It’s about time.
Why we put nukes into a muz country is baffling to me.
Armenian genocide. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone says, “Turkey”. I would love to see Greece level it.
Erdogan fancies himself as the leader of the mooselimb world.
He needs an ass whooping.
And what the heck is Turkey doing in NATO?
I hope they got the nukes out of there already.
The USSR is dead. Encirclement is no longer required
It’s about Goldang time. I can’t stand those Turkish bullies.
I hope the nukes are long gone. We should have decamped 15 years ago.
Major economic blow to that region of Turkey.
The Russians are not much of a threat in Turkey. The Turks have always been the buffer between the insanity of the Middle East and Europe. Not so much any more. Time to pull back and let Europe take care of Europe.
There is, probably, an air base in Israel the the US can share.
I would agree its about time, but this report, given its origin may be a trial balloon by the Saudis
(www.arabnews.com is owned by Turki bin Salman Al Saud, a prominent member of the Saudi Royal Family, which makes www.arabnews.com something like a house organ for the house of Saud and the Saudi government).
The Saudis, Egypt and Jordan, among others, are all getting restless over military and diplomatic adventures by Erdogan in the region, and Erdogan, like Qatar is the only other Muslim official state backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Saudis see as an existential threat to them.
In sum, the Saudis likely want to see Erdogan’s sails trimmed, and without any attribution from any American source, it could be the Saudis themselves starting the rumor about Incirlik air base.
I could be wrong, we’ll see.
Ottoman-chief-wannabe-Erdogan wants to be the 3-foot-tall-bully, while big-brother-America keeps telling him ‘no!’
So, America pulls out, Erdoganbully is on his own, AND, without all that American money he used to get!
Get those nuclear bombs out of there immediately!!!!
I'm wondering when humanity will learn that there's no such thing as a "good" Musloid country.
I favored the base in turkey but they’ve gone renegade and are threatening or invading almost every other country in the area. Islam is terribly dangerous and must be defeated if we are to survive, period.
Good!......but we’ve got to pull the nukes out of Turkey also.
We, and our NATO allies, have been preparing alternative options to Incirlik in earnest, since the attempted Coup in July of 2016.
Incirlik is one of the cards that Erdogan repeatedly plays, to avoid accountability for his misdeeds (holding or releasing muslim refugees into Europe is his other big trump card).
If we pull out of Incirlik, Erdogan loses a lot of leverage. Now that the ISIS Caliphate has been liberated, we have little current need for that base.
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Makes sense. Relocate to Poland? Greece?
Like many of our relationships in the world, our relationship with Turkey has been mismanaged. Finally, it is getting some attention and fortunately it is the Trump administration giving it some attention.
I always wondered why Turkey is part of NATO. I suppose it was payment for participation in the Korean War - some political jockeying done behind the scenes at the UN. We have to recognize that Turkey has the second largest armed forces in NATO. That's right behind the US.
Anything we do with Turkey should take into account whether it impacts American interests first, and our so-called European allies' interest second. That covers half the problem and it is due to Turkey's geographic location as being part of both Europe and Asia. We also need to consider our one true ally in the Middle-East, but that is still second to our own.
It is time for Europe to stand on it's own two feet militarily. Combined forces of European NATO members should be double our own and we should not be the primary investors in European security. That's an arbitrary number, it should be large enough to defend itself, with the US in for relief, since we do have interests in Europe.
As for Israel, it seems the ally/relationship map in the Middle East is being reshaped at this current moment. This is being done as a matter of convenience and not a matter of trust. There is a common foe - Iran. That is the convenience.
Turkey shares a border with Iran. Strategically, Turkey is well placed to be an enveloping nation against Iran. If we played our cards right after 9/11 we could have surrounded Iran on all sides and squeezed it into capitulation, but we played nation building instead. We have a huge airbase just east of the Iranian border in Afghanistan. We could have increased our strategic holdings in Iraq by expanding airbases there instead of building the Green Zone and other worthless projects while needlessly putting our soldiers and marines in harms way. We have agreements with the "-stans" just north of Iran. And of course we have our base in Turkey, just north east of Iran.
We never sent a clear message to the world and to Iran that our main goal was the demise of Iranian power in the Middle East and elsewhere. Instead, our message was diffused with a lack of resolve, humanitarian relief to our enemies and nation building. It was weakly handled by politicians, deep state, and the military establishment. No focus. No clear goals and objectives. Just endless wars. No results. That is all in the past. A little to late to worry about that. It is a sunk cost.
Our interests have changed in the Middle East. We are an energy independent nation now. However, Europe is still dependent on the Middle East for energy, and just as bad, Russia. Seems like Europe needs to drop a lot of its socialism, its own green new deal crap, and start preparing for their own needs in the future.
We are lining up friends, however temporary, with Israel to thwart Iran. Europe better buck up too. That would relieve a lot of our military need in the Middle East and it would put it inline with our national interests. As for Turkey, they need to clearly choose sides. It shouldn't be our side, but the European side against Russia and the European, Arab and Israeli sides over Iran.
This will take time - years to undo decades of mismanagement. Of course this is just my humble opinion on an America First policy in Europe and the Middle East as it concerns Turkey. Now you can poke holes in this so I can refine my thoughts.
The neo-liberal establishment wants to maintain a US presence in Turkey. These are the same psychopaths who lied to get the US into Iraq, and have been lying ever since.