Sunday, October 19, 2014

Foreign Policy Joke Quote of the week: Washington may be consistently misreading its partners and overestimating just how committed they are to the fight

Foreign Policy  writes that the Obama admin, SO HAPPY AND RELIEVED to have a deal where Islamist, and therefore racist Turkey (which already has ONE genocide to its credit)  is ‘ALLOWING’ use of (most likely of the large NATO Incirlik) base(s) for air support immediately trumpeted this cooperation, embarrassing the Turks so badly (since they and their people- by election(s) - are actually on the other side of this struggle) that they DENIED it.
Who would want to be the ally of a nation that abandons allies for domestic political reasons in a fight against people whose first action after you hesitate to convert to their religion is to slice off your head with a kitchen knife on TV, pour encourager les autres?


National Security

The Obama Administration Has a Kiss-and-Tell Problem

In its excitement to trumpet the coalition against the Islamic State, the U.S. is outing partners before they’re ready to go steady.

The Obama administration insists that it has a large and growing coalition of nations arrayed to fight the Islamic State. If a new diplomatic blowup with Turkey is any example, though, the alliance may be far less robust than Washington says.
The latest row concerns the key question of whether Turkey, which hosts a sprawling American air base, will let U.S. warcraft fly from it into Iraq and Syria to batter the militant group. U.S. officials said Sunday that Ankara had given the green light. Less than a day later, Turkish officials categorically denied that they’d agreed to allow their bases to be used against the terror group.
The conflicting versions of events from the two allies have one of two causes. One is political: The White House is eager to show a war-weary American public that the United States won’t be fighting alone, but many Middle Eastern countries don’t want to rile up their own populations by advertising their roles in the coalition. The other is a more basic and troubling one: that Washington may be consistently misreading its partners and overestimating just how committed they are to the fight.
The Turkey dispute revolves around the use of the country’s bases by coalition forces to fly airstrikes and surveillance missions against ISIS (as the Islamic State is also known) in Iraq and Syria. But Ankara wasn’t the only capital to experience a fit of stage fright after its potential involvement in the anti-ISIS coalition went public.
In September, when Foreign Policy reported details of a secret offer by the nation of Georgia to host a training camp for anti-ISIS fighters, the story prompted a strong public backlash in Tbilisi due to security concerns for the tiny Caucasian nation of 4.5 million. Within 24 hours, Georgian officials denied having made any such offer.
"I categorically rule out any military participation or training base in Georgia," Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze said.

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