it appears to be, that the Islamists have won in Turkey, the time has come to restructure NATO without Ankara.  The hoary alliance is at a difficult crossroads.  There is looming, embarrassing failure in Libya joining with the rush for the exit in Afghanistan to undercut any lingering credibility accruing to it.  Given further that most NATO members have shown an ability to hit the funding targets akin to the performance of a visually impaired sniper, the time is now to rethink the alliance.  The time is now to contemplate the impossible: The dissolution of NATO.

It is questionable whether or not NATO has any utility or even relevance to the world of now and tomorrow where the major enemy of any and all civilized states are the advocates of violent political Islam.  The best way for civilized states to counter the threat resides not with NATO or any other Cold War artifact but rather with "coalitions of the willing," ad hoc structures of states with coinciding national interests which perceive the threat from violent political Islam or the challenges presented by any particular failed, failing, or hollow state in similar ways.

As George H.W. Bush showed during the Gulf War, the ad hoc coalition can work well provided the necessary preliminary diplomatic work is done with care.  Even George W. Bush's ham handed counterparts worked reasonably well.  In comparison, the NATO effort in Libya has been an example of how not to go about the task.  While this can (correctly) be blamed on the relative absence of the US from  the shooting war, the real lesson to be learned is that the effort was not undertaken by a genuine coalition of the willing.

The AKP has taken Turkey away from the West.  Its lurch to the lands of Islam is understandable and even forgivable.  It is, after all, a choice made by the Turkish electorate--at least up to a point.  We can have no beef about it.

Rather, we should embrace the Turkish policy.  We should use the stimulus to take a long hard look at the role of NATO in our alliance system, and jettison it as currently constituted unless a very strong argument can be made for its continuation.  The inclusion of Turkey was contextual to the cold war; it has no permanent root in the Atlantic community.  This is the geographical, cultural, and political reality.  We should admit it with at least as much honesty as have the Turks.

The ideological and political blocs of the world have reformed since the end of the bi-polar world.  Turkey has recognized this.  The AKP has acknowledged bluntly that religion and language ties trump the artifacts of global alliance politics.  Erdogan and company have chosen their side.

The US and Western Europe can and should do no less.

Egypt (Or Its Generals) Looks To Ataturk's Turkey

In a set of moves which is in no way surprising, the supreme command of Egypt's armed forces is seeking a continued, large role in the upcoming government.  The reason for the sudden political aspirations of the generals is not hard to unpack.  They are more than a tad scared of the Muslim Brotherhood and other advocates of political Islam.

Both the Washington Post and New York Times have taken note of the development.  That implies the US government will soon do so as well.  One would hope that the Deep Thinkers of the current administration have already taken cogniscence of this development, but you can never be sure given the number of blunders which constitute the Obama and Company's excuse for a Mideast policy.

It is clear both from the US media accounts and those appearing in Egypt that the senior leadership of the Egyptian armed forces sees the military as the guarantor not only of territorial sovereignty but also the integrity of the government.  As the ultimate protector of state, nation, and government, the Turkish model is completely accurate.

Until the recent stare-down between the Islamist predicated AKP and the military, the people of Turkey not only allowed but expected the army to take over whenever the civilian government was unable or unwilling to put a stop to internal violence of whatsoever origin and goal.  Parsing the public remarks of Egyptian generals in recent days, it is evident that they see the army as the only neutral party able to impose and maintain peace between highly motivated contestants willing and able to resort to violence in pursuit of political goals.

The armed forces' moves in the direction of greater authority to be exercised over an indeterminate span of time has perturbed some of those who provided the muscle of the "Lotus Revolution."  Many of these individuals see the armed forces' counsel, the transitional government, as having stolen the fruits of the revolution, of having become a set of Mubarak clones.  This sense of betrayal has motivated the recent sit-in demonstrations in the same Cairo square as those which brought down Mubarak.

Months ago as Mubarak prepared to call it quits, the demonstrators chanted, "The Army and the people are one!"  Now to many, the memory of that chant rings hollow and empty.  Many in the younger demographic segment of the Egyptian population no longer see the armed forces as a protector or the powerful force multiplier which assured Mubarak had no choice but abdication.

The generals who run Egypt behind the screen of carefully chosen civilian political nonentities have made concessions to the outraged "kids" in the square.  Hundreds of senior police officials were forced to take early retirement.  Mubarak, his sons, and close associates have been arrested and face trial on a number of charges even though the armed forces high command had promised initially to spare the aging autocrat this fate.

The concessions have not been enough to satisfy the dissidents.  They could not be.  The very success of the protesters assures that.  In a completely understandable way, the heady aroma of having dumped the dictator has clouded a lot of folk's judgement.  The armed forces commanders have recognized something of which the dissidents are either totally unaware or, at best, have a dim awareness.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to any sort of secular Egypt.  The Brotherhood has employed very slick public relations moves to convince many in the West, in the US particularly, that the MB is not a collection of Muslim crazies with delusions of power.  The leadership, or at least the visible portion, has denied any ambition of taking power--immediately.  They have publicly distanced themselves from any imposition of Shariah upon the state--again immediately.  They have declined to run a candidate for president and will not enter a candidate in many of the upcoming parliamentary elections.  The message is: See, we are not hell-bent on taking over Egypt, of establishing a new Cairo caliphate.

Not unlike the senior echelons of the world's foremost seat of Islamic learning, al-Azhar university, located in Cairo, the commanders of the Egyptian military do not believe the Muslim Brotherhood's protestations of innocence.  Alone or in conjunction with other apostles of political Islam, including those willing to use violence, the Muslim Brotherhood will move as quickly as is politically expedient to establish a Shariah compliant state, a Cairo Caliphate.  This is what the generals hope to preclude.

Kemal Ataturk had the same fear in the wake of World War I and the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire.  He and his fellow officers knew the power of Islam, its raw emotional force acting on a people who had been oppressed and humiliated for years.  The inevitable internal violence which would accompany a religious conflict would destroy Turkey at worst or, at best, prevent its entering the modern world for generations.  The Turkey of Ataturk would be resolutely secular--and the army would guarantee that.

In the days following the Second World War, the Turks discovered that secular political ideologies could be as violent and disruptive of social and political life as any religious conflict.  Thus, the army was expected, empowered really, to step in and take over whenever political passions overflowed the dikes of civil discourse.  Much as the periodic military takeovers bothered the states and people of Western Europe, the Turks saw them not only as unexceptional but quite necessary.

(Her Geekness was a student at METU in the early Seventies when the Left and Right exchanged gunfire on campus.  She found no dissenting voices--save among the ideological combatants--when the army moved onto the streets and lowered the noise level to a saner level.)

The Egyptian generals are not any less perceptive than Ataturk and his supporters.  They know the Egyptians and the Muslim Brotherhood with the fine grained detail that no foreign observer can muster.  They also are aware that the armed forces of Egypt (like those of Turkey in an earlier period) have a level of universal approbation that no other institution possesses.  They fear the passions of a long oppressed people which can be tapped with ease in the full flush of democracy poorly understood as to practice.  They fear with good reason the potential power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, a power which can unleash the passions with no good result for Egypt.

The move by the senior commanders to keep a firm hand on the levers of power is both prudential and justifiable.  It can be hoped that they use the firm hand with caution and restraint, a caution and restraint which was often lacking under Mubarak and Sadat.  If they fail to use their authority in a controlled and minimal way, their failure will bring more problems, problems which cannot be solved by tanks and troops.  For decades the Turks played the game well, so there is a paradigm for the Egyptian military to follow.

It is questionable whether or not the Obama administration recognizes the motives of the generals in Egypt.  It can be hoped that the Deep Thinkers will understand that stability in Egypt and the region requires not only an exercise in plausible democracy but also mechanisms to assure the passions will not swamp a civil society and a polity sailing in new and troubled waters.

Well, one can hope.  Can't one?

Cardinal Richelieu And The Death Of The Christian Sodality

Once upon a time, kiddies, long ago in far off Europe, the Western Christians--you know, the Holy Universal Catholic Church, the Western branch of Christianity after the Great Schism of a thousand years earlier--saw themselves as being one great faith community--equivalent to the Arabic word and Muslim concept of the Ummah.  This idea had propelled European political thinking for generations almost beyond count.  The dual rulership of Pope and Emperor, specifically the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, had soldiered on for centuries challenged only briefly on the margins.

Then, in only a couple score of years the intellectual edifice of the Catholic sodality crumbled, fragmented.  It was replaced by the concept of the nation-state pursuing amoral national interest for reasons of state.  This constituted the single most critical and shocking change in European political and social understandings in all the years which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Most surprisingly, the revolution was the work of one man.  More surprisingly the one man was not religious dissident Martin Luther, but a Prince of the Church, Cardinal Richelieu.  Richelieu may have been a Catholic.  He might have been a good Catholic in his beliefs, practices, and life.  But, he was first and foremost a Frenchman.  As a self-conscious man of France, the Cardinal acting in his capacity as First Minister of His Most Catholic Majesty, Louis XIII, rejected the notion of a universal empire of Catholics responsive to Pope and Emperor.  He replaced that hoary bit of received conventional wisdom with the radical idea that a state acted with no moral basis other than what might be in the state's best interests.

In his thinking--and the actions which resulted--Richelieu was the precise opposite of the Holy Roman Emperor, the towering figure of the House of Hapsburg, Ferdinand II.  There is an ancient and not necessarily relevant saying among European historians that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, was not Roman, and was not truly an empire.  Ferdinand II would have rejected totally the contention that his empire was not just that--an Empire.  He would have pushed back even harder against the characterization of his empire as not being holy.

Ferdinand II was a very good, highly committed son of the Church.  He sincerely believed that foreign policy must be conducted according to the desires and needs of the Christian God.  He also believed with all his heart that he even more than the Pope was capable of both ascertaining the will of God and acting in a consistent moral fashion to achieve the will.  Finally, Ferdinand II accepted completely the idea that there was a single Christian, (Catholic) sodality.  To Ferdinand the rantings of a Luther or a Calvin were the ravings not only of lunatics but the message of the devil.  These heretics and all who supported or agreed with them must be extirpated.

Here it must be recalled that the Protestant Reformation came into existence for religious reasons, but survived because secular rulers in the multitude of petty German states saw protestantism as a tool for national identity and exaltation.  The Reformation grew and spread because Cardinal Richelieu saw the same potential and exploited it with great effect on behalf of French identity and interests.

Which brings us to the most important, most decisive, and (until the mid-Twentieth Century) most bloody war in European history, the Thirty Years War.  The Thirty Years War decided many things.  At the top of the list the war by the time it was ended in 1648 was the permanent destruction of the Catholic Christian sodality--the Christian version of Islam's ummah--replacing it with the self-interested nation-state.  The war lasted thirty years in largest measure because Cardinal Richelieu fearing the encirclement of France by the Hapsburg dominions convinced His Most Catholic Majesty King Louis XIII to underwrite the costs of the war being waged by Protestant rulers including Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.  Finally, seventeen years after Ferdinand II started his war of counter-reformation, France entered the war directly so as to consolidate its position and assure the defeat of the Holy Roman Empire.

That's right, a Prince of the Church and a king who styled himself His Most Catholic Majesty conspired to defeat the champion of Catholicism, Ferdinand II, and the Pope.  While there were apologists for France and Richelieu who tortured logic and murdered reality to justify the actions of king and minister, Richelieu engaged in no such sophistry.  He said what he believed: A nation-state acted in pursuit of its own interests, its own reasons of state, and this was sanctified by results alone.  In short, the ends justified the means.

States were not in Richelieu's view like individual human beings.  While individuals might best be governed by moral or ethical codes in their interactions, states can only pursue self-interest for self-defined reasons.  States unlike people could act properly only insofar as they defended and advanced their collective identity and the interests which arose organically from that.  A nation-state, he concluded, could only survive by defending its identity and interests.  Further, it could only prosper if it advanced its interests even at the expense of other nation-states.

This view, which was universally adopted in the wake of France's clear success, assured there would be conflicts armed and otherwise almost non-stop.  As a consequence Europe experienced more wars per century than any other region of the world.  As another result, Europe emerged as the preeminent region.  The linkage between evolving political complexity, social organization, and technolological advancement with the recurrent limited warfare is clear.

While no historical analogy is exact, an analogy is suggestive.  History does not repeat itself but it can have present day echoes of long past dynamics and events.  So it is with today's political Islam, particularly the variant espousing a global caliphate encompassing the totality of the Muslim ummah.

The current political changes underway in North Africa and the Mideast in predominantly Muslim polities will assure the US and the West generally will have to deal with regimes predicated upon some form of political Islam.  The chief anxiety abroad in the US and elsewhere is that the form of political Islam with which we will be dealing will consist exclusively of the most ambitious sort--the proponents of the global caliphate, the universal ummah.  The European experience, the success of Richelieu against opponents as given to the idea of a faith based universal morality demanding a One True Faith dominated world, suggests that the anxiety might be overdrawn notwithstanding the seeming success of what has been termed "stealth jihad" in parts of Europe and the US.

It merits noting that despite the declarations and hopes within the Western elites that nationalism and the nation-state are bankrupt, dying institutions, they are alive and well throughout the world--including Muslim majority states.  Turkey, Egypt, even Iran are strongly nationalistic in their views.  Arguably, the mullahs in Tehran have been successful in keeping their regime in power by exploiting the nationalism of the Iranian population.

In Egypt, specifically the Egypt of Nasser, the concept of "Pan-Arabism" floundered on the reef of national identity and national interest.  To other Arab states the Nasserist concept smacked of a stealth imperialism.  To Egyptians, the problem was seen differently: Why Pan-Arabism rather than an Arab bloc marching to the music composed and played in Cairo?  All of Nasser's attempts to create a "United Arab Republic" failed due to nationalism.  Even when Islam was invoked, as it was albeit belatedly, the appeal to common faith like the appeal to a common tongue did not overcome national identity.

Turkey has a long history of using Islam to reinforce the Turkish national identity.  Starting in the last days of the Ottoman Empire and extending down to the AKP of today, religion has been invoked as a buttress for the national identity.  Along with language, religion has been employed consistently as a means of identifying and expressing Turkey in comparison to other nations and states.  As Erdogan expressed recently in a speech to expat Turks in Germany, the rejection of assimilation is critical lest Turkish identity and national interests be weakened.  Admittedly, the Turks have taken national identity to extremes as with the forced removal of Armenians early in the Twentieth Century, but the most important takeaway is not the mass deaths of those being removed but rather the reason--nationalism, national identity, and national interest.

As a result it is fair to conclude that the AKP will not surrender Turkish identity or national interest to the radical notion of a universal ummah or the pursuit of a global caliphate.  Nor will the Turkish government put national interest at risk to promote "stealth jihad" or any other form of expansionist political Islam.

The various peoples of the world are today too aware of the reality of national identity.  In this way they are far advanced over the Europeans of the early Seventeenth Century.  They are also far ahead of the Europeans of the time of the Thirty Years War in having a long experience with the formality of the nation-state.  This in and of itself lowers the appeal of the universal ummah and the hallucinatory global caliphate.

None of this implies that a regime based on political Islam will not use Islam law including the barbaric punishments, the degradation of women, and the suppression of free expression.  All may well exist soon in Egypt or elsewhere.  However the adoption of Islamic law in all its backward and barbaric features does not represent a threat to the West and other civilized states in and of itself.  Beyond that, the nature of communications today insures that a highly restrictive and reactionary sort of Islamic code will be met with widespread resistance.  The adoption of Shariah is a self-limiting proposition in any organized state--even as has been seen in Iran.

Universality based on religion is not new.  Nor is it unique to Islam.  History demonstrates that when the universal is met by the specific, the universal loses.  People do not identify on a universal basis.  They construct corporate identities on shared values, language, geographic propinquity, and, most importantly, a shared historically based mythology.  This is what the canny Cardinal intuited in the early Seventeenth Century and supported his concept of the nation-state pursuing national interest at the expense of others.  His ethic not only was alive and well back then, it lives and breathes today--throughout the Muslim world.

The Saudis Are Hitting Their Worry Beads

The House of Sand--oops!  Bad Geek!  It's the House of Saud--is having a serious Xanax moment all because of what is going on in Egypt.  No, it's not because the feudal regime is all that worried about being the next domino falling in the Arab world.

The Saudis have their burnooses in a twist because Egypt has been a very critical ally in the ongoing conflict between the reactionary Sunni regimes and the flatly paleolithic Shiite theocracy in Iran.  The fear is that a new Egyptian government may ooze closer to the stream of Islam best called political.  Should that happen, the Saudis will find themselves more isolated in the contest with Iran.

Saudi Arabia has been more keen than even the US in pursuing a strategy of isolating Iran.  Egypt has been a very important associate in this endeavor.  The support of Cairo has been key in offsetting the efforts of other Muslim majority states such as Qatar and Turkey to lessen the impact of sanctions and other isolation enhancing mechanisms.  Should Egypt under a new government slack off on these efforts, the result would be not only a lessening of Saudi influence but a collateral increase in that of Turkey.  The net outcome would be a species of defeat for the House of Sand.

While not having received any great play in American MSM, the cold war between Riyadh and Tehran has been the highest priority within the Saudi government.  The fear felt in Saudi Arabia concerning the ambitions and reach of the mullahs has been high and continues to grow.  The Saudis fear not only the military capacities of Iran, including the impending nuclear one, but also the growth of its direct and indirect influence within the smaller states of the region.

The growth of Iranian influence was behind the frantic efforts made by Saudi diplomats--and the Saudi king--to come to an understanding with Syria regarding the political arrangements within Lebanon.  The failure of these efforts not only indicated that Damascus had fallen deeper into the Iranian gravity well, but that Lebanon was being dragged in as well.  This meant simply that as of two weeks ago only Egypt was a solid backer of the Saudi play.

Should, as seems quite likely, the next Egyptian government will include the Muslim Brotherhood under some guise, it is almost inevitable that Egypt will back down from its solid pro-Saudi stance.  This, in turn, will enhance the ability of Qatar to wean at least some of the other, lesser Gulf States away from the Saudi line with a corresponding increase in the numbers and power of the soft-line-on-Iran bloc.

Because the centuries old split between Sunni and Shiite Islam is at the center of the current Saudi-Iran cold war, the Saudis have injured their own cause with the position taken by the Kingdom with respect to Iraq.  The Iraqis have as much if not more to worry about when looking at Tehran than the Saudis--and the Saudi government undoubtedly knows this.  But, because Iraq is majority Shiite in its demographics, the Kingdom has stiff armed the requests and importuning of Baghdad repeatedly.

It does not seem to matter to the Wahhibists of the Kingdom that the Iraqis are Arab.  Nor does it seem to count for much that more that a third or more of all Iraqis are Sunni.  It doesn't appear important to the strategists of Riyadh that the national interests of the Kingdom and Iraq coincide at several key points.  None of these considerations have offset the big one: Iraq is majority Shiite.

The chance of losing Egypt as an anchor ally may prompt some more realistic thinking in the Kingdom.  That is to be hoped for as an alliance between these two oil giants would be a force for political stability in the region.

Nice as such a development might be, it does not address the key problem for the Saudi regime as it contemplates an Egypt without Hosni Mubarak.  The dilemma for Riyadh is how to find and cultivate more allies.  It is no help for the Kingdom that it is autocratic even by the standards of the Mideast.  This means that insofar as the disaffiliated citizens of any state see their own less than legitimate authoritarian regime embracing the Saudis, it weakens the local structure.

Consider Jordan.  On the one hand Jordan seems a very obvious and attractive state for the Saudis to cultivate and support.  Jordan needs money.  Massive infusions of Saudi cash would assist greatly in meeting the needs for subsidization of consumer prices, the creation of jobs through public employment projects, even direct subventions to students and their families.  The list of potentials for order enhancing bribery are legion.

And, now for the on-the-other-hand department.  The current king of Jordan, Abdullah II, has none of the popularity of his father.  That is important given how much depends on personal relations between monarch and tribal chiefs.  And, at root, order in Jordan depends upon the strong support of the Bedouin tribes against the Palestinians.  Complicating the personal factors at work in Jordan is the severe unpopularity of the queen, Riana, whose let-them-eat-cake attitude came into harsh relief during her birthday bash a while back.  Going beyond the personal, the government has a record of exceptional inefficiency.  Finally, there is the intense friction between the traditional tribesmen: the "old" Palestinians and the "new" Palestinians.

The upshot is that a too obvious, too open, too close relation between Abdullah II and the House of Saud would rebound to the disadvantage of the monarchy.  It is not going too far to assert that moving too fast and far in the direction of Saudi Arabia would produce significant disorder in Amman.  As both the King of Saudi Arabia and the King of Jordan are under the pressure of fear complicated by a perception that time is running out, the probability of a too rapid, too open movement is high.

The other alternatives are no more attractive.  The more or less constitutional monarchy of Morocco is both too distant geographically and too fragile to be of much use to Saudi Arabia.  Algeria has its own problems with violent political Islam which may--or, more probably, may not--be helped by a more open and comprehensive alliance with Saudi Arabia.

The takeaway is the House of Sand has few options when it comes to replacing Egypt as an ally against Iran.  By any realistic assessment, the least-worst approach if for Riyadh to mend its relations with Iraq.  This would fry off the clerical establishment of the Kingdom.  The elderly, ailing King Abdullah and his almost as old, nearly as frail successor(s) have already taken actions which have annoyed the religious hardliners, so this should be an acceptable cost of maintaining the House in power.

As a companion move the House would not be out of line to push a "reset" button in its relations with Turkey. The Ottoman Empire has been gone long enough to forget about the bad old days.  The AKP is religiously conservative enough.  Turkey's diplomatic trajectory is oriented to the Turkic speaking regions of Central Asia.  And, Turkey would benefit from the one product other than oil which Saudi Arabia exports--cash.

Diplomatically, which is to say, in the creation of areas of strategic interest, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are complementary.  At the same time Turkey and Iran are rivals in that both see room for the expansion of influence in the same geographic region.  Thus, there are real limits to the degree to which Iran and Turkey can work in alliance.

If Saudi Arabia is actually as worried about Iran as seems to be the case, it should be possible for the government to reexamine its stance with respect to Syria.  As the abortive effort in Lebanon shows, it is possible for the Kingdom to push the Wahhibists to the side in pursing national interest.  Syria, of course, looks to be the model of authoritarian order but as recent events have made clear, appearances can differ markedly from substance.  The embrace of Iran by Assad's government is not universally supported by the public or even the elite.  The Syria-Iran hook-up is one of convenience from the perspective of Damascus and is far less certain than the oft repeated protestations of undying love made by the Syrian government would seem to indicate.

This means the House of Saud has maneuvering room regarding Syria.  Saudi Arabia has two very important commodities it can bring to the table: money and its relation with the US.  Both of these could have high value in Damascus.  In comparison, Tehran has very little to offer.  Its money is not as unlimited as that of Saudi Arabia and it has no relation with the US.  One not need to be the most sophisticated diplomat since Bismark to see the opportunities or how to play them.

There is no question that the elderly bunch running Saudi Arabia are worried.  Nor is there any doubt about the genuine nature of the worries.  The only question is whether or not the fugitives from the moribund ward in Riyadh have the wit and will to address the anxieties with speed and effect.

The Alternative Reality Called Pakistan

One collateral benefit from the WikiLeaks diplomatic traffic data dump has been the "real time" confirmation of deep Pakistani involvement with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  While no sentient person well oriented in time and place has ever doubted the umbilical connection between the jihadists and the government, army, and intelligence service of Pakistan, there is something quite comforting in reading the assessments of qualified diplomatic observers.

The Paks were caught with their hands very deep in the cookie jar.  Rather than acting the part of the career criminal caught red handed and acknowledging that the pinch was a fair one, the Pakistani ruling elite in and out of uniform has behaved rather like a first time crook issuing denials that make Richard Nixon's famed "I am not a crook" declaration appear honest in comparison.  Indeed, the movers and shakers of military Pakistan have followed the old, disreputable approach of making counter-accusations.

To be effective, the counter-accusation gambit must be plausible.  It has to have some semblance of believability. The Pakistani effort fails this basic test.  The Paks have taken the road leading to an alternative universe by stating categorically the documents leaked are pure "disinformation" meant to discredit the government and military of Pakistan.  In the alternative reality of Pakistan, these products of the US Foreign Service are a "conspiracy" mounted by hostile forces within the US government.

The Obama administration might be wishing it too could join with Pakistan in the alternative universe given that the players of mood music inside the Beltway have been making reassuring noises about Pakistan's commitment to the joint effort against "extremism," which now seem more off key than ever in the context of the diplomatic cables.  How anybody, even one of those denizens whose brains have been damaged by too much rarefied Washington air, can really, really believe that Pakistan is and has done anything other than support Taliban in Afghanistan while doing the minimum necessary for national survival against the Pakistani equivalent boggles the mind.

Pakistan has defined its national interest in terms of a Forever War with India in which Afghanistan has represented the chimera of strategic depth.  That is why Pakistan created Taliban twenty years ago.  That is why Pakistan not only supported Taliban but gave timely warning to Osama bin Laden regarding incoming cruise missiles.  It is why Pakistan, again acting through the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), linked with the Haqqani network.  It is why to this day ISI and the army assist, support, and protect both Taliban and the Haqqani network.

The notion that Afghanistan represents strategic depth is as false as the driving imperative of the Forever War against India.  Both hallucinations are,  however, central to assuring the army's pride of place in Pakistan.  Both are the sole reason the army and ISI can continue to glom onto the sizable share of Pakistan's national resources, which has been the standard for generations now.  Without the fictions of Indian hostility and the centrality of Afghanistan to Pakistan's need for strategic depth, the army and ISI would not have the perceived moral authority to take so much of the public pie that the country as a whole is endangered by the resulting paucity of capacities to deal with very real, very pressing problems.

A key, perhaps the key, source of revenue for the army and ISI is the money paid by the US to ensure cooperation in the "joint" struggle against violent political Islam.  The extortion racket practiced by Islamabad requires keeping the war in Afghanistan perking along while somehow convincing the US that the army is doing all it can do against the areas of the FATA which provide necessary bases and support for Taliban and the Haqqani network as well as the remnants of al-Qaeda.

The release of the cables will (hopefully) make the duplicity so necessary for the extortion to continue a bit more difficult to maintain.  In this context the US government is facing a challenge of corruption far more serious than the attention grabbing graft in Afghanistan.

There is no doubt that the continued existence of cross border sanctuaries in Pakistan's FATA along with the aid and comfort provided by ISI have been and will remain crucial to both Taliban and the Haqqani network. If the FATA were to be closed or interdicted with greater efficiency than is the case presently, the pressure placed upon the trigger pullers of Islam by the US/ISAF forces would prove effective in undercutting both the ability and will of the jihadi to carry on the war.  It would lay the pavement on a genuine road to conflict resolution as well as the more limited goal of hostilities termination.

Since the documents have come out, the Obama administration can do the same.  There is ample basis for the administration to tell Islamabad in essence, "They've got the goods on us now.  Time for you to get damn serious or those highly moral Republicans in Congress will pull the plug on the money machine."

This approach, of course, requires some cooperation from the Republicans.  As the war in Afghanistan not only started under a Republican president but, far more importantly, was fought ineptly with too few resources and too grandiose a set of goals by that president, the GOP has a stake in seeing the war brought to a successful conclusion before 2012.  Doing this is impossible unless the FATA is shut down--with or without the cooperation of the Pakistanis.

Pakistan's genuine national interest including the survival of the government as currently constituted demands both the suppression of their domestic jihadis and the ending of the war in Afghanistan.  The same considerations apply to the continuation of the American money flow.  Unless and until the lads in Islamabad come to realize that here in the real world the cash cow will stop spouting as long as the army sits on its collective butt regarding the FATA, there is no chance of the US achieving even the minimal necessary strategic goal of not losing in Afghanistan.  The same ground truth apples to the domestic violence brought by the Mighty Warriors of the Koran in Pakistan.

The appeals of the alternative universe of disinformation and conspiracy may have some sort of emotional appeal to the Pakistan government, army, and ISI, but are so transparently false that they should be dismissed by the Obama administration with the contempt it merits.  Beyond dismissal, the Obama crew must insist the Pakistanis live in the same world as the rest of us--or face the inevitable and inevitably bad consequences of their tergiversation.

Perhaps as a warm-up exercise, the Obama administration can take on Turkey given that the Islamist leaning AKP regime in Ankara has done the Pakistanis one better alleging that the Israelis are behind the entire WikiLeaks episode.  Surely scotching that ploy and requiring the Turks to choose sides with greater accuracy should not be beyond the capacity of the administration and Secretary of State Clinton.

Rather than just seeing the leak as an embarrassment or a major disaster, the administration should see it as an opportunity to use a bit of honest, coercive diplomacy with respect to two troublesome "allies."  By doing so, the Obama "Team" cannot only retrieve some success from a defeat, but exploit the consequences to suit our policy needs.

Try it, people, you have nothing to lose except defeat.

NATO Heads For The Rocks--Again

NATO has been the cynosure of mission drift ever since the Soviet Union went toes up twenty years ago.  The attacks of 9/11 provided a brief respite from its drift into uselessness.  With the pervasive disillusionment over the adventure in Afghanistan rising, the organization is once more heading to the abyss.

This is not to say that NATO no longer has a vital reason for existence.  It does.  While life may be all kisses and hugs with the Russians, the ground truth remains: Europe remains a threatened region.  The elites of the place may not like to admit it and the budget crunches militate against a realistic appraisal of the degree of threat currently extant, but neither can gainsay the looming mushroom shaped shadow of Iran.

The Iranian potential has been directly addressed by the US proposal to base interceptor missiles and associated radar facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland.  The US under two very different presidents has pushed the installation as being critical for the defense of Western Europe against incoming Iranian missiles.  At least some other NATO members have joined with the US in this effort, braving the opposition of Moscow backed by all the usual Kremlin huffings and puffings.  The matter is still on the table after years of talks, preliminary actions, diplomatic faux pas, and alterations in the hardware constellation and basing concepts.

Now the measure is being opposed by NATO member Turkey.  Under the AKP, a political party with strong roots in armed political Islam, Turkey has moved ever closer to Iran.  The calculating Turkish leader, Erdogan, along with the ambitious and naive Brazilian president Lula brokered a specious "deal" regarding Iran's nuclear program last year which was rejected by the US and its partners.  Since then Erdogan and company have spewed anti-American words beyond count, alternating attacks on Washington with standard issue antisemitic billingsgate in the direction of Israel.

Recently the Turkish government announced it was removing Iran from the list of countries threatening Turkey.  At the same time the Ankara Bunch hyped the new joint campaign against Kurds which was being mounted with both Iran and Syria.  As the hoary cliche has it, "birds of a feather..."

Furthering the Tehran agenda, the Turkish delegation to NATO has opened what it is pleased to call "negotiations" with a view to blocking the deployment of the anti-ballistic missile system if it is targeted against Iran.  Suddenly the Erdogan government is very much opposed to the idea of NATO calling Syria or Iran "enemies."  The peace loving Turks are offended by the notion that any neighboring country might actually use ballistic missiles and consider the defense system to be provocative.

The "negotiations" opened by the Turks in Brussels will lead to one of two outcomes.  NATO will develop some formula which will not name Iran or Syria but will represent the system as a counter to a broad spectrum of hypothetical threats from somewhere in northwest Asia.  Or it will not.

If NATO does not invent some sort of diplomatic language acceptable to the very sensitive people in Ankara, then the Turks will have the potential to directly block deployment.  NATO runs by consensus; this means that a single formal objection prevails.  The consensus approach gives Iran's strong ally the power to prevent Western and Central Europe from undertaking necessary defense measures.  Does the word "absurd" come to mind?  Or "idiotic?"  Maybe "asinine."

Of course, NATO could drop the consensus theme.  This would, of necessity as well as calculation, hack off Ankara.  The Turks might even threaten to leave the organization.  This eventuality will upset any number of multikulti oriented folks.  Winds of chaos would be seen blowing throughout Europe.  All the usual and quite expectable hyperbole would ensue.

If NATO is to continue as a relevant body meriting American support and participation, it has no choice but to come to terms with the nature of the threats confronting Europe now and into the future.  While there is always a remote possibility that Russia will rethink its current foreign policy and grab a blast from the Soviet past, the real threat, the one which is up close and personal, is that of armed political Islam.  It should go without saying that Iran is the pillar of armed political Islam.

The mullahs and their frontmen have diplomatic ambitions which are literally global in nature.  At the moment the primary focus is on what Tehran sees as their "near abroad."  That is the Persian Gulf, the Central Asian Republics, Northwest Asia, and the Mideast.  But their vision is not myopic.  Beyond the "near abroad" are other regions in which Tehran seeks clout.  Europe is one.  Latin America is another.  And, should those prove insufficient to meet the Iranian appetite, there is the rest of the world.

Absurd as it may seem on first sight, Iran defines itself as a global power in the making.  Given ruthless ambition, nuclear weapons, regional hegemony, and a combination of Chinese support and Western spinelessness, the ambition is not so hallucinatory.

Europeans well understand a phenomenon which went by the name of "Finlandization."  The Soviet Union had no need to occupy Finland after World War II.  The threat was sufficient to assure Finland was compliant, a dutiful stooge on the world stage and an accommodating supplier of advanced technology icebreakers and other equipment at artificially low prices.

It was the American presence along with the American nuclear deterrent which prevented the Soviet Union from expanding the concept from Finland to all of Europe.  It is illustrative to note that whenever the US was preoccupied elsewhere or going through its post-Vietnam angst, Europeans made placatory moves toward the Kremlin.

The same dynamic is possible, even probable, should (or when) Iran gains a nuclear capability to go with its missiles and ambitions.  This gives additional impetus to the planned ABM system.  There is no doubt that the leaders in Iran understand this.  They are realists in many essential respects.  Thus, it is critical to the longer term needs of Iranian policy that the planned deployment be stopped or at least delayed as long as possible.

Turkey is playing Tehran's game once again.  The US and other powers need to call Ankara on this move.  Call the bluff.  No negotiations.  No calling the planned system by some euphemism.  Tell the Turks the time has come to choose sides: NATO or Tehran.  Let the dinosaurs of the multicultural sort wheeze, moan, and groan.  If NATO is to survive, perhaps to be reborn, it must be as the bulwark against the expansion of armed political Islam.

To do this, the countries of NATO must tell the Turks bluntly that the days of the expansionist Ottoman Empire are gone.  The gates of Vienna are long locked.  And, no combination of Islamic ambition and Turkish revanchism will unlock them.