With Friends Like These…

I’m sure you’ve heard the mantra that “Turkey is a good friend to the United States and a staunch NATO ally.” It’s grown a bit strained and threadbare over the last decade or so, but it’s still the official line for both American political parties and the permanent bureaucracy in the State Department.

If the world were sane, the following brief article from ANSAmed would put a stake in the heart of this meme once and for all. But the world is not sane, and things will presumably continue the same until the moment of catastrophe arrives:

USA and Israel Turkey’s Main Enemies, Poll

(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, JANUARY 5 - According to a poll carried out by the Turkish institute Metropoll and published today, the main enemies of the Turks are the USA and Israel. A total of 1,504 people were interviewed in December. Of these, 43% indicated that the USA poses the most serious foreign threat to their country, a Muslim but laic country, an ally of Washington and NATO members since 1952. The US threat, according to 23% of the interviewed, is followed by Israel, and 63% said that the Turkish government should freeze its ties with the Jewish State, while 28% want closer ties. Iran, which according to many Western countries is equipping itself with nuclear weapons, is considered a threat by just 3% of the interviewed, and Turkey’s traditional “enemy”, Greece, only by 2%.

Hat tip: Insubria.