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Turkey Is Making a Play for Regional Power

(Financial Times-UK) Josef Joffe - Next to Iran, NATO member Turkey is now the biggest headache for the West. Turkey has seen the leadership of the region up for grabs - and is going for it. It has drawn Syria into its orbit and has reached a nuclear deal with Iran, its rival for hegemony. What better way to pursue this end than to lead a crusade against the Jewish state? Going after the "Little Satan" is the card that trumps them all, and it embarrasses the "Great Satan" to boot. The real game is about dominance at the expense of America. The U.S. must learn that the real contest is between itself, Turkey and Iran. It is now up against both. Obama thinks that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the source of all trouble. If it were, Iran would not be trying to develop nuclear weapons and Turkey would not be seeking mastery over its ancient domain. Nor were Palestinians on the mind of the previous claimants to hegemony - from Nasser's Egypt to Saddam's Iraq. Terror in Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan is not designed to uproot Jewish settlements. It is not Israel that motivates Syria's recolonization of Lebanon. Turkey and Iran are not vying for control so as to promote a two-state solution. Palestine has got nothing to do with it. The writer is editor of Die Zeit, a senior fellow at Stanford's Institute for International Studies and Abramowitz fellow of the Hoover Institution.
2010-06-08 11:04:12
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