Thursday, December 20, 2012

NATO's weakest link; Turkey

Not that there's a shortage of "weak links" in NATO.

How did outfits like Albania and Croatia even get into the bully club?

But the weakest link we should be most concerned about is Turkey. We predicted some time ago that the Turks would be left holding the bag when things went wrong in the Syria intervention that Erdogan was strong-armed into supporting, and there are stories floating around this week that suggest his NATO allies are preparing to wash their hands of him.

A number of regional news outlets reported this week that two major US Navy battle groups have pulled out of the neighborhood, namely the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and the Iwo Jima Amphibious Assault Group. This comes at a time when Erdogan was hoping for more support, not less.

It's true that this is happening at the same time as NATO is officially giving the Turks a vote of confidence by sending Patriot missile batteries to the country. But note the fine print; even though NATO allies Germany and the USA are sending Patriots to NATO ally Turkey, it will be American troops manning the missile batteries, thank you very much.

Some allies are more equal than others.

As for Syria, official US policy for the moment seems to be let it burn and see what's left when it's over.

On the one hand, the carefully fomented "revolution" has gone wildly out of the control of the American paymasters.

On the other, this is not entirely a bad thing for the Nations of Virtue.

What better launch pad for an Iran war than a Syria in ruins, with 100,000 hardened al Qaeda fighters prepared to march to Tehran and do America's dirty work?

Alas, Turkey will disintegrate long before Iran does.

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