After multiple warnings to Turkey not to purchase Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft system, the United States removed Turkey from its next-generation F-35 joint strike fighter program. At issue was not just a commercial contract but rather the integrity of NATO systems: Integrating the S-400 into Turkey’s air defense would make NATO operations vulnerable. Even if Turkey firewalled the S-400, the system could still threaten the United States by allowing Turks or hostile powers to practice tracking the American stealth aircraft.
As part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s obsequious approach to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he offered the Turkish leader F-16s and F-16 upgrades in exchange for Turkey lifting its de facto veto over Sweden’s NATO accession. The White House’s call to congressional leaders to urge passage of the F-16 deal was shameful, given that Turkey had failed to adhere to its commitment to return the F-35 schematics to the United States.
F-35 Reboot for Turkey?
The apparent movement to resurrect the F-35 deal, reported by the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, is bizarre for three additional reasons.
First, Turkey makes no secret of its desire to build its own indigenous weapons industry and does not hesitate to reverse engineer the technology the United States provides it. Erdogan’s son-in-law is Turkey’s top arms magnate. The unofficial Turkey lobby that populates the State Department and permeates Washington think tanks, may down play Turkey’s behavior, but reality is reality.
Second, while Turkey agreed to use its F-16s only for NATO purposes and cease its overflights of Greece, as soon as the F-16 sale was final, Erdogan upped his aggression. Today, Turkey bombs civilian infrastructure in northeastern Syria in pursuit of its anti-Kurdish ethnic cleansing campaign. The bombing of Iraq by Turkish F-16s has started forest fires. On August 23, a Turkish drone killed two journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan, just outside the city of Sulaymani. Most recently, Turkish vessels have interfered with an Italian ship laying a cable for a European Union-funded program to link the energy grids of Cyprus and Crete. While Turkey did not sue its F-16s in all these operations, they enhanced Turkey’s sense of deterrence and led Erdogan to believe he could act with impunity,
Finally, Turkey is a terror sponsor. Its support for Hamas has increased. Turkey’s ambassador to Iran has stated that Turkey should bring both the United States and Israel to its knees. There is simply no difference today between providing Turkey with advanced weaponry and offering Iran the same technologies. In both cases, the regimes will use the weapinry against U.S. interests, if not the interests of the Americans themselves.
Outgoing U.S. ambassador Jeffrey Flake brags about his role in securing the F-16s for Turkey, and seems oblivious about Turkey’s support for Hamas as he argues Turkey should have a greater role in Gaza. His lack of introspection and recognition of the damage Turkey now does in the region is symptomatic of a larger problem.
With such U.S. permissiveness toward Turkey, it should not surprise that Erdogan’s behavior has worsened and that Turkey now accelerates its efforts to undercut regional security in pursuit of Islamists, Russia, and Iran.
The stakes could not be higher. Biden. Blinken, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan promised Congressional leaders the F-16 sale to Turkey would improve U.S. and NATO security. The opposite was true. Rather than acknowledge their mistake, today Turkey may be on the verge of acquiring even more advanced weaponry.
In this partisan era, both Democratic and Republican senators have one thing in common: Each hates being lied to and played for fools by the White House and, in Sullivan’s case, unconfirmed advisors with unbridled power against the backdrop of Biden’s decline.
Congress must call the White House and State Department and make clear: There can be no F-35s for Turkey, no matter how much money Turks and their Azerbaijani vassals spread around Washington’s PR and lobby firms, universities, and think tanks.
