More on the developing absurdities of international relations in the West. Turkey is on track with warming up to the enemies of the West after having held Sweden’s membership to NATO hostage. Despite, the Turkish parliament’s approval of Sweden’s NATO membership, the decree still has to be signed by President Erdogan and he still has a small window to keep squeezing in more concessions by the West.
Ultimately, Turkey is taking an opposing route to the West’s foreign policies and security interests and the West seems to have unwittingly approved of Turkey’s adversarial route in exchange for their approval of Sweden’s NATO membership. Selling the Kurds seems to have come at a much larger price than initially perceived. While President Joe Biden is recommending Congress approve the sale of F-16 jets to Turkey, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan hosted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Turkey and declared that Turkey would keep consolidating its ties with Iran despite Western sanctions. Iran is currently conducting a low-key war against US forces in Syria and Iraq through its proxies.
Meanwhile, Turkey is currently at war against the Kurds in Syria and Iraq and has also committed war crimes. Questions should be raised about whether the F-16s that the US will sell to Turkey will be used to bomb the Kurds in Syria and Iraq who are currently US allies. Iran has also assassinated a prominent Kurdish businessman in recent days.
These developing absurdities come with great risks to the West’s overall security and interests apart from jeopardising the international rules-based order. At the same time, with the failure of the US and the UK to secure the Red Sea from the Houthis, the West is showing an increasing reluctance to enforce the international rules-based order with its overpowering and superior firepower. It is as if the West is voluntarily giving up its role as the world police, not because it can’t enforce the legal international order.
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