Avuncular American

The September 11 Emergency Embassy Drill

There we were, gathered around the table for a long-scheduled emergency planning exercise.  It was September 11, 2001, and the American Embassy in Luxembourg was perhaps the only place in the world where one of these exercises was taking place.

The idea is to put Embassy staff through their paces, and a former diplomat who did this for a living had constructed a scenario which stretched elements of reality a bit to come up with a series of tests of our ability to deal with a crisis.

During an afternoon break, one of our people went back to his office, and phoning his wife, learned that there had been an incident in New York, something about a "small airplane" crashing into the World Trade Center.  When he told us this, we thought at first it was a "plant" by the scenario writer - something to distract us from the fictitious crisis brewing in our exercise.

Shortly thereafter, another report came in about a second plane, and it started to dawn on us that this was stranger and worse than anything in our exercise scenario.  We switched from exercise-land to the real world, and it was then that the Minister of Interior phoned me, to say that the Government of Luxembourg had dispatched armed police to augment our unarmed contract guards.  I looked through the curtains, and they were already on duty.

For several hours that terrible day, US embassies abroad were pretty much on their own.  The news said that the State Department had been evacuated, and there were rumors of a truck bomb hitting Foggy Bottom (unfounded, as it turned out).  We kept in close contact with the nearest larger US Embassy in Brussels, and told our staff to head home.

That evening, one of the communications staff phoned me at home about an urgent message, and said that it looked like there was a demonstration forming outside the Embassy.  That seemed preposterous, and it turned out that this was the first spontaneous outpouring of support that Luxembourgers showed over the coming days and weeks.  People were laying wreaths of flowers and lighting candles outside the Embassy gates.

That evening of September 11, 2001 was just the beginning of what became a national cause.  Within days, the entire government, including the head of state, gathered for a solemn, ecumenical memorial service in the national cathedral.  There was a similar gathering at the American military cemetery, where General Patton and thousands of his comrades-in-arms lie.  All over Luxembourg, used to honoring the Americans who liberated them (twice) in World War II, every town and village organized ceremonies over the following weeks.

And the emotional solidarity translated to political support.  Within weeks of September 11, we were hosting a conference on combatting terrorist financial flows.  On a number of fronts, including NATO, Luxembourg and other European allies joined the US.  When speaking to audiences of concerned youth, I told them to take heart in this solidarity.  It was the time of headlines "We Are All Americans."

What a difference a year makes.  In the fall of 2002, when I was preparing to leave Luxembourg and the US Foreign Service, the phrase of concern to America's friends was "You're either with us or against us."  The drums of war were increasingly audible: Iraq, which had had nothing to do with Nine Eleven, was in the US crosshairs.

What a difference a decade makes.  Yes, 2001 was the year of 9/11.  But it was also the year of the first Bush tax cuts, the ones that erased the Clinton budget surplus that was on its way to wiping out the US national debt.  It was also the year where Europeans said goodbye to their national currencies and introduced the Euro.  Ten years later, both decsions are the subject of much soul-searching.

That the intervening decade has been one of dysfunction is in little doubt.  Astronomically expensive wars of choice that are still unresolved.  The economies of nations at the mercy of financial institutions and firms that have little or no sense of loyalty to the countries that spawned them.

It didn't all start with Nine Eleven, but the body blow to once rock-solid institutions shook the confidence of the West.  We have yet to recover.

WW II + 65: Say It With Stamps

It's fitting that former enemies and inheritors of former regimes got together today in Moscow for what may be one of the last big World War II commemorations that can include numbers of walking veterans.  Quite right, too, that the country that suffered the greatest number of casualties be the host.  It's hard to see how Germany could have been defeated without the Red Army's determination.  Click on the stamp at left for an example of the Soviet-era heroic gigantism prevalent in the USSR (from StampRussia).

That other Ally that withstood alone on the Western Front, Great Britain, is of course personified by its wartime leader, Winston Churchill.  His voice, his profile, his very pugnaciousness, stood for so much in the years before the US entered the war.  From the British Postal Museum Archive.

Marching in Moscow for the first time today was the United States, which not only saved the Brits from the Germans, but had to fight off the Japanese throughout the Pacific.  The cartoonist Bill Mauldin, beloved of the foot soldiers but mistrusted by the brass for the scruffy image he gave to GIs, is portrayed in this US Postal Service stamp. Rounding out the Big Four was China, but not the China of Communist Beijing.  Nationalist China, under Chiang Kai-Shek, was at the table with its Soviet, American, and British allies.  No more Soviets at the Kremlin these days, and the Nationalists had to watch the ceremony from Taiwan.  From StampsOfChina.

Finally, France, which though not a member of the wartime Big Four, did manage to stay in the big power league thanks to the sheer will power of then General De Gaulle.  Thanks to French postwar leaders managing to overcome their hatred of Germany for outrages like Oradour (hundreds of men, women, and children killed in cold blood, the entire village burnt to the ground), we have a united Europe today.  Stamp from Timbres-de-France.

Okay, world leaders, well done in the war memorial category.  Now please work together on that even bigger goal: saving the planet from its multiple non-military threats.  It's a much harder target to zero in on.

Cheer Up, Europe: The War's Over

You wouldn't know it, by the looks of the headlines:

"Gloom across Europe as crisis shadow intensifies" Financial Times

"Zeal and angst: Germany torn over role in Europe" Wall Street Journal

"AMB. JOHN BOLTON: We shouldn't rescue Europe" FOXNews.com

Thanks, Ambassador Bolton.  Glad you weren't around during World War II.  And I don't think the Europeans have actually asked the US to rescue them this time.

No, you wouldn't know that today really should be a day of celebration.  65 years of peace across a continent ravaged by two world wars last century.  VE Day - Victory in Europe - never was much celebrated in the United States, which preferred to lump its commemoration of its dead of all wars in May's Memorial Day.

But on this side of the Atlantic, as the BBC On This Day website reminds us, Britons lost no time in celebrating the end of hostilities in Europe on May 8, 1945.  They cheered PM Winston Churchill, "for he's a jolly good fellow."  Didn't keep them, two months later, from voting him out of office.  Gordon Brown shouldn't feel so bad.

VE Day on May 8 is a public holiday in many European countries, though at places like NATO HQ, where some of the losing countries of the war are now major players, it doesn't do to mention the war.  So we have instead the celebration of the postwar peace, embodied in Europe Day, May 9, celebrating 60 years since Robert Schuman sketched out what has since become the European Union.

If only the general mood matched the upbeat Euro-phoria of the Europe Day poster gallery.  It's hard to find committed Europhiles, especially in places like the British Conservative Party, which just may be poised to take over the helm of what is already a Euro-sceptic nation.

Even on the continent, the angst and gloom is general: in Greece, the epicenter of the latest financial-fiscal crisis, it has erupted into violence.  Here in Brussels, a city whose name is synonymous with the EU, not even Europe can appear to help a country seemingly bent on endless separatism in a slow "death of a thousand cuts."

Too bad Europeans don't see the BIG PICTURE.  Which is, 65 years of peace, the product of an alphabet soup of interlocking institutions: NATO, EU, COE, OSCE, OECD.  These "supranational European bodies" might bore you to death with their endless diplo-speak of collective security, single currency, subsidiarity... but these weighty words keep the swords from being rattled.  If you can't make out the Euler diagram (click on image below) of these overlapping institutions, check out this excellent Wikipedia graph.

"Jaw-jaw is better than war-war," Winston Churchill is reputed to have said.  The European Union does talk to excess, at times, but 65 years of jaw-jaw is better than 6 months of war-war.  Europe, count your blessings, do the necessary, and keep that stiff upper lip in the face of a little currency crisis.  It's important, but seen in perspective, pales when the alternatives to collective security are considered.

There is strength in numbers.

Paying Them To Be Pals

Do you remember the scene in David Lean's epic film, Lawrence of Arabia, where Colonel TE Lawrence, to shouts of "Aurens! Aurens!" rides back to his Bedouin allies in the company of... mercenaries?  "Killers, cutthroats," say the disgusted princes and tribal leaders.  Lawrence has bought himself some protection, but at the cost of the respect of those who are fighting with him for a cause.

A century later, we have lots of modern-day Lawrences in Army and Marine camouflage BDUs, mingling in the Middle East and hiking the Hindu Kush, alternately fighting and tea-drinking with the various bands that make up Iraq and Afghanistan's warring factions.  In Lean's film, it was Ottoman gold that inspired some of Lawrence's Arab allies.  Nowadays, it's more likely to be the shrinking US dollar, shrink-wrapped in bricks of $100 bills.

When I read that the Pentagon's budget is now to include CERP ("Commander's Emergency Response Program") money to woo the Taliban over to "our side," that image of Lawrence's mercenaries looms up.  The $1.3 billion allotted to CERP in Afghanistan may be a drop in the bucket, but as with all such things, has there been much thought given to what happens when the former baddies stop getting money?

Read Shane Bauer's great expose in the September Mother Jones, "The Sheikh Down," for a look at what your money buys in Iraq, where CERP payments created the "Awakening Councils" out of former enemies among the Sunni population.  It's an entertaining read, except the part about the shaking down of the American taxpayer, who gets to pay for "reconstruction" projects at many times their justified price, all in the name of keeping the peace.  Getting a piece, for the sheikhs profiled, is more like it.

But what happens when the money stops?  Surely even Pentagon planners can harbor hopes of a rosy future of declining budget lines when the CERP program "sunsets," to use a term from accounting-speak?  But will the Sunni fighters in Iraq and the ex-Taliban pocketing the payments understand it when the CERP paymasters say "Thanks guys, but our funding has zeroed-out."  Their guns and bombs, bought and paid for by American largess - who will they point them at now?

How about allegations that Italian payments to the Taliban for peace in their sector, when stopped and not communicated to French forces that inherited their zone, subsequently brought the Taliban's wrath on the unsuspecting French?  According to the Times of London, even the US Embassy in Rome protested to the Italian government about such practices.  But now the same thing is in the Pentagon budget?

Tom Engelhardt's "Tomgram" put it squarely: "Will Today's US-Armed Ally Be Tomorrow's Enemy?"  We've been there before, in the self-same Afghanistan:

Let me suggest just one lesson that seems to be on no one else's mind at a moment when a key "option" being offered in Washington -- especially by Democrats not eager to see tens of thousands more U.S. troops heading Afghanistan-wards -- is to arm and "train" ever more thousands of Afghans into a vast army and police security force for a government that hardly exists. Based on the last three decades in the region, don't you think that we should pause and consider who exactly we may be arming and who exactly we may be supporting, and whether, given those 30 years of history, we have the slightest idea what we're doing?

Americans with amnesia should go out and rent Charlie Wilson's War, a slick rendition of how we "bought" the Mujahideen those thirty years ago, who then became the Taliban, who then started getting CERP payments...

AF-PAK-IRAN - Eddies of Instability, or Negotiation Opportunity?

Whatever happened to strategic options?

Discussions of Western policy towards Iran have a numbing inevitability to them.  You're going to hear about the sanctions option, which is always there as a way of warding off the Israeli bombing option.  Two flavors - is that all we have to choose from?

The weekend's deadly attack in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan region should be of concern in capitals other than just Tehran.  And not only because of intemperate Iranian accusations of US or British involvement, which are probably ludicrous.  [UPDATE: Or perhaps not so ludicrous: see Washington Note post by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett].  It would appear that the Anglo-Americans have quite enough on their hands without poking the eyes of the Iranians, especially in an area where they have little or no leverage.  After all, it was only last week that Baluchis on the Pakistani side expressed fears of US drone strikes in their region, which were apparently nixed by Islamabad.

Thankfully we are no longer in the era of George W. "Axis of Evil" Bush, whose neat phrase lumped together two deadly enemies - Iraq and Iran - by simple conflation.  They were both Muslim-majority countries opposed to the United States - what more do you need?  Bush's crusade against Saddam eliminated the one enemy who had bloodied Iran, and so delivered Iraq into the Shia camp.  Blowback of which I am sure we will hear more as the US wearies of the occupation.

So why, when contemplating Iran policy, are we limited to options that are more worthy of Bush than Obama?

President Obama, after all, is He of the open hand reaching out to the clenched fist.  It's depressing that we are still arguing about Bomb Iran versus Sanction Iran, without considering Co-opt Iran.  Yes, use shared concern over ever-widening arcs of instability, eddying out from their epicenter in Afghanistan.  Pakistan is belatedly trying to deal with multiple insurgencies on its periphery, which, according to Mark Sappenfield of the Christian Science Monitor, won't necessarily help across the border: "All the major terrorist networks attacking US forces in Afghanistan operate from other areas of Pakistan."

Let's use some of the momentum from today's Vienna 4-way nuclear talks to encourage Tehran to expand the diplomatic option.  How about it, Iran: tired of importing natural gas when you're sitting on some of the world's largest reserves?  Find importing gasoline a tad expensive when you actually export the raw material?

In a neighborhood like Af/Pak, wouldn't you want to ensure a bit of stability in the surrounding countries?  India, large, dynamic, democratic to the east.  Central Asia to the north, with its economies trying to transition from Soviet command to capitalism.  And Iran to the west, looking to the west and its markets rather than obsessing about the Great Satan.

Alistair Crooke, writing in Conflicts Forum, questions whether the West (and the Arab Middle East) is again ready to consider Iran as a regional power, as it was under different management.  Whatever the answer, the recent trouble on Iran's Pakistan border may cause some policy makers - Iranian, American, and others - to consider shared interest in stability, in a region where that is in very short supply.

Image: Af/Pak coffee mug, available through Diplopundit.

Treading Water, Under the Radar: Maldives & Diego Garcia

Dots in the Indian Ocean (image: DuniyaLive.com)

The Maldives stand an average of 7ft above sea level, and the government says they face being wiped out if oceans rise.  The government of the Maldives has held a cabinet meeting about 16ft underwater to highlight the threat of global warming.

BBC, 17 October 2009

The island has an area of approximately 10.5 square miles with an average natural elevation of four feet above sea level.  The British wish you an enjoyable stay on Diego Garcia. Upon your arrival, please familiarize yourself with BIOT [British Indian Ocean Territory] regulations and try to preserve the island's ecology.

US Military Sealift Command (MSC) website briefing for US personnel

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How nice that the US Navy is concerned about the "island's ecology."  No such care was extended to the Island's human inhabitants, who were summarily exiled by an Anglo-American pact that denied their very existence (see my post about the long-suffering Chagos Islanders).

But the Maldives President's worries about being swamped under the rising tides of climate change are starting to have their impact in strategic circles.  Here's Senator John Kerry in September:

Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean, a vital hub for our military operations across the Middle East, sits on an atoll just a few feet above sea level.

Kerry's concerns about the security impact of global warning (from the Boston Globe) were echoed weeks later by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking to an audience that probably cares more than most about catastrophic effects of global warming - Lloyd's of London:

Rising sea levels will have a clear effect on the ability of our armed forces to do their jobs.  Look at Diego Garcia.  It is an important logistical hub, including for this country; it is also only a few feet above sea level at its highest point.  A one metre rise in sea levels and most of it would be flooded.   We need to assess the impacts that these kinds of events would have.

Now, though it's gratifying that these two gentlemen are concerned about the planet's health and its defense, I wish that something other than the prospect of a B-52 runway getting flooded would galvanize them into action.

The upside for the Chagos Islanders, who have been quietly rotting away in distant Mauritius for upwards of forty years, is that their native Diego Garcia and other Chagos Archipelago islands might start taking water, and therefore send the US and UK scurrying for other lily pads (how about those in Central Asia?).

Maybe the Chagossians should team up with the Maldivians to drum up support for their respective causes.  With his underwater cabinet meeting stunt - "What else could I do to attract attention?" - the Maldives President appears to be on an effective public diplomacy strategy.

Transatlantic Trends: Can US Surf Obama's Wave In Europe?

The 8th annual Transatlantic Trends survey of European and American attitudes is out.  I must first qualify "European," which includes non-EU Turkey (which is not even in Europe, according to many), but does not include a number of EU countries.  No Scandinavians, no Balts?  Likewise, "American" is just that: North American partners in NATO, the Canadians, don't figure in the report.  Maybe next time, funding permitting.

That said, it is a fascinating survey of public opinion on a range of important policy issues, from what to do about Afghanistan to whether to kowtow to the Russians.  And don't presume you know where public opinion in selected countries already stands on these questions.  Ronald Asmus, the German Marshall Fund's Executive Director in Brussels and former Clinton Administration State Department appointee, says that a common reaction to his numbers is "that can't be so!"

Yes, the numbers don't lie: "Old Europe" Westerners are generally more pro-NATO and pro-US than their "New Europe" Eastern counterparts (Donald Rumsfeld must be saying "that can't be so!!").  And Turks - whom successive US administrations have adopted as their favorite EU candidate country - haven't gotten over their Iraq War slump, when Rumsfeld's Deputy Paul Wolfowitz tried to sic the Turkish Army on a recalcitrant elected civilian government.  Turkish attitudes toward the US - though improved over the Bush years - are the least susceptible to the Obama charm.

But the sheer magnitude of the "Obama Bounce," as Asmus likes to call the chart-topping effect, is what is so different.   "Unprecedented," says Asmus, of the 70 point jump in approval ratings between Bush and Obama (in the case of German public opinion).

I wish I had another slide that was shown at the recent GMFUS briefing, a composite of similar surveys taken since 1952, where European opinion of the US has had its momentary ups and downs, but nothing like the abyssal depths of the Bush years, followed by the bends-inducing rise beyond the surface after Obama's appearance on the scene.

Okay, all this is refreshing but what to do with it?  Confirmed Atlanticist Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, German Liberal Member of the European Parliament, called the findings evidence of "political capital."  "Now, let us use it," he said.   Indeed.

So I pose that very question to the public diplomacy community, which knows that it is good to have public opinion on your side.  How can the Obama Administration build on this groundswell of European public opinion in favor of the person of Barack Obama, which, as the survey shows, does not always have its corollary in support for US policies?

In a week where some of his fellow citizens called him a liar, it has to be reassuring in the White House and in Foggy Bottom that the Obama magic still appears to be working on the European side of the Atlantic.

Mountaintop Maginot Line - Where It Worked

The past week or so we've been doing some serious hiking in the French Alps, just west of the Italian border and about three hours' driving on twisty roads from Grenoble.  We are in the mountain valley of the Ubaye River - strategic for centuries before the European Union and NATO made war between allies like France, Italy, and Germany unthinkable.

In a museum in our little village, there's a piece of elephant tusk - a reminder that Hannibal's army approached Rome from the unexpected Alpine side.  On the mountaintops overlooking this valley and many others like it, French military engineers working for 17th/18th century Vauban and 20th century Maginot built fortresses that defy the imagination.  "La Route Napoleon" winds through passes and valleys on its way to Italy.

The Maginot Line got its bad reputation because of its northern portion, which guarded the frontier with Germany.  Anyone with a passing knowledge of World War II history knows that the piece that was missing - the Ardennes forest between Belgium, Luxembourg, and France - was the very place that the German blitzkrieg was successful.  The Maginot fortresses with their hardened artillery emplacements and underground railroads were magnificently useless, bypassed by German tanks roaring through the "impenetrable" forest.

Except for here in the French Alps, where the Maginot Line did its job.  In June 1940, Mussolini's troops hopped on Hitler's bandwagon and attacked an overstretched France.  Though outnumbered, the French forts held their ground, but the war was already a lost cause in the north.  After four long years of occupation by Germans and Italians, French and American troops retook the historic fortifications in the cold winter of 1944-45.  Some of the German-held forts only capitulated in the last weeks of the war.

So, back to our June 2009 military tourism.  Imagine our surprise when hiking on a mountain trail (photo top left; altitude approximately 6,000 feet) and seeing a machine gun nest inside a six inch thick steel carapace poking out of its reinforced concrete bunker.  The woods around the lookout are ringed with barbed wire, with trees bulging around their steel embrace for upwards of 75 years (Maginot built his line in the 1930s).  As isolated as this outpost was, it was equipped with an infrared sensor that detected Italian troop movements.

Further back in time, but updated as military technology became ever more sophisticated and lethal, Fort Tournoux (photo, above right) is a remarkable example of "génie militaire," built layer-cake on 2,000 vertical feet of strategic hillside.  Thanks to the collective of local municipalities and an association dedicated to preserving this amazing collection of fortresses, guides take visitors up a hair-raising mule trail to visit "Fort Moyen," the lowest of three Tournoux forts which dominate the confluence of the Ubaye and the Ubayette Rivers.  Though it was built starting 1852, Fort Tournoux's guns only had their baptism of fire in June 1940, when they supported the Maginot forts further up the Ubayette to stop the Italian advance.  The fort was in service in one way or another until the late 1980s.

Up the valley, a testament to an earlier age, the Berwick Redoubt (photo, left) built in the Vauban tradition in the 18th century.  Though its stone construction has withstood the test of time better than its wooden North American counterparts, it is redolent of the frontier forts of the French and Indian War of the same period.

France's mountain military tradition continues, though during our stay a contingent based in another historic fortress lowered its flags for the last time.  A local woman remarked on the imminent closure of another Alpine unit in the valley, at a time when some of Europe's highest mountain passes offer exceptional training opportunities for France's expeditionary missions.  But base closures are never a simple matter for the economies of the communities concerned, and President Sarkozy did promise a major defense realignment last year.  "The cannon recoils; the artilleryman never," the proud insignia etched (click on photo, right) on the high altitude barracks on silent Fort Tournoux.  Ah, but the artilleryman and the chasseur alpin must bow to the new defense realities and the priorities of their civilian masters.

Europe's internal borders are disappearing, and the "chasseurs alpins" are more likely to see action in Afghanistan's rugged mountains than in these parts.  The Schengen Treaty has led to the dismantling of border posts, and EU internal cross-border threats are better handled by customs & immigration "flying patrols" than by the mountaintop Maginot Line.

Europe & Turkey: Let It Fly On Its Own

As we approach the 100 day mark for the Obama Administration, the desire of European political parties, public interest groups, think tanks and media to analyze its impact on Europe continues unabated.  On the whole, the verdict is that the election of Barack Obama was a good thing for the United States, but also for Europe.

There is a lingering resentment, however, over one thing: President Obama's April 6 speech in Ankara supporting Turkish candidacy for membership in the European Union. (Photo of EU and Turkish flags from Wikimedia Commons).

"We speak not as members of the EU, but as close friends of both Turkey and Europe," said the President.  After listening to European reaction by informed EU citizens, let me say that I speak as an Obama supporter and American with strong European ties when I say that the US Government needs to, in the words of Dutch MP Hans van Baalen, "mind its own business" on Turkish-EU matters.

We know, of course, that Barack Obama is not the first American President to weigh in on behalf of  Turkey's European ambitions.  Nevertheless, at a time when fence-mending across the Atlantic is so important, and concerted action on a number of fronts with European allies is essential (NATO in Afghanistan, a unified approach in the G-20 on economics, energy, and climate), the US need not raise hackles in this sensitive area.

In any case, Turkey has to make its own case, and appearing like a US client is not a good means of having one's EU application favorably reviewed by a Europe still smarting from smart-ass Donald Rumsfeld's division of the continent into "Old" and "New" (pro-American) halves.

Turkey, as President Obama underlined, has made remarkable strides in matters of democracy, industry, and international stature.  Its credentials need to be seen in that light, and not in a knee-jerk rejection of its application simply because its citizens are primarily Muslim.  If Europe rejects Turkey because of religion, then why would Turkey want to join the EU anyway?

Turkey and Europe: Yes, No, or Impossible?

Years ago in a community development project in Ramallah, when it was still just a sleepy, recently-occupied West Bank town, one of my fellow volunteers, a devilish Turk named Ali, gave me language lessons. In Turkish body language, said Ali, you have the nodding of the head up and down for “yes,” the shaking side to side for “no,” and then something else. Tilting your head back to where your chin pointed to the onlooker (I’ve seen this elsewhere accompanied by a dismissive “tsk” sound) means “impossible.”

So which one is it to be for Turkey’s European Union hopes: yes, no, or - as in "you silly Turks, whatever made you think we’re genuine about those accession talks" - impossible?

Map of Turkey and its neighborhood, from the European Commission Enlargement website, “Turkey - Candidate Country Profile.” As in Perpetual Candidate?

To the annoyance of Nicolas Sarkozy (and I dare say a few others), US President Barack Obama, speaking at the Turkish Parliament yesterday, repeated that

The United States strongly supports Turkey’s bid to become a member of the European Union. (Applause.) We speak not as members of the EU, but as close friends of both Turkey and Europe. Turkey has been a resolute ally and a responsible partner in transatlantic and European institutions. Turkey is bound to Europe by more than the bridges over the Bosphorous. Centuries of shared history, culture, and commerce bring you together. Europe gains by the diversity of ethnicity, tradition and faith — it is not diminished by it. And Turkish membership would broaden and strengthen Europe’s foundation once more.

Obama and Sarkozy can agree on one thing: the US is not a member of the EU. The preceding is therefore called, in good American parlance, jawboning - “to influence by persuasion” (usually in domains where direct power is limited or, as in this case, nonexistent). But Turkey-in-Europe is both a geographic and demographic fact, and goes back centuries to the time when the Ottoman Empire - and latterly, the Young Turks - ruled large European territories.

This American stance on Turkey’s EU credentials is not new, but when Obama speaks of Europe “gaining in diversity,” he brings a certain credibility to the argument that Bush and others never had. As far as the US image is concerned, Obama had to surface from not only the generally abyssal depths into which Bush had sunk US-Muslim relations, but also had to repair damaged US-Turkish relations.

Who, other than Turkish democrats and US Democratic Congressman Barney Frank, remember then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz calling for the Turkish Army to exert its “traditional leadership role” (code for carrying out a coup d’état) in the face of the elected Turkish government’s opposition to allowing US military use of Turkish territory to invade Iraq in 2003? Frank called for Wolfowitz to resign. He eventually did, but for other reasons, and from a different job…

So Obama’s reference to “Turkey’s strong, vibrant, secular democracy” helps make amends for Bush and Wolfowitz dissing elected Turkish democrats, just because they were of the (moderate) Islamist persuasion and saw - like Obama did as a Senatorial hopeful back in 2003 - that invading Iraq was a sure-fire way to stir up a regional hornet’s nest.

That region - Turkey borders on 7 countries and is across the sea from another five - is why Turkey is important to NATO and potentially to the EU. We’ve long known Turkey for its troop-contributing potential as NATO’s second largest army, but, as Dr. Bahadir Kaleagasi, TUSIAD (Turkey’s Industrial Association) representative in Brussels said recently, “Turkey is either - or both - the northernmost country of the South or the southernmost country of the North.” Kaleagasi didn’t need to refer to Turkey’s ongoing mediation efforts between Israel and Syria (nor its attempts to get Hamas legitimated), but he did talk about Turkey’s position vis a vis Iran: “the Turkish-Iranian border is unchanged since medieval times, one of the world’s most ancient.” Interesting prospect, as the West enlists Turkey’s help in its efforts in the multiple regional challenges - Palestine/Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, and “Af/Pak.”

On the matter of Turkish membership in the European Union, I straddle a diplomatic “Errant European” and “Avuncular American” line. Expressing myself as an American, Europeans don’t want to hear another call from a Yank who should mind his business about the strategic interest and basic fairness of dealing honestly with a Candidate Country. As a dual American/Irish-European, I have nothing against Turkey’s Islamic identity, and agree with Obama when he sees the positives for diversity.

But I do honestly question whether the EU should expand indefinitely. And that doesn’t mean just the matter of Turkish accession. Can the EU limit enlargement to the countries on this map (essentially Turkey plus Croatia, Macedonia, and “potential candidate countries” in the rest of the Balkan peninsula)? Or will the process carry on as long as this applies: “Any country that satisfies the conditions for enlargement can submit an application.” The OSCE, by the way, has 56 member states, and the Council of Europe 47.  So there's a long way to go until "Europe" reaches its outer limits.

This post first appeared in "Errant European" (Euractiv/Blogactiv)