Burak Bekdil
burak.bekdil@hurriyet.com.tr
Eleftherios Venizelos, the illustrious statesman and former prime
minister of Greece, once noted that the well-being of small nations is
guaranteed by, 1) Realism; 2) Avoidance of illusions of grandeur; and 3)
Being consistent in their alliances with powerful, even if selfish,
allies.
Apparently, Venizelos’ homeland wellness prescription is the antithesis of neo-Ottoman
Turkey
a century later. And no doubt, Turks love that antithesis. Betting and
other means of gambling are a Turkish pastime. I no longer hope to see
crumbs of realism in Turkey’s foreign policy calculations, but I am
still wondering whether crumbs of consistency will remain the rare
commodity forever.
Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
and his foreign policy czar, Ahmet Davutoğlu, should decide, for the
sake of an elementary level of consistency, whether the “world order”
they praise and condemn at the same time is good or bad.
For
instance, the United Nations is good when its General Assembly upgrades
Palestine to non-member state status. But the U.N. Security Council is
bad when it does not do as Mr. Erdoğan thinks it should do about Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad. The U.N. is also bad when it does not grant
Palestine full member state status.
The old League of Nations was
bad when it passed resolution after resolution to condemn the Turkish
occupation of Cyprus.