Our most unreliable NATO ally, Turkey, led by its Islamist autocrat president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is at it again.
Last week in the Turkish Parliament, Erdogan called the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, a “terror state” and said its “end is near.” His government actually harbors members of Hamas and he has described Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters.”
His anti-Israel and pro-Hamas rhetoric shouldn’t surprise us. In 2019 he stated, “Whoever is on the side of Israel, let everyone know that we are against them.”
In my book, “The New Terrorism: How To Fight It and Defeat It,” I address the current situation of U.S. nuclear weapons in Turkey and the need to dismantle them. Let’s look at this from a historical perspective and in light of Erdogan’s recent actions.
As a holdover from the Cold War, the U.S. has approximately 200 nonstrategic nuclear weapons deployed in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. Reports put the number close to 50 B-61 nuclear bombs housed in underground vaults at Incrilik Airbase in southeast Turkey.
Incrilik is an airbase used by both the Turkish Air Force and NATO. The B-61 nuclear bomb is a 700-pound thermonuclear weapon with an explosive force of over 10 times of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
Just a little over 2 weeks ago, hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian rally tried to storm Incrilik Airbase and clashed with security. An Islamist Turkish aid agency also organized a convoy of protesters to travel to Incrilik.
In the 1920s and '30s, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, led Turkey to be a modern, democratic and secular state, patterned after many countries in Western Europe.
Today, in Erdogan, Turkey has a president who has long been active in Islamist circles. Erdogan, a Sunni Muslim, was active in the fundamentalist Welfare Party and served as mayor of Istanbul while a member.
In the late 1990s, the Welfare Party was banned by Turkey’s highest court for violating the separation of religion and state, as required by the Turkish Constitution. In 2001, Erdogan established his own Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The AKP is an Islamist party. In domestic policy, Erdogan and his AKP have attempted to reverse much of the secular legacy of Ataturk. In foreign affairs, to say Erdogan’s Turkey has been an unreliable NATO ally is an understatement.
In 2012, his government provided Iran with identities of Iranians who were meeting with Israeli intelligence agents in Turkey. The information was related to Iran’s nuclear program.
In 2015, two prominent Turkish journalists were arrested for leaking footage showing Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) sending weapons to Syrian Islamist fighters.
In 2016, Erdogan survived a coup attempt, but not without detaining some 6,000 people, including military and judicial officials, stifling free speech, blocking access to social media and purging hundreds of jurists with Erdogan loyalists.
During the coup attempt, Erdogan’s government also cut power to the Incrilik Airbase and local authorities halted all movements onto and off the base. The Erdogan government also temporarily prohibited all U.S. Air Force planes stationed there from taking off and landing.
And now, after last month’s horrific Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and massacre of Israeli citizens, comes Erdogan spewing his anti-Israel hate and venom.
All of this brings me to the question, Why does the United States still have close to 50 nuclear bombs in Turkey? Our nuclear weapons should be prepositioned off of American soil only in those countries that are strong, reliable and stable allies. Turkey, in the present environment and under the Erdogan regime, does not fit this criteria.
The 9/11 Commission Report said that 9/11, above all else, was a failure of imagination.
Well, you don’t need imagination or outside-the-box thinking to know that housing U.S. nuclear weapons in Erdogan’s Turkey today is a bad idea. All you need is old-fashioned common sense.
It’s time — no, its way past time — to dismantle all of our nuclear weapons in Turkey and get them out of there now.
Van Hipp is Chairman of American Defense International, Inc. He is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Army and author of "The New Terrorism: How to Fight It and Defeat It." He is the 2018 recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Sept. 11 Garden Leadership Award for National Security. Read Van Hipp's Reports — More Here