Recently in the opinion section of the Turkish Daily Newspaper Hürriyet, columnist Semih Idiz wrote an article related to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide entitled “Is Turkey declaring its independence from America?” arguing that Turkey’s continued disagreements with the past two U.S. administrations over a number of issues could constitute a “declaration of independence” from its alliance with the U.S. In both the past and present, the United States and Turkey have been strategic allies across many levels for a number of reasons. With the Truman Doctrine following World War II, the containment of communism in Greece and Turkey (given their proximity to the U.S.S.R.) called for the sending of much aid and building of close bilateral ties between these nations. With Turkey’s possessing of the second largest military in NATO after the U.S., the two have been close partners during the Cold War and First Gulf War that liberated Kuwait. Since the last days of the Clinton administration, tension has risen between these two historic allies on numerous issues including the Second Gulf War, the occupation of Iraq, the closeness of ties between the U.S. and Israel and, most recently, the Armenian Genocide. With the recent narrow passing of a non-binding resolution of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Ankara in protest. While this is Turkey’s standard response to any progress made on the “Armenian Issue” (as Turkey’s media likes to call it) in any country, Idiz argues that this time, there’s more anger in the Turkish capital towards the U.S., as the passing of the resolution is viewed as the culmination of a number of offenses to Turkey by their American allies in the past decade. Turkey’s rebuff of the U.S. resolution and Prime Minister Erdogan’s strong rhetoric of recent days are causes for Idiz to suggest a Turkish “declaration of independence” from the subjugation of the American alliance. But is it the Turks who ought to declare independence or is it the other way around? Even a glance, never mind an investigation, towards the history of Turkish American Relations shows definitively that the relationship has been quite one-sided and, frankly, Turkey wears the pants.

I personally do not wish to go into much detail on the history itself because it’s there for anyone who wishes to undertake a closer investigation. I do believe that, in the past fifty years, it has been the U.S. that has expressly noted its dependence and need for a democratic, secular and majority-Muslim ally in the Near East and not Turkey decrying its need for an ally in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. has been invading the Middle East/Central Asia and needing the use Incirlik Airbase and Turkish airspace; North America is of no strategic value to Turkey. The manner in which the U.S. has been useful to Turkey has been in the form of exacerbating inter-NATO hostility by providing military contracts and equipment to the Turkish Armed Forces in their arms race with neighbor and NATO-member Greece. Turkey is well aware of the fact that the U.S. needs them and not vice versa. That’s why Turkey can play hardball with the U.S. – and win every time. Take the most recent example with the Armenian Genocide Resolution. The U.S., the beacon of liberty and haven for the “poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, denouncer of Holocaust deniers like Ahmadinejad, will not officially recognize a well-documented and widely recognized genocide because of Turkey. As much as the U.S. makes it a priority to tend to its interests abroad, it prefers to maintain a one-sided alliance over paying tribute to the innocent blood of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children; and it’s not the only time the U.S. has made this choice. In 1974 during Operation Attila, Turkey invaded Northern Cyprus, carried out a number of massacres and war crimes, created a secessionist state that it only recognizes and artificially shifted the demographic of this “state” through tens of thousands of settlers. And where was the U.S. to liberate the Cypriots as it did for oil-rich Kuwait in 1990-91?

There is a sizeable Turkish lobby in Washington that, in the crudest of irony, receives much support on the issue of non-recognition of the Armenian Genocide from AIPAC because Israel also has a valuable strategic relationship it wishes to preserve with Turkey. With a 9% approval rating in Turkey despite American support for E.U. accession, the U.S. stands to lose in this game and not Turkey. Turkey has both a strong heavy industry infrastructure and European allies to obtain weapons from, it doesn’t need America. The only places Turkey would be hypothetically invading are its neighbors (especially Kurdish Iraq to attack P.K.K. strongholds), none of which it shares a decent relationship with – it doesn’t need American airspace or bases. So, Mr. Idiz, who is declaring independence from who? It’s just sad that the best allies the U.S. has in the Near and Middle East are both states that, aside from not needing the U.S. as much as vice versa, carry out invasions that result in war crimes and subsequent influxes of settlers in the occupied areas.

-Stephanos Karavas

Recently in the opinion section of the Turkish Daily Newspaper Hürriyet, columnist Semih Idiz wrote an article related to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide entitled "Is Turkey declaring its independence from America?" arguing that Turkey's continued disagreements with the past two U.S. administrations over a number of issues could constitute a "declaration of independence" from its alliance with the U.S. In both the past and present, the United States and Turkey have been strategic allies across many levels for a number of reasons. With the Truman Doctrine following World War II, the containment of communism in Greece and Turkey (given their proximity to the U.S.S.R.) called for the sending of much aid and building of close bilateral ties between these nations. With Turkey's possessing of the second largest military in NATO after the U.S., the two have been close partners during the Cold War and First Gulf War that liberated Kuwait. Since the last days of the Clinton administration, tension has risen between these two historic allies on numerous issues including the Second Gulf War, the occupation of Iraq, the closeness of ties between the U.S. and Israel and, most recently, the Armenian Genocide. With the recent narrow passing of a non-binding resolution of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Ankara in protest. While this is Turkey's standard response to any progress made on the "Armenian Issue" (as Turkey's media likes to call it) in any country, Idiz argues that this time, there's more anger in the Turkish capital towards the U.S., as the passing of the resolution is viewed as the culmination of a number of offenses to Turkey by their American allies in the past decade. Turkey's rebuff of the U.S. resolution and Prime Minister Erdogan's strong rhetoric of recent days are causes for Idiz to suggest a Turkish "declaration of independence" from the subjugation of the American alliance. But is it the Turks who ought to declare independence or is it the other way around? Even a glance, never mind an investigation, towards the history of Turkish-American Relations shows definitively that the relationship has been quite one-sided and, frankly, Turkey wears the pants.

I personally do not wish to go into much detail on the history itself because it's there for anyone who wishes to undertake a closer investigation. I do believe that, in the past fifty years, it has been the U.S. that has expressly noted its dependence and need for a democratic, secular and majority-Muslim ally in the Near East and not Turkey decrying its need for an ally in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. has been invading the Middle East/Central Asia and needing the use Incirlik Airbase and Turkish airspace; North America is of no strategic value to Turkey. The manner in which the U.S. has been useful to Turkey has been in the form of exacerbating inter-NATO hostility by providing military contracts and equipment to the Turkish Armed Forces in their arms race with neighbor and NATO-member Greece. Turkey is well aware of the fact that the U.S. needs them and not vice versa. That's why Turkey can play hardball with the U.S. - and win every time. Take the most recent example with the Armenian Genocide Resolution. The U.S., the beacon of liberty and haven for the "poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free", denouncer of Holocaust deniers like Ahmadinejad, will not officially recognize a well-documented and widely recognized genocide because of Turkey. As much as the U.S. makes it a priority to tend to its interests abroad, it prefers to maintain a one-sided alliance over paying tribute to the innocent blood of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children; and it's not the only time the U.S. has made this choice. In 1974 during Operation Attila, Turkey invaded Northern Cyprus, carried out a number of massacres and war crimes, created a secessionist state that it only recognizes and artificially shifted the demographic of this "state" through tens of thousands of settlers. And where was the U.S. to liberate the Cypriots as it did for oil-rich Kuwait in 1990-91.

There is a sizeable Turkish lobby in Washington that, in the crudest of irony, receives much support on the issue of non-recognition of the Armenian Genocide from AIPAC because Israel also has a valuable strategic relationship it wishes to preserve with Turkey. With a 9% approval rating in Turkey despite American support for E.U. accession, the U.S. stands to lose in this game and not Turkey. Turkey has both a strong heavy industry infrastructure and European allies to obtain weapons from, it doesn't need America. The only places Turkey would be hypothetically invading are its neighbors (especially Kurdish Iraq to attack P.K.K. strongholds), none of which it shares a decent relationship with - it doesn't need American airspace or bases. So, Mr. Idiz, who is declaring independence from who? It's just sad that the best allies the U.S. has in the Near and Middle East are both states that, aside from not needing the U.S. as much as vice versa, carry out invasions that result in war crimes and subsequent influxes of settlers in the occupied areas.

--Stephanos Karavas

Could it be that a forty-seven year old woman from Texas and currently residing, quite literally, on Main Street in a Philadelphia suburb might represented the ultimate in international jihadism? Colleen LaRose, who bestowed upon herself the alliterative moniker Jihad Jane, was arrested returning from a trip to Europe in October was just indicted for participating in a conspiracy to commit murder abroad and providing support to terrorists. The conspiracy, allegedly targeting Swedish artist Lars Vilks who published a 2007 cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammad’s face upon the body of a dog, also involved a band of Irish residents hailing from Yemen and Morocco.

Though the plot was interrupted before any harm befell Vilks, LaRose’s involvement represents an area of growing concern for counterterrorism efforts: the ease of getting involved in actual malicious acts with the help of the internet while based in the United States. To be fair, there are a lot of unanswered questions about LaRose – namely how and whyshe underwent the transformation to JihadJane – but it is clear that through MySpace, YouTube, and other online communities she connected with other likeminded individuals and, prompted by the rhetoric of jihad, planned acts of violence and activities against what she called “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.”

The threat of this cottage industry of “homegrown terrorism” is far from apocalyptic in scope, but does represent a crucial battleground in the effort to prevent these jihad-motivated acts of violence as well as something far more sinister, the propagation of smaller networks not affiliated with a transnational organization. The case of Colleen LaRose is merely a local, and perhaps more basic, form of a phenomenon that has been seen throughout the so-called “War on Terror;” individual acts of terrorism and violence are increasingly carried out by cells who are ideologically tied to organizations like al-Qaeda, but essentially entirely operationally independent. Naturally this poses a problem for law enforcement officials who are accustomed to zeroing in on the points of contact between different echelons of international organizations or various cells. Of course, LaRose was apprehended before any act of violence was perpetrated, and though details of the FBI’s case against her are vague – though she was interviewed by the Bureau last July – there is little doubt her contact with the foreign nationals in Ireland constituted a vulnerable link in her activities.

One cannot help but recall Nidal Malik Hassan, the perpetrator of the massacre at Fort Hood. In that instance, he had direct contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric of American origin with strong ties to al-Qaeda. The emails that were exchanged include questions about religious doctrine (whether or not it is permissible to kill innocents) and the operation of international terrorism (how to transfer funds), but it does not appear that Hassan was carrying out an action specifically ordered from a higher-up.

Perhaps here is where we can begin: much of the “war on terror” is still geared towards chasing ghosts and specific high-value, political targets. Counterterrorism often succeeds when it targets connections; our counterterrorism efforts must be adapted to address this “lone-wolf” phenomenon, and the fact that these lone wolves are rarely entirely independent and alone is the best place to start. It is a difficult notion to accept – American citizens teaming up with other like-minded individuals abroad to commit acts of terrorism and violence – and an even more difficult one to address. much of the “war on terror” is still geared towards chasing ghosts and specific high-value, political targets. We may be on the right track – remember the FBI interview with LaRose in July – but too much of the “war on terror” is still wasted on chasing ghosts.

-James Kennedy

Last Monday NIMEP met to discuss the status of Christians in the Middle East. This is an important issue because while many people think of the Middle East as rooted in a Jewish-Muslim conflict, Christians encompass a significant percentage of the population of many Middle Eastern countries. Obviously the history of Christians in the region starts with the time of Christ, and the presence of Christians in the region has continued to this day. However, while the non-Muslim populations have historically enjoyed very peaceful relations with the Muslim majority, this has changed in recent years in some countries, and the percentage of Christians in the region as a whole has declined from 20% (1900) to 10% (now). One recent example of Christian-Muslim tensions in the region is this shooting attack in Egypt on a Coptic Christian Church during Christmas services.

After an introduction, the discussion turned to what role can/should the US take in solving these internal tensions. However, this topic was modified quickly into what role should the US play in global human rights abuses in general. Can the US be a global policeman? One participant suggested, yes: if the US can become a consistent enforcer of human rights around the globe, than it could solve some detrimental internal conflicts and not be viewed as the uncaring devil. While someone might mistake this for neo-conservatism, there is a subtle but important difference. Neoconservatives championed human rights in hopes to establish pro-US regimes, but often overlooked abuses by countries like Israel and Egypt because these countries were already pro-US. However, many in the crowd were skeptical that the US could afford to become a global policeman, and I personally think that any type of involvement, even if it’s consistent, has the potential to alienate many people.

Therefore, the majority of the discussion focused on whether the problem of Christians, and minorities in general, is a threat to US interests. It appears that the problem of minorities in the Middle East is directly connected to the rise of Islamic extremism, which is certainly a threat to US interests. Nevertheless, bettering interfaith relations was not necessarily identified as a major solution to the rise in religious fervor. Instead, the idea of improving the financial stability in the region, through government aid and private investment, was identified as one of the best solutions to the increasing violence in the region.

In short, this dialogue definitely showcased a variety of opinions.  On the one hand, the treatment of religious minorities in some parts of the Middle East is both troubling and destabilizing, and if the US actively helps to improve these conditions, it could possibly gain like-minded allies in the region. On the other hand, US involvements in the internal affairs of other countries have certainly had a checkered history. In my personal opinion, the US should keep offering “carrots” in terms of donations to interfaith groups and human rights organizations, and possibly instituting direct initiatives by the State Department. At the same time, if the US wants to put direct pressure on the governments themselves to democratize and liberalize it must be prepared to a) follow up on its threats and b) accept the unexpected results (ie Hamas being democratically elected). I don’t think the US is prepared for either at the moment.

Some articles for further reading:

BBC Guide to Christians in the Middle East

National Geographic "The Forgotten Faithful"

ABC News - Why Christians are Leaving the Middle East

NY Times Follow Up

NY Times on Christians in Iraq

-Dan Resnick

As US foreign policy focuses on troop increases and military strategy in Afghanistan, many seem to have forgotten the 115,000 American troops still on the ground in Iraq.  The debate swirls around Afghanistan, and meanwhile, Iraq is preparing for upcoming parliamentary elections on March 7^th.  These elections will be a critical measure of Iraq’s new democracy and America’s role in it.  Additionally, they may or may not affect the planned withdrawal of 50,000 troops at the end of August, although many American commanders assert the elections’ results will have no effect on troop levels.

306 political entities are registered to run for only 323 seats in the Council of Representatives.  Of them, 251 are running as part of a coalition and only 55 are not officially allied with any other party.  (See the Carnegie website for a great rundown of the parties and their affiliations.)  Fears of sectarian clashes loom over the elections, bolstered by a government panel’s recent decision to ban over 500 candidates from running in the elections due to suspected associations with Saddam Hussein’s Baath party.  This has enraged the Sunni minority in Iraq who predominantly formed the ranks of the old party, and who now feels as though the Shiite-dominated government is trying to disenfranchise them.  The purging of former Baathists has been used selectively throughout the invasion, and although perpetrators of Saddam Hussein’s oppression should be held accountable, it must be taken into consideration that the state’s entire political apparatus was Baathist at the time.  Interestingly, some argue that a truth and reconciliation commission would have been more effective at solving sectarian issues in the wake of the 2003 invasion, rather than creating a de-Baathification committee, but that is another blog post.  Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has stood behind the panel’s decision, which to many merely looks like an attempt to stay in power.  Maliki has also been using military strength to settle political disputes of late, as evidenced by his sending Iraqi security forces to remove a stubborn governor from office in the north. Accusations of corruption and dictatorship do not bode well for a supposed democratic leadership. (Read a couple NYT editorials for a summary of this.)  At the moment, Maliki risks alienating Sunnis.  When this happened ahead of the 2005 elections, major Sunni parties boycotted the elections, setting off massive sectarian violence in their wake.  Maliki would do well to avoid this by putting his country ahead of his own political ambition.  It is time for Iraq to move toward unity by collectively leaving behind the cycles of vengeance that have poisoned the political atmosphere since the fall of the Baath party. The use of de-Baathification as a political tool is the surest way to disaffect Iraq’s minorities and paint Maliki as a corrupt tyrant clinging to power.  The Obama administration should be encouraging a compromise that will allow a full and representative list of candidates to run in March’s election.  After all, America still has leverage over the Maliki government in the form of weapons sales and financial aid.

Iraq is at a tipping point right now: March’s elections could either lead it into economic prosperity and political reconciliation, or into another round of sectarian violence.  Economic development is at Iraq’s door, with trade between neighbors such as Turkey on the rise, and Western oil companies bidding at high prices on Iraq’s abundant oil fields.  At the same time, violence still plagues the country, highlighting the Iraqi security forces’ inadequacies.  Much of the violence rests on sectarian lines: there was a recent spate of attacks against Shiites making the pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala on the most important holiday on the Shiite calendar.  These attacks threaten to destabilize Iraq’s fragile democracy, leaving room for extremist elements to make a possible resurgence. For their part, Sunni factions are better equipped now than in 2005 and have been promised a voice in a legitimate Iraqi government; were Iraq to devolve into sectarian violence once again, the scale of bloodshed would be far greater than before. This is a gamble neither coalition forces nor the Iraqi people can afford.  Other factors that should be taken into consideration include the revival of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia in the south, and Kurdish unrest in the north.  Al-Sadr’s militia was weakened in fighting against the Iraqi Army in March 2008, but is rumored to be regrouping.  Iraq risks losing disillusioned Shiia to this militia, just as it will lose frustrated Sunnis to al-Qaeda if elections appear rigged or unfair.  Additionally, the repeatedly marginalized Kurds still call for autonomy, and there are frequent political quarrels and violent skirmishes between Arabs and Kurds, and Sunnis and Shiites and Christians in the northern Kurdish region.  March’s elections have the potential to be the Iraqi government’s most powerful tool against the likes of al-Qaeda and Moqtada al-Sadr.  Legitimate and transparent elections will put Iraq on the right track to forming power-sharing agreements among the many religious, ethnic, and political factions representing this fragmented nation

-Yamila Irizzay-Gerould