No Way To Treat An Ally

                          For nearly 50 years, the United States promoted
                          stability in Turkey as an overriding American
                          foreign policy goal. The Truman Doctrine, which
                          set America's containment strategy in the Cold
                          War, was forged out of concern over turmoil in
                          Turkey and Greece.

                          No more. Today stability is the last thing the
                          Clinton administration wants for Turkey's
                          government. Official Washington eagerly waits for
                          Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's coalition
                          regime to crash and burn. A looming economic
                          crisis for Turkey now raises hopes in Washington
                          that the Islamic fundamentalists will soon fall.

                          The reasons for the administration's quick
                          turnaround on Turkey are not hard to understand
                          and applaud. Erbakan has been in Libya this week,
                          breaking U.N. sanctions on travel to that rogue
                          nation and signing a trade pact with Col. Moammar
                          Gadhafi. In August, Erbakan with great fanfare
                          visited Iran, also on the State Department's
                          list.

                          Erbakan -- who also says that no one in his
                          government has a quarrel with Iraq's Saddam
                          Hussein -- would realign Turkey with America's
                          enemies abroad. He seeks ideological and
                          financial support from them to entrench his
                          Islam-based Welfare Party and counter the Western
                          orientation of Turkey's powerful military and its
                          weak secular parties.

                          But the unspoken Clinton policy of waiting for
                          Erbakan to self-destruct is a policy of last
                          resort. It is an indictment of the
                          administration's mishandling of an important ally
                          in a region that will demand priority attention
                          from the winner of November's presidential
                          election.

                          Bob Dole struck a glancing blow at Clinton's
                          failing policy on the Central Asian-Middle East
                          crossroads by noting in Sunday's debate that
                          Saddam Hussein is better off today than he was
                          four years ago. But Dole failed to follow up and
                          point out that neighboring Turkey is an American
                          ally that is in measurably worse shape than it
                          was in 1992.

                          That is largely because of choices the Turks
                          themselves have made. Erbakan's party won 21
                          percent of the vote in March and formed a
                          coalition government in June. Years of human
                          rights abuses against the population at large and
                          a vengeful military campaign against the Kurds of
                          eastern Turkey and northern Iraq had already
                          undermined the economy and the authority of the
                          Ankara government.

                          But an inconsistent, at times neglectful, U.S.
                          approach has contributed to Turkey's suddenly
                          becoming a factor of instability in the region.
                          Turkey has been treated to a feast of overblown
                          U.S. rhetorical support that reinforced Ankara's
                          sense of self-importance, and a famine of
                          material and political aid for its mounting
                          problems. The U.S. approach has combined the
                          worst of this administration's tendency to
                          overpromise, cease to pay attention and then walk
                          away from tough problems.

                          Only two years ago senior U.S. officials
                          characterized Turkey as the world's new
                          "front-line state." Its position bordering on the
                          conflicts of the Balkans, Central Asia and the
                          Middle East made it the post-Cold War equivalent
                          of West Germany in American foreign policy, the
                          State Department's senior officials said.

                          As a matter of policy, the United States refused
                          to criticize the Turks for hammering the Kurds.
                          Treasury Department officials who sought to
                          impress on Ankara the risks of its highly
                          inflationary, deficit-producing stop-and-go
                          economic policies were shushed with reminders
                          from the State and Defense departments of
                          Turkey's strategic importance.

                          But Washington failed to follow through with
                          meaningful acts. The Turks complained bitterly
                          that they had to sacrifice $27 billion over five
                          years because of economic sanctions against Iraq
                          without receiving compensation. Ankara's requests
                          to buy 10 Cobra helicopter gunships and three
                          antiquated frigates from Washington have been
                          held up in Congress by pressures from the Greek
                          lobby and human rights organizations. The vacuum
                          that U.S. policy created in northern Iraq allowed
                          Kurdish guerrillas to operate against Turkey.
                          U.S. economic aid sank in five years from $120
                          million a year to a quarter that level.

                          Performance failed to match promises. Turkey came
                          to understand that beyond the Cold War there were
                          no front-line states. When Saddam retook control
                          of the Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq last
                          month, Erbakan, the Turkish military and Foreign
                          Minister Tansu Ciller knew they had little to
                          gain, or to lose, from Washington. So they
                          refused to oppose in word or deed Saddam's
                          defiance of America.

                          Washington is probably right: Erbakan will dig
                          his own grave. In Libya, Gadhafi publicly
                          criticized the Turks for their inhumane Kurdish
                          policy (more than Bill Clinton has ever said on
                          the subject) and provoked a furor in Turkey. But
                          this is policy and leadership by default and an
                          invitation to even greater trouble ahead.