From the book of Condoleezza Rice ...

  From the book of Condoleezza Rice ...

Posted by http://infognomonpolitics.blogspot.gr

" For reasons I still do not fully understand, the Greeks claimed that its modern-day usage for a former state of Yugoslavia would somehow diminish the cultural heritage that Greeks ascribe to an empire that existed more than two millennia ago. Perhaps they felt that the population in its modern-day incarnation would somehow not live up to the legacy of the ancient homeland of Alexander the Great. As a result, the new country was called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. But the leaders of the country wanted to enter NATO under their preferred name—who wants to be called the “former republic” of something? The Greeks objected. Tireless efforts, including through Matthew Nimetz, a special envoy for the issue, could not resolve the dispute.
I would get frustrated with the Greeks over the issue, I admit. In one meeting with my counterpart, Dora Bakoyannis, with whom I had otherwise very good relations, I lost my cool. “It was two thousand years ago!” I said with exasperation. “Who cares?”

“I have a feeling you Americans just don’t understand,” she countered.


“Yes, you’re right,” I answered, “I don’t understand.” But she wouldn’t budge, saying that a change in policy would bring down the Greek government.
On the other hand, I couldn’t understand the rigidity of the Macedonians either. I guess I felt like the Georgian who told his Macedonian counterpart, “You can call us the ‘Stupid Little Republic of Georgia’ if we can get into NATO.” But the Macedonians persisted too. Thus, when Albania and Croatia were admitted, Macedonia was not and is still awaiting a resolution of the “name” debate before its membership in Europe’s greatest military alliance can be consummated.

Despite setbacks of that kind, however, I firmly believed that the Alliance was in better shape than we’d found it as we headed toward the President’s final summit in Bucharest, Romania. "


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Turkey was a longtime ally and had been a member of NATO since 1952. But until recently it had been only quasi-democratic, with an assertive military and a political elite that enforced secularism—sometimes brutally—on the population. Kemalism, as the doctrine of secularism was called, had allowed Turkey to modernize but not to fully democratize. Religious expression was all but prohibited outside the mosque. Now, with the election of the AKP (Justice and Development Party), avowedly Islamic leaders had taken the reins. They insisted that they had no intention of turning Turkey into a theocracy but merely wanted to rebalance the society and give religious expression and religious people a place in the public square. Tensions were evident as the old elite (wedded to Kemalism) and the new leaders clashed about the future course of the country. Even the fact that the wives of AKP officials often “covered” with head scarves was a source of discomfort for many Turks, who were fearful of the Islamization of their country. I saw Turkey as the frontline state in the historic struggle to reconcile the principles of Islam and the demands of individual liberty.
That struggle is still playing out in the Middle East today. If there is to be democracy in the region, it will likely evolve as it has in Turkey. As in that country, there will have to be a resolution of the tensions between individual rights, including the rights of women, and the tenets of Islam. The place of religion and religious people in politics, resolved in Europe hundreds of years ago, will have to be determined anew in the Muslim world.
Thus the struggle in Istanbul and Ankara and throughout the vast country is of monumental historic significance. I went to Ankara aware of Turkey’s centrality to the Bush administration’s reorientation of U.S. foreign policy toward the Freedom Agenda.