Obama's Turkey Time

Martin Peretz excoriates Obama for sucking up to Turkey's Erdogan (another diplomatic failure on par with his sucking up to A-jad and the Ayatollah):

The courting was actually of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the personification of the new Turkey. And it wasn't as if Erdogan was an unknown quantity.

In this morning's Financial Times, Daniel Dombey and Delphine Strauss report (through the horrible graces of WikiLeaks) that Eric Edelman, former U.S. ambassador in Ankara, had "described Mr. Erdogan as having 'overbearing pride'; 'unbridled ambition stemming from the belief that God had anointed him to lead Turkey'; 'an overweening desire to stay in power'; and 'a distrust of women'." But this was six years ago, and the new Ottoman sultan was still preening for the West. Erdogan wanted Turkey to be in and of Europe and needed to dispose of what he must think of as "surplus populace," an ugly concept.

Turkey is as likely to be integrated into the European Union (if the E.U. stays alive, which is dubious) as Israel will soon be a member of the Arab League.

Maybe Obama saw the changes in Turkey: its belligerence to the West, its swing toward Iran, its Muslim ambitions, And maybe he wanted to stop them. In any event, amidst the deluge of memos there is nothing suggesting any of this. But I think not.

Instead, in his three day (yes, three day) trip to Turkey during the spring of 2009, Obama let his imagination float free: "We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better, including my own country." Blah, blah, blah. To a round of applause from the parliament, he assured that the United States favors the admission of Turkey to the E.U. Does he really think that? Or is it one of his fantasies, like that the U.N. is a benign institution?...

Must the two be mutually exclusive? Can't he really think that Turkey's entry into the EU would be a good thing and, at the same time, be in the grip of another of his little fantasies? And, really, doesn't that describe Obama's entire M.O.--thinking bad things (Obamacare, Cap and Trade, etc.) would be good things, while simultaneously getting lost in fantasy (about the UN's benignity; about how, through the sheer force of his own personality, he'll be able to connect with Muslim leaders who despise America and the West; about how he, the smartest president in history, will succeed where all other have failed and figure out how to "solve" the Israel-Palestinian problem)?