"But in an Arab world where the United States seems in retreat, Europe ineffectual and powers like Israel and Iran unsettled and unsure, officials of an assertive, occasionally brash Turkey have offered a vision for what may emerge from turmoil across two continents that has upended decades of assumptions.
. . . .
'We’re not out there to recreate the Ottoman Empire, but we are out there to make the most of the influence we have in a region that is embracing our leadership,' said Suat Kiniklioglu, the deputy chairman of external affairs for Mr. Erdogan’s party."
Shadid writes in his penultimate paragraph:
"And across the spectrum in Turkey, still wrestling with its own Kurdish insurgency in the southeast, critics and admirers acknowledge that the vision of a Turkish-led region, prosperous and stable, remains mostly a fleeting promise amid all the turmoil."
I ask myself, how is it possible to write such an article and relegate the Kurdish issue to a single sentence? There are 30 million Kurds in the Middle East who have been perpetually abused and demeaned, of whom some 14 million live in Turkey. Notwithstanding Turkey's purported outrage over conditions in Gaza and its shipment of aid to Palestinians, Turkey's Kurds have a lower standard of living, a lower life expectancy and lower rate of live births than persons living in Gaza. Blind to the poverty of its Kurdish minority, Turkey has threatened to send warships to the eastern Mediterranean to ensure that future shipments of aid by sea to Gaza are delivered without impediment.
While Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan continues to demand an apology for the death of nine Turks aboard the Marmara, which was attempting to break the Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza, he refuses to apologize for the Armenian Genocide.
The recipient of the 2010 Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, Erdogan refused to take an active role in NATO's recent operations to remove Libya's despot.
Of late, Turkey is engaged in saber rattling over offshore drilling for natural gas by both Cyprus and Israel.
A Middle East power vacuum has been created by President Obama, and both Turkey and Iran are rushing to fill the void. How has Obama responded to Erdogan's power drunk shenanigans? Several days ago, Erdogan announced that the US had agreed to supply him with Predator drones to fight the Kurds.
Given the financial crisis enveloping both the US and Europe, Ankara can probably continue to engage without scrutiny or opposition in this adventure, which for many Erdogan admirers amounts to a romantic resurgence of the Ottoman Empire, or at least until another nationwide banking crisis brings Turkey to its knees.
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