Allies, New and Old

So our friends the Turks are looking like they will come through for us again (see about 2/3 of the way down on the article). Ever since 9/11 we in the United States have been reassessing who our friends are and are not. And the Turks have been proving themselves to be excellent allies in a time of need.

Some would probably complain that the Turks are taking advantage of our time situation to extract the maximum amount of money from the US. So what? It’s not like the Turks have hidden it from us. They have told us from the get go what the price of using their bases would be. It has always been our option to accept that price or to attempt to negotiate. Turkey is entitled to compensation for the use of their land and for the risks that they are taking by allowing us to attack Iraq from their land. The only question is if they are asking too much for what we are getting. We were the ones to make that decision.

I’ve heard many people say that their upset with the obstructionism of France, Germany, Russia, and recently Turkey. It is frustrating to see our supposed allies standing in the way of our righting a wrong, but the France and Germany are much more annoying than Russia and Turkey.

The Russians, like the Turks, have not made any bones about why they oppose a war in Iraq at this time. Since we know that they share our concern about the WMD in Iraq, but that they are also concerned about their business deals with Iraq, we know how to negotiate with them. I’m guessing that there are high level meetings taking place to ensure continuity of the Russian deals, even after the regime change. I believe that we will get the issues hammered out and the Russians will ultimately not stand in our way.

The French and the Germans, however, are acting like they have something to hide or protect. The Germans, I think, are suffering from a failed government holding power too long. Schroeder should have given it up a while ago. The only thing that works to keep him in power is good old anti-Americanism. He’s just starting to push it far enough to really poison the US/German relationship and to cause long term damage to the German people. The French, I’m afraid, are trying to hide something more sinister. I don’t know what, but it would probably be a good guess to think that they had been supplying Saddam with much of his weapons capabilities. I also believe that Chriac miscalculated and fed the US/French relationship with a little too much hemlock.

I’m not sure that we’ll be able to get another UN resolution passed. But really, we don’t need to. 1441 provided an adequate enough “final warning” from the world and in reality, there is only a cease-fire agreement in place that keeps us from going in. There is no peace treaty; we are technically still at war with Iraq.

Since we started down this road last year, our true friends have been proving themselves. Our allies support us, even though they don’t always agree with us. When Turkey asked for assistance in defending themselves against possible attack, we didn’t debate the need to defend them, we made it happen- even when it involved circumventing an obstructionist. The Turks have reciprocated. They know that their bases are important to us. And ultimately I think that they would have let us use for less money when it came right down to it. But we can’t fault them for trying to extract the maximum concession possible from us. It just made sense for them to try. To our list of traditional allies, we need to add Turkey.

But while we’re re-evaluating nations we need to remove France from our list of allies and at least take Germany off the list of reliable allies. It’s a shame that the nation that gave us Lafayette is proving itself to be simply anti-British. Any opportunity to disrespect the British is a good opportunity to the French. Perhaps one day the French government will mature to the point that they understand that it isn’t always wise to support maniacal, murderous dictators simply because they are also anti-British.