US Must Lead Where EU Falters

Sally McNamara / June 10, 2010

The US Government looked on in shock this week when Turkey defied its traditional allies including the United States and Israel, and voted against UN sanctions for Iran. Ankara had already tried to stall a fourth round of sanctions by negotiating a flawed nuclear deal with the atomic ayatollahs. U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates has said that Turkey’s strategic drift away from the West is due, in part, to the European Union’s reluctance to accept them into the alliance.

Turkey has been a key NATO ally since the ‘50s, and the U.S. largely assumed that Ankara’s path to EU membership would be as smooth as the other 21 members common to both alliances.

Not so. (more…)