WHAT A TURKEY – AT 10:45 A.M. ET:  Ah, for the good old days, when Turkey was a secular nation, a firm ally of the United States, and a reliable member of NATO.

Turkey even fought with us in Korea, and its fighters were among the best.

But in the last ten years Turkey has become increasingly Islamic, and nutty.  Turkey borders on Iraq, but Turkey refused to help our efforts there.  It has enjoyed a good, and productive, relationship with Israel.  That is in shreds.  And, while still a member of NATO, one wonders why.  At one time Turkey was a bulwark against the Soviet Union, which hasn't existed for two decades. 

Now Turkey is developing illusions of grandeur.  And these illusions can hurt America in the Mideast.  From the Jerusalem Post:

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Ankara is seeking a partnership between Turkey and Egypt that will create a new axis of power in the Middle East at a time when US influence in the region is waning.

Isn't it great to read that American influence is waning.  Another contribution by Barack Obama.

“This will not be an axis against any other country — not Israel, not Iran, not any other country, but this will be an axis of democracy, real democracy,” Davutoglu said in an interview published in Monday's New York Times. “That will be an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region, from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley in Sudan,” he added.

Just what the region needs – an increasingly Islamist Turkey allied with an unstable and unpredictable Egypt. 

Turkey's ambitions are driven by its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who sees himself as the head of a new Arab empire, a modern-day reflection of Turkey's Ottoman Empire. 

But, analysts say Erdogan’s regional ambitions can only come at the cost of Egypt’s standing as the Arab world’s leading power. Faced with a slumping economy and an uncertain political future, Cairo may be in a weak position to compete with Ankara, but it is likely to resist becoming the junior member of a partnership.

“This isn’t going to be an easy relationship to manage. These countries have been competitors in the game of regional influence, with Egypt wanting to play a lead role in the Arab world and Turkey trying to increase its influence,” Sinan Ulgen, director of Turkey’s Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies (Edam) and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institution, told The Media Line.

COMMENT:  President Obama's weakness, and his appeasement-style "outreach" to the Muslim world, is creating a power vacuum in the Mideast, and those stepping forward to fill it are a pretty unsavory lot. 

And what is incredible is that Obama's standing in the region has declined, despite all he has done to win friends there.  Bottom line, what is appreciated in the Mideast is power, the "strong horse" as Osama bin Laden correctly said.  We are increasingly seen as a weak horse.  If our defense budget is slashed substantially, we'll be a weak puppy.  And the wild dogs might just take over.

September 19, 2011