Arabs to Turkey: you are/are not the lead goose!
■"Turkey's EU Inroads Meet Arab Chill," by Hugh Pope and Dan Bilefsky, Wall Street Journal, 20 December 2004, p. A13.
Those Euros do everything they can to make the Turks feel welcome, don't they? Including making their accession to the EU talks "open ended," which is their polite way of saying the largely Christian club reserves the right to conduct the talks for years on end and then still say no!
But good, say I, that the EU is linking the talks to Turkey recognizing the Greek-run government of EU member Cyprus. That "olive tree" conflict is waaaaaay past its due date.
Here's the larger point: the Muslim Middle East can't seem to make up its mind as to whether or not Turkey's efforts represent anything larger as far as their relationship to Europe or the West is concerned.
And big surprise, what resentment the process creates in the Middle East is the sense that Turkey has to beg for entry—in effect promising not to be "too Muslim" (my quotes). As one Saudi newspaper editor said, "I cannot go into a club that doesn't want me."
Truer words were never spoken—except perhaps by Groucho Marx.
Others are more sanguine, especially in neighboring Syria, which until recently was a big critic of Turkey, which now seems to be arguing for a closer Europe—so to speak. As one economist in Damascus put it, "If Europe becomes our neighbor to the north, that will help stability."
I say, it cannot hurt to have Europe feeling more local ownership of security in the region.
As one Egyptian scholar states, "It sends a strong message that Islam in itself does not pose a threat to the Western civilization. This can defeat terrorism."
In my mind, Turkey's membership in the EU would create connectivity of the highest (symbolic) and simplest (geographic) order. In short, you cannot shrink the Gap unless members can graduate out, and they can't graduate out unless you leave the door open for membership.
It's a lesson the U.S. needs to learn vis-à-vis Latin America.