Josh Marshall on our botched diplomacy with the Turks.

Don’t place blame on the Turks=TheHill.com= The reality of the situation is that the Turks almost universally oppose our war against Iraq. Yet the Erdogan government was extremely keen to prove its secular, pro-western bona-fides to the Turkish political establishment — particularly the military. To do so, it went to great lengths to get the Turkish parliament to approve the presence of U.S. troops on Turkish soil — even in the face of almost universal public opposition. They failed of course.

But if the problem were really the new ‘fundamentalist’ government in Ankara, you would expect that our secularist allies — who are now in the opposition — would have voted in favor of our presence. But they didn’t. And we pretty much have only ourselves to blame.

The Bush administration acted toward Turkey like the stereotypical rogue from a 1950s B-Movie. First we told Turkey what we wanted. When she balked, we got a little rough. When even that didn’t do the trick, we pulled out our wallet, saying in essence, “Fine, how much do you want?� When even cash failed, we told her to get out of the car and walk home.

Secularism is probably too deeply entrenched in the Turkish military and society at large for us to do it much harm with such carping. But if you were really intent on pushing the Turks out of the pro-Western orbit, you probably couldn’t find a better approach than that now pursued by Safire, Bell and others like them.