The fact is that Turkey is no longer a close ally of the United States and Israel. A realignment of power is going on in the Middle East largely unnoticed by the main stream media and conveniently ignored by the the Europeans and the Obama Administration. Turkey, Syria, and Iran are currently negotiating a new relationship that is destined to change the balance of power in the Middle East.
For more than 60 years Turkey was a close ally of the United States, a member of NATO, and the only friend to Israel in the Middle East. All of that began to change when Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power as Prime Minister in 2003 along with his Islamist AK Parti. The change has been even more significant since Abdullah Gül of the AK was elected President in 2007.
Daniel Pipes documents the change in relationship with the US and Israel but also the rise of a new axis of Islamic power in his article: “Turkey: An Ally No More”
The article concludes with the following:
In brief, …Turkey emerging as a regional power, a sort-of modernized Ottoman Empire. Implicit in this strategy is a distancing of Turkey from the West in general and Israel in particular. …
As Barry Rubin notes, “the Turkish government is closer politically to Iran and Syria than to the United States and Israel.” Caroline Glick, a Jerusalem Post columnist, goes further: Ankara already “left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis.” But official circles in the West seem nearly oblivious to this momentous change in Turkey’s allegiance or its implications.
The cost of their error will soon become evident.
Response: This has huge implications for changing the balance of power in the Middle East. the leaders of Iran continue to talk about the establishment of a new Muslim Caliphate. The addition of Turkey to their sphere of influence provides a vital link to past Islamic power and glory.
Remember, Turkey was the headquarters for the last Islamic Caliphate—the Ottoman Empire which conquered that last vestiges of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1453, threatened Europe, and ruled the Middle East and North Africa for nearly a 1,000 years not relinquishing its power till it was defeated by the Western Allies in WWI.