Obama must deal with Turkey-Israel crisis
U.S. policy in the Middle East is f loundering. President Obama’s two most important allies in the region are on a collision course. It will not be resolved by the State Department’s injunction to Turkey and Israel to “cool it.”
Turkey’s importance to Washington is clear: its involvement in NATO and its forces in Afghanistan; its strong economic ties to northern Iraq; its ongoing cooperation against terrorism; and, most recently, its role in the NATO missile defense shield. The depth of the U.S.-Turkey alliance makes the crisis in Israeli-Turkish relations one that equally involves the United States.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expanded his confrontation with Israel beyond the 2010 Gaza flotilla incident and into a full-scale assault on Israel’s position in the region.… Seguir leyendo »