Beware. With stunts such as this week's bid to deflect further sanctions on Iran, Turkey's leaders like to boast that they are creating a new role for their nation as a rising regional power and broker of peace in the Middle East. What they're really doing looks more like a throwback to the ways of Vidkun Quisling, a 20th-century Norwegian politician whose collaboration with Nazi Germany earned him a special place in the lexicon. To this day Quisling's surname is shorthand for a politician willing to sell out his own country to the worst predators, if it looks like that might save his own interests.
This is the course on which Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, is now embarked, as Turkey's leaders fawn over their nuclear-loving, sanctions-scorning counterparts in the neighboring Islamic Republic of Iran. This past Monday Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, together with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, turned up in Tehran, announcing an amorphous deal for an enriched uranium swap. The aim was clearly to head off new U.N. sanctions on Iran, buying yet more time for Iran's race toward nuclear weapons. Clasped hands raised with glee, Erdogan, Lula and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood should-to-shoulder, celebrating this new milestone in nuclear flimflam.
Read Full Article »