Europe's Misfit and America's Ally

The Washington Times today reports on Turkey's clouded future with regard to its EU membership, particularly given the abject failure of the new EU constitution in Holland and France (the only two countries, it is worth noting, to hold a popular referendum to determine whether or not to ratify the constitution) and the troubled Western European leaders who had previously been ardent supporters of Turkey's EU membership. As the Washington Times reports, Angela Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the opposition party in Germany, is likely to be the next Chancellor when Germans reject the failed economic and social-experimental policies of the Socialist Schroeder government. Merkel would become the first woman ever to lead a unified Germany, and while she is not a conservative from the American perspective on social issues, she is a staunch economic conservative favoring lower taxes, reduced governmental regulation, and fiscal discipline.

The CDU also is far more hawkish on immigration than Schroeder's Socialists. Due to the immigration policies of the EU for its member countries, Germany is extraordinarily concerned about a massive influx of Turkish immigrants if Turkey gains EU membership. They already consider the Turkish immigration issue one of the most serious of all national issues. All of this, together with Turkey's growing alienation from the Europe it thought was its friend (we can empathize), especially on cultural/linguistic/historical matters exhibits a unique opportunity for the United States to improve its relations with the Islamic world.

Because of America's cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and religious diversity (particularly in contrast with Europe's lack thereof), we are well-positioned to create a primarily diplomatic "empire" that would put the Europeans to shame. The question of course is whether or not we are willing to swallow our pride and embrace countries and the leaders of countries who do not look like us, talk like us, or think necessarily like us. Through the positive diplomatic interaction, however, we can spread the ideas of liberty and republicanism to the rest of the world without the loss of American or foreign civilian lives. For a country whose leaders are at least nominally Christian, we should attempt, as best we can, to apply the teachings of Christ and the whole of Scripture to all areas of life, and that includes foreign policy. And as Solomon tells us in the Proverbs "A harsh word stirs up anger, but a gentle word breaks a bone."

There is one additional factor that is important to this discussion of diplomatic relations, and courting Turkey (among other non-Arab, Islamic states, like Pakistan and those in Central and Southeast Asia), and that is the remarkable diplomatic abilities of the Chinese. The Chinese were, in their golden age, the greatest of the world's diplomats. This has been culturally preserved, and we see that the Chinese are opening embassies in obscure countries around the world where China has little or no economic interests. This is not the behavior of a minor, regional power, but of a would-be superpower. If we allow China to win in the world of diplomacy, I fear the battle is all but lost when they determine to assert their status as one of the world's new superpowers.