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Obama's First 100 Days

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SINO + ASEAN + FTA = East Asian Unification? Not Quite

Part 1: by Collin Spears

To read click here

Calling North Korea's Bluff Will Force China to Crackdown

by Collin Spears

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Obama's Mishandling of Qatar and Emir al Thani

by Webster Brooks

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Full Text of Obama's Cairo Speech to Muslim World

Obama's Unfolding Strategy for Victory in Afghanistan

BFPR ANALYSIS

When Iran Defies Obama's Nuclear Ultimatum, What Happens Next?

BPFR Analysis

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Policy Gamble & the Iranian Nuclear Problem

by Webster Brooks

September 22, 2009

Containing Iran’s drive for dominance in the Middle East has risen to the top of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy agenda. Tehran’s enlarged footprint in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories and Gulf States has diminished Saudi Arabia’s political power across the Middle East. The threat to Riyadh’s national security interests are being felt with immediacy. Iranian backed Shiite militias control southern Iraq and threaten Saudi Arabia’s northern border. In Yemen, Iran is supporting the al Houthi Shiia insurgency against President Saleh’s government on the Kingdom’s southern border. With the specter of Iran’s nuclear program looming over the House of Saud, Riyadh is recalibrating its foreign policy to counter the possibility of a new existential threat. To combat Iran’s imperial reach King Abdullah has transformed Saudi Arabia’s once secretive cloak and dagger diplomacy into a fully engaged foreign policy agenda aimed at establishing Saudi Arabia as maximum leader of the Arab World. But King Abdulla’s multifaceted efforts to staunch the Iranian juggernaut have met with limited success. Thus, Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy continues to undergo profound change that will require more accommodations to Tehran, greater independence from the United States, closer ties to Russia and an unprecedented military buildup that could include a Saudi nuclear program.

For decades, maintaining stability in the Persian Gulf and insuring the safe passage of oil through its critical shipping lanes defined Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy universe; a policy based on Riyadh’s reliance on American military power. The nexus of U.S.-Saudi relations was containment of Iran and Iraq whose highly militarized states constituted a direct threat to Riyadh. But the 1979 Iranian revolution that bought a radical Shiite theocracy to power, and President Bush’s ill-advised Iraq invasion that led to an Iranian backed Shiia government in Baghdad has changed the balance of power in the Persian Gulf.

With Saddam Hussein’s buffer state deposed and nothing standing between Saudi Arabia and Iran’s hegemonic designs, King Abdulla initiated a decisive shift in the Kingdom’s policies toward Tehran. Riyadh no longer treats Iran as a permanent adversary but a strategic competitor. Rather than leading a Sunni Arab united front to isolate Tehran, King Abdulla opened a permanent dialogue with Iran on a full range of diplomatic issues. Since Iranian President Ahmadinijad’s surprise invitation to address the religious pilgrimage in Mecca in 2007, Saudi and Iranian leaders have negotiated understandings over Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Both countries have sought to “manage” conflict between their competing religious and political factions to minimize sectarian bloodshed. In each instance Iranian backed Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, the Mahdi and Badr Forces in Iraq and HAMAS in Palestine have held the upper hand militarily. Thus, the Saudi’s have funneled arms and money to defend their Sunni allies, while negotiating compromises with Iran to preserve political options for their Sunni compatriots. Although King Abdullah slowed Iran’s momentum in Lebanon where the Cedar forces won the spring elections and HAMAS and al Fatah are at an impasse, Iran is clearly emerging as the Gulf’s dominant force. Indeed, the Iraqi Shiia ascendency to power under Nouri al Maliki constituted an enormous strategic setback for Riyadh. Expanded Iranian access to Iraqi oil, its waterways and its strategic energy platform in Basra has greatly strengthened Iran’s economic, military and political position across the Middle East.

With a weak national army, vulnerable borders and having dismissed American forces from its soil in 2003, King Abdullah has embarked on a military buildup that consumes 11% of the nation’s GDP. To counter Iran’s growing threat he turned to an unlikely ally; Russia. In 2007, following discussions with President Vladimir Putin, King Abdullah agreed to a $4 billion deal to purchase 150 Russian T-9 tanks, 100 MI-17 and MI-35 tanks, hundreds of BMP Armored Infantry Combat Vehicles and 20 BVIC air defense systems. Putin also offered the Saudi’s nuclear reactors and cooperation on a space program to invest in launching Saudi satellites. Speculation that the Saudi arms deal with Moscow included a proviso that Russia would oppose Iran’s nuclear arms program has not materialized. Abdullah’s shift to allow the Russians arms sales shocked the United States and Western Europe. As a major arms and nuclear materials supplier to Iran, Russian arms sales to Saudi Arabia afford Moscow powerful leverage in the Persian Gulf at a time when American and Western European influence is declining.

Notwithstanding the Russian arms deal Saudi Arabia will remain in the U.S. sponsored Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) defense pact. The Saudi’s will install an $8 billion border security system, procure coast guard vessels, surveillance aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and a telecommunications network as part of the GCC agreement. But the Moscow agreement was a serious warning that Riyadh is no longer marching in lockstep with the U.S., especially when its national security interests are at stake. Similarly, the debate within the House of Saud about President Obama’s response to the Iranian nuclear threat has raised the issue of Riyadh pursuing a nuclear path.

The Saudi’s are skeptical about President Obama’s imprimatur to convene talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Irrespective of the fact that no proof exist that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, the Saudi’s are convinced Iran won’t suspend its enrichment activities or permit more intrusive inspections. Should the U.S. or Israel attack Iran’s nuclear facilities Tehran would likely respond with attacks on Saudi oil tankers, close Gulf shipping lanes, sabotage Saudi oil facilities and foment Shiia unrest within the Kingdom. While the Saudi’s are split on the issue of an attack against Iran, at the end of the day the decision is not theirs to make. It is this sense of frustration at the lack of a credible conventional and nuclear deterrent that has prompted the Saudi’s to consider a nuclear program.

The prospects of Saudi Arabia attempting to develop a nuclear weapons program are remote. The Kingdom has no nuclear power facilities. Its scientists have no experience in enriching uranium for reactor fuel or operating nuclear reactors. Further, no evidence exists that Riyadh has tried to procure nuclear weapons from foreign suppliers. Saudi Arabia has joined the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative to develop a joint nuclear energy program. In May 2008, they also signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. on nuclear energy cooperation. Were the Saudi’s to move in the direction of a nuclear weapons program, they would undoubtedly face heavy international criticism, risk isolation and stiff economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the possibility of Riyadh going nuclear cannot be ruled out. If Iran brings a nuclear weapons program on-line, or Saudi confidence in America’s ability to protect the Kingdom collapses, or a new leader succeeds King Abdullah with a pro-nuclear weapons agenda, Riyadh could reverse course.

While there are many unanswered questions about Saudi Arabia’s evolving foreign policy, Riyadh’s response to Iranian enlargement in the Middle East already suggests that great change is at hand. The Saudi’s are engaged in active diplomacy with Iran while simultaneously fighting proxy wars against them, pursuing a massive military buildup, inviting the Soviets into the Persian Gulf and debating nuclear deterrence to push back the “Persian threat.”

Beyond Riyadh’s preoccupation with Iran, the broader currents of change sweeping over the Middle East are challenging the Saudi foreign policies as well. The Saudi’s are already softening their position towards Shiia Muslim communities in Arab countries in response to the “Shiia awakening.” The clamor for democracy that is bringing new forces to power through elections is forcing the Saudi’s to enter new alliances with a more diverse set of players. The growing role of non-state actors, militias and ethnic breakaway movements has exposed the limitations of Riyadh’s reliance on petro-dollars to simply buy off whole governments. The Saudi’s attempt to pay the Kurds $1 billion dollars to postpone the referendum on Kirkuk for ten years is a classic if not embarrassing case in point. Even the Saudi’s role as the grand mediator’s of Sunni Arab conflicts is being challenged by tiny Qutar that recently brokered peace arrangements in Lebanon and Yemen.

There is a “New Middle East” coming into being. How Saudi Arabia adjust its foreign policy to meet the Iranian challenge and embrace the winds of change engulfing the region will determine if Riyadh is prepared to meet the test of leadership in a new age. ******

Obama's Critics on Missile Defense Shield Cancellation are Wrong

BFPR Analysis

Victor Yanukovich’s inauguration in March as the new President of Ukraine marked the death of the “Orange Revolution.” To the Obama administration’s consternation, Ukraine has gone red. Yanukovich’s pivot eastward toward rapprochement with Moscow is a major victory for a resurgent Russia that has longed for Kiev’s return to its political orbit. For Yanukovich, whose fraudulent presidential victory was overturned five years ago by pro-western Orange forces, his triumph was bitter sweet. He inherits a nation with the most dysfunctional government in Central Europe; a nation divided between pro-western Ukrainian nationalists and its pro-eastern Russian speaking population, and a nation whose 15 percent drop in GDP in 2009 is illustrative of its spiraling economic problems. Ukraine is also the central battleground between the United States and Moscow over NATO’s eastward expansion to Russia’s borders and control over strategic energy transit routes to Europe. While Yanukovich said Ukraine will be a “bridge between the east and west” and a “non-aligned” European country, Ukraine cannot survive in the near-term as a neutral state. Ukraine will either be Euro-Atlantic or pro-Russian. Yanukovich’s statement during last week’s visit with President Medvedev in Moscow left little doubt about Ukraine’s future direction. “The new government in Ukraine” he said “will change relations with Russia, so that they will never again be like they were for the last five years.”

Ukraine’s drift to the West the past five years posed a grave threat to Russia’s national security interests and the strategic balance of power in Eurasia. Former “Orange” President Victor Yushchenko transferred weapons and tanks to Georgia in its 2008 war against Russia. Yushchenko incessantly pushed Ukraine’s entry into NATO despite majority opposition from the Ukrainian people and the nation’s lack of preparedness. He repeatedly threatened to break Ukraine’s treaty with Moscow by expelling Russia’s navy from Ukraine’s Sevastapol base and refused to negotiate with Russia over Ukraine’s mismanagement and theft of energy transfers to Europe. Now that the strident anti-Russian era of Victor Yushchenko has ended, Ukraine’s turn back to Moscow is a certainty for two reasons. First, Ukraine was hurt economically and politically by its excessive anti-Russian policies. Second, Russia has more strategic and political leverage in Ukraine than the U.S. and the European Union.

For the United States and Moscow, the seminal issue since the Soviet Union’s collapse has been whether Ukraine would vacate Russia’s sphere of influence. With 45 million people, the most advanced industrial base in the former Soviet Union and a Russian Diaspora upwards of 15 million people Ukraine was Russia’s crown jewel republic. From Henry Kissinger to Zbigniew Brzezinski, American grand strategists have asserted that if Ukraine joined the EU and eventually NATO, Russia would have no choice but to integrate into a Common European home stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok. But the EU and NATO never shared America’s enthusiasm to grant Ukrainian ascension. Five years of Orange rule validated their fears. Ukraine’s weak government, tottering economy and volatile relationship with Russia threatened to dilute NATO's strength, sew division among member states and possibly push NATO to the brink of an armed confrontation with Russia—the same type of confrontation NATO narrowly averted during the 2008 Georgian crisis. The EU’s central powers, Germany, Italy and France made clear they would not risk their substantial trade relations with Russia to undertake Ukrainian EU ascension. The EU’s attempts to keep Ukraine at arm’s length was underscored at Yanukovich’s March 2 meeting with European Commission President Barroso who said "Regarding accession, instead of discussing possible dates for negotiations, it is much better to focus on reforms needed to [bring] Ukraine closer to Europe and de facto integration in our economic system." The horizon’s of Barroso’s “de facto” integration would be limited to establishing free trade and visa-free travel; not exactly an expansive agenda. Furthermore, Europe will continue to view Ukraine as a “toxic nation” until Yanukovich’s new government adopts a budget with spending controls and austerity measures to justify the IMF lifting its suspension of the final $5 billion payment of its $16.4 billion dollar loan.

As for NATO, when asked in Moscow about membership for Ukraine, Yanukovich said, “Ukraine will build its relations with NATO in accordance to the national interests of Ukraine”—a polite way of saying thanks, but no thanks. Ukraine’s relations with NATO will continue to be limited to participation in minor training exercises and small numbers of Ukrainian troops serving in NATO deployments. With Ukrainian enlargement in NATO off the table Russian Prime Minister Putin moved quickly to secure Ukraine’s commitment to extend Russian naval rights at the Black Sea port of Sevastopol beyond 2017. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet surged troops into Georgia in 2008 conflict and is critical to Russia projecting power in the Caucuses and Southern European countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Armenia, Turkey, and Georgia. After meeting with Putin in Moscow on March 4, Yanukovich said "I think that very soon we will receive a resolution (to talks on the naval basing treaty) that will suit both Ukraine and Russia," Furthermore, the combination of Yanukovich’s victory, Georgian President Saakashveli’s growing unpopularity and Russia’s consolidation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as breakaway republics, has dimmed all prospects of Georgia’s ascendency to NATO. Once backtracking to keep Georgia and Ukraine from introducing NATO to its borders, Russia is now extending its “near abroad westward.”

Across Europe concerns are growing that Ukraine must reform the chaotic management of its gas and oil pipeline network that was shut down twice by Russia in 2008, leaving several European nations without gas in the winter. The EU wants more private ownership and investment to upgrade Ukrainian pipeline operations and transparency to stop Ukraine’s arbitrary price hikes and outright theft of gas transfers bound for Europe. With 20% of the EU’s gas consumption and 80% of Russian gas exports to the EU transiting through Ukraine, Europe’s energy security is extremely vulnerable. For all these reasons, Moscow is in a strong position to leverage rapprochement with Ukraine to enhance its geo-strategic and national security position. In March President Yanukovich’s foreign affairs spokesman, Leonid Kozhara told BBC news that Ukraine is open to selling off part of its network of pipeline and storage facilities to foreign companies, including the Russian energy titan Gazprom. Having negotiated an agreement to lower Ukraine’s gas payments in 2009, Russia is positioned to purchase components of Ukraine’s energy network—something the U.S. and the EU oppose as they strive to lesson Ukraine’s dependence on Moscow. Ukraine has also failed to fulfill promises made to open the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline and the White Stream gas line project to transit energy from the Caspian Sea basin to Europe. With the pro-Russian Yanukovich now in power, it is extremely doubtful that both projects which by-pass Russia will get off the ground. In the meantime, to protect itself against the Ukrainian governments history of incompetence in managing its energy transit system, Russia has launched its new Nord Stream gas line. The new pipeline that will be completed in 2011 will run under the Baltic Sea through Finland, Sweden and Denmark’s waters to Germany.

The ironic twist of political fortune that brought Victor Yanukovich and his Regions Party to power has given Russia a second chance to re-integrate Ukraine into its sphere of influence. But Moscow will have to do more than simply invite Ukraine to join the Eurasian Economic Community (ERASEC) with Kazakhstan and Belarus which share common foreign trade tariffs. Russia will need to mobilize its substantial “soft power” assets and investment capital to help modernize some of Ukraine’s underdeveloped industries that are transitioning from state ownership to the private sector. Winning by a narrow three percentage point margin over Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenco, President Yanukovich must deliver stability to a chaotic government that has bought shame and a stagnant standard of living to its people. Having secured a “no confidence” vote last week in Ukraine’s parliament to dismiss his adversary Prime Minister Temoschenko, Yanukovich must now cobble together a governing coalition that tames the country’s corrupt oligarchs, reforms the judiciary and adopt business friendly policies to grow the economy. Yanukovich must also refrain from policies that alienate the country’s western Ukrainian nationalists. His statement last week that Ukrainian will remain the official national was a step in the right direction. President Yanokovich can survive and Ukraine can emerge from its crisis ridden state, despite its tilt to Russia. After all, a reasonable argument can be made that Ukraine’s experiment with the West almost drove the country to collapse. However, Yanukovich can only be successful if he leads and governs Ukraine as a centrist. In short, Yanukovich must blend Ukraine’s “Orange” and “Red” color revolutions into a more unified national polity--Yanukovich must now lead Ukraine in a new “Yellow Revolution.”

U.S.-Turkey relations have reached their nadir. At the December White House meeting called to repair the breach in U.S.-Turkish relations Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to support sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program and rebuffed Obama’s request for Turkey’s 1,730 troops to undertake combat missions in Afghanistan. Erdogan’s split with Obama over Iranian sanctions, his support of HAMAS and Ankara's growing ties with Syria and Iraq has fueled concerns in Washington that Turkey is drifting into Tehran and Moscow's orbit. Whether Turkey is leaving the West to become an outpost of Iranian and Russian influence is debatable. What is clear is that Turkey is coming into its own. Prime Minister Erdogan is leading the predominantly Muslim Turkey down the path of a secular democracy and advancing its “Strategic Depth” foreign policy to secure Ankara’s national interests in a dangerous corner of the world. The new calculus informing Turkey’s foreign policy has unsettled U.S. policymakers accustomed to dictating the parameters of Ankara’s diplomatic horizons. Washington is also concerned that Erdogan’s “Islamic” leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) is losing contact with the West and returning to its Middle Eastern Muslim roots. But unwarranted public criticism and reflexive short-term thinking by Washington could permanently damage U.S.-Turkish relations while strengthening Turkey’s military and ultra-nationalist forces seeking to derail Erdogan’s government. The Obama administration should hit the pause button and rethink its Turkey policy. Patience and thoughtful engagement could prevent a disastrous break between Washington and Ankara—one that could risk further destabilization of a region where American power is already on the decline.

Under Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s leadership, Turkey’s three dimensional “Strategic Depth” foreign policy doctrine has emerged as the blueprint to reposition Turkey as a regional power. Sharing borders with Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Georgia and Iran the locus of the “Strategic Depth” policy has been realigning Ankara’s relationships with its neighbors to strengthen Turkey’s economy while enhancing its national security posture. “Strategic Depth” anticipated two global trends that are guiding Turkey’s grand strategy; America’s diminished capacity to shape regional events and Iran and Russia’s ambition to exploit the growing power vacuum. It has also provided a framework for Turkish rapprochement with Cypress and Armenia, and reconciliation to end the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) domestic insurgency; all critical components of Ankara’s drive to gain ascension to the European Union. The central dilemma confronting the Obama Administration is whether Turkey’s growing relations with Iran and Russia is “realpolitik” in action or if Turkey is inexorably moving towards a new strategic alliance with Moscow and Tehran.

Turkey has the 17th largest economy in the world. To continue its economic and democratic revolution Prime Minister Erdogan must insure Turkey’s national security, end the Kurdish PKK insurgency that is dividing the nation and dramatically expand trade. Therein lays the heart of the dispute with Washington. As one of the most energy dependent countries in the region, Turkey imports an astounding 90 percent of its energy needs. Ankara’s relationship with Iran and Russia is critical to secure its strategic long-term energy imperatives and leverage Turkey’s position as a regional energy transit hub. Russia is Turkey’s second largest trading partner and has opportunistically supported Turkey’s drive for E.U. membership and Turkey’s position in defense of Northern Cypress. In addition to Turkey's extensive oil and gas ties to Iran, trade between the two countries now exceeds $10 billion a year and is growing.

While the Obama administration has been highly critical of Turkey’s relationship with Iran and Russia, the United States is in no position to guarantee Ankara’s critical energy needs or replace its critical trade relationships with Tehran and Moscow. In 2007 Erdogan rejected a U.S. proposal to supply Ankara with oil from Iraq’s Anbar Province, pointing out that the pipelines would ultimately have to transit oil through Syria or Iraqi Kurdistan, both heavily influenced by Iran. Instead, Erdogan's direct dealings with Iran yielded lucrative long-term energy agreements and assurances from Tehran and Russia that the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to Turkey’s southeastern port of Ceyhan will not be disrupted. Turkey signed a 25-year 10-billion-cubic meter natural gas deal with Iran and a parallel agreement with Turkmenistan that transits gas through Iran. In addition, Ankara inked a $3.5 billion deal to invest in Iran’s South Pars mega field. A realist, Erdogan recognizes the stubborn facts of life in the Middle East, the Caucuses and Central Asia; that Iran and Russia’s converging interest in controlling the region’s energy corridors is formidable. As the mecurial Prime Minister stated “U.S. and Israeli opposition to importing gas from Iran is not important because they cannot meet Turkey’s need for energy, and Turkey must fulfill its needs from Russia and Iran.”

Against this backdrop, the calculations underlying Erdogan’s refusal to support sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program can be more clearly understood. Erdogan’s statement that sanctions have failed the past 30 years because Western states have shamelessly exploited legal loopholes, raised a valid question; why should Turkey jeopardize its strategic economic relationship with Tehran to support a failed and largely symbolic United Nations sanctions resolution? More importantly, the pragmatic Erdogan, like many other Middle Eastern leaders is convinced that Iran is “going nuclear,” despite U.S.--Israeli efforts to halt Tehran’s uranium enrichment program. Prime Minister Erdogan and Turkey’s “Anatolian Elite” are well aware that a nuclear Iran will dramatically alter power relationships in the Middle East. Thus Turkey is recalibrating its policies across the region. Ankara’s use of “soft power” engagement in Armenia, Syria, Iraq and the Levant has lead to substantive changes in its foreign policy portfolio.

In October 2009, Turkey signed an agreement to establish diplomatic ties and re-open its border with its longtime foe Armenia, a country that still charges Turkey with committing genocide against 1.5 million Armenians after World War 1. Erdogan signed the agreement after President Obama withdrew his commitment to recognize the events of 1915 as a genocidal act. By signing the accord Erdogan avoided a confrontation with the United States which wants to secure oil pipeline routes running from the Caspian Sea basin through Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Turkey without having to transit oil through Iran. The Armenian agreement was a bitter pill for Erdogan to digest. He had promised not to reopen the border until Armenia withdraws its forces from the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. The accord also angered Turkey’s nationalist forces who took to the streets to denounce the agreement, calling Erdogan a traitor.

In April Turkey ruffled more feathers in Washington by carrying out joint military exercises with Syria along the two countries’ border. The military exercises were the first ever between a NATO country and an Arab army. Turkey’s motivations in pursuing the highly symbolic maneuvers were fairly obvious. Ankara wants to expand bi-lateral trade with Damascus, put Tel Aviv on notice that it is building alliances with Israel’s adversaries and boost its credibility as a Middle East power broker. More importantly, Turkey needs to measure President Bashir Assad’s reliability in denying Kurdish PKK separatists a safe haven in neighboring Syria which has its own restive Kurdish minority.

One of Turkey’s biggest short-term challenges has been recasting its relations with Iraq. Over the past year Turkey has opened consulates in Basra and Erbil the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan whose autonomous region functions as a virtual national sovereign. Erdogan has backtracked on its threats to militarily intervene in Iraqi Kurdistan if the oil rich Kirkuk province passes to Kurdistan Regional Government control--a likely development as the KRG is poised to win a majority in Kirkuk’s (Tamim) province in Iraq’s upcoming parliamentary elections. Turkey is the largest investor in Kurdistan today and has reached an agreement to participate in a free trade zone in Kurdistan. By establishing closer ties with the KRG, Turkey's business mavens have become the beneficiary of millions in commercial contracts and are actively seeking negotiations on potential oil agreements. Ankara’s opening of a consulate in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city and the crown jewel of its oil exporting platform is highly significant. It signals Turkey’s acceptance of Iraq’s Shiia’s leaders as the dominant force in the country and the realization that if Turkey wants to participate in the development of Iraq’s energy resources they will need to repair their once strained relations with Iraq’s Shiaa leaders.

Turkey’s strong condemnation of Israel’s 2008 Gaza invasion and support for HAMAS angered Washington but played well on the Arab street. Israel’s Gaza invasion in the middle of Turkey’s mediation efforts between the Palestinian Authority and Israel was an embarrassment that left Erdogan little choice but to withdraw from the talks. As for Erdogan’s support for bringing HAMAS into the peace negotiations, his position is shared by many countries across the Middle East and privately in European capitals. Having mediated Israeli-Palestinian talks Erdogan knows peace cannot be secured with by Obama’s short-sighted “One and One-Half State Solution” that seeks to isolates HAMAS and the Gaza Strip. The collapse of the Obama administration’s efforts to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority may well have killed any prospect of an agreement being reached in President Obama’s first term in office.

In pursuing its “Strategic Depth” doctrine Turkey is clearly emerging as a rising political and economic force in the Middle East. Through “soft power” diplomacy, expanded trade and Turkey’s unique role mediating conflicts in the Balkans, the Caucuses and the Middle East, Ankara has emerged as an invaluable intermediary that could help the U.S. solve some of its trickier diplomatic missions. But it is Turkey’s ties with Tehran and Damascus that foreshadow the trace lines of a Syria-Turkey-Iran-Russia energy and military axis that represents a formidable threat to American supremacy in the Middle East.

If Washington wants to balance Turkey’s “Eastern angle” President Obama should use his considerable powers of persuasion to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s Nicholas Sarkozy to support Turkey’s application to the European Union. Europe’s dismissive attitude towards Turkey while approving Cypress’s membership to the E.U. has done more to turn Turkey to the East than the AKP’s “Islamic” inclinations; it has created a feeling in Ankara that Europe has a double standard. The Obama administration can also signal its strong support to Ankara and Kurdistan for Erdogan’s efforts to end the PKK’s insurgency including offers of economic incentives for development projects in Southeastern Turkey. Most of all Washington needs to understand that Turkey is passing through its most profound domestic and foreign policy transformation since the “Young Turk” revolution 100 years ago. In building a vibrant Muslim secular democracy that moves Turkey's Kurdish minority from the margins to the mainstream Prime Minister Erdogan risk the possible loss of his office and AKP control of the machinery of governance. Likewise, Erdogan's decision to embark on a new forward-leaning foreign policy informed by the doctrine of “Strategic Depth” is challenging the assumptions of Turkey's tradtional relationships with the East and the West. Ankara has a rendevous with destiny. With or without Washington’s support there will be no turning back in Ankara.*****

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Policy Gamble

by Webster Brooks