ALLIES: Turkey Has Lost its Biggest Cheerleader: The U.S. Military.

Rebuilding confidence in the U.S.-Turkish relationships is going to be hard, because military to military ties between Turkey and the U.S. have been damaged, possibly beyond repair in the short-term. It used to be that in Washington, the strongest advocates for Turkey were people from the U.S. military. They had great impressions from working with Turks in NATO operations in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, they were grateful for Turkey’s part in winning the Cold War by blocking the Soviet Union’s access to the warm seas, and they were just very supportive of Ankara in general.

That is now the opposite. I would say that the people who have the most negative views of Turkey in Washington are, unfortunately, in the U.S. military as a result of a series of events, all of which took place under Erdogan’s watch. Turkey’s refusal to join the Iraq war in 2003, the collapse of Turkish-Israeli ties, the Turkish decision to buy Chinese air defense systems (although they backed down on that), Turkey’s recent decision now to buy Russian missiles, and Turkey’s lax policy in allowing radicals to cross into Syria in an effort to undermine Assad, all of these factors have hurt the relationship. And of course, from the Turkish perspective, the U.S. reticence to fully support Turkey against the Kurdish PKK group over the last decade – as well as the U.S. decision to fully support the Kurdish YPG against ISIS in Syria – has really soured the relationship.

Going back to the U.S. side, after 15 years of degrading ties, the U.S. military is probably one of Turkey’s weakest supporters in Washington, and that is just sad. Turkey has lost its biggest cheerleader in Washington, and I cannot see who will cheerlead for Turkey now in Washington.

That’s probably for the best.