Should we cut ties with Saudi Arabia and Turkey?

[darkangel218]

9 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	We should cut ties with both Saudi Arabia and Turkey
	8 (89%)
	Only with Saudi Arabia
	1 (11%)
	Only with Turkey
	0 (0%)
	Other
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Recursion]

1. What does "cut ties" mean? (nt)

[darkangel218]

2. Stop regarding them as "allies".

[Recursion]

3. That would mean kicking Turkey out of NATO

The US/Saudi relationship is not described by State as "strategic", which is the closest thing we have to an official list of "allies".

Turkey is mostly only in NATO so that we can park missiles there, which isn't as important as it used to be, so kicking Turkey out of NATO is not a non-starter...

[darkangel218]

4. Yes.

Kick them out. They're funding ISIS.
And Saudi Arabia is spewing more terrorists than any other country so far.

Cut them off.

[Recursion]

5. EDIT: I'm open to the idea

I don't know that there's a legal way to do it; it would take a supermajority of NATO members to rewrite the treaty such that there are provisions for expelling a member.

[darkangel218]

6. I'm pretty sure that if the US proposed to kick Turkey out of NATO,

There won't be much opposition to that.
We still have Bulgaria and Romania as strategic bases on the Black Sea.

[CJCRANE]

7. Our western elites are in bed with the oil sheiks.

They would rather spread their ideology and destroy western civilization than kowtow to Russia.

[darkangel218]

10. +1.

I believe youre right there.

[DFW]

8. No

If we can use the CIA and other covert agencies for "regime change" in countries that pose no threat to us, maybe it's time we started trying to do it in countries that might actually benefit from it. I don't know Saudi Arabia, but Turkey has a LOT of friends of America there. Many Turks have studied in America. My last year in college in Pennsylvania, the Turks WERE my best friends there. The most recent woman president of Turkey was a Harvard alum. Work with the good people there, and try to have them in place when the populace gets tired of the dictators.

[darkangel218]

9. Turkey is fueling ISIS!!

Are you kidding me???
I could care less who your "best friends were".

This is a national , not a personal issue.

Please reconsider your stance.

[DFW]

11. Because Erdoğan is a religious nut case

Plenty of Turks are not, and are more than ready to see him go. Also, about 20 million Kurds in Turkey want him gone, too. Plenty of them are fighting ISIS. Just because Bush and Cheney were running the USA for 8 years, Western Europe didn't cut ties with us, much as some here say the USA deserved it. Get rid of Erdoğan, not the whole of Turkey. My stance remains unchanged.

[darkangel218]

12. So far Erdogan is ruling the state.

How do we propose we "get rid" of him???

I think giving him an ultimatum is in order. Comply , or you're out of NATO.

Enough with radicalism.

[DFW]

14. We can't invade Turkey. We have to work with the local opposition.

There is plenty of that, and the Turkish military has a long tradition of taking over when the civilian government has messed up badly in their eyes. A little "encouragement" from its major NATO ally, and it could happen again, and sooner than many think.

Practically the eastern third of Turkey is Kurdistan. To keep it as part of Turkey requires the Turkish military. If Turkish Kurdistan declares open secession, either the Turkish military does the job, or Turkey loses a third of its territory. In that case, what the military says, goes. Erdoğan's presidency does not survive that.

It's easy to make an ultimatum. Less so to carry it out.

Agreed that radicalism is bad. But it didn't just show up there last week. It is well entrenched, and Erdoğan is no idiot. He likes his power and will not give it up just for a trivial matter of losing an election. But Turkey is part of NATO and very strategically located. We can't just send Erdoğan into Putin's arms. Putin will have just as many operatives in Turkey as we do, and he's hoping to keep such a thorn in our side in place as long as is feasible. The biggest favor we could do Putin would be to kick Turkey out of NATO, and every NATO member knows it.

As for the Saudis, I say triple our national investment in wind and solar power. And then triple it again. Make their oil irrelevant, and their only significance to us as a place for military bases. The House of Saud might change their tune and tone of their foreign policy a little when we no longer need their oil. Local opposition might feel encouraged there, too, if they feel their regime is no longer awash in the petrodollars they spend to prop themselves up eternally.

[romanic]

13. Both countries have proven to be complicit in Islamic extremism

so yes, the US should cut ties and drop them as allies.

[CanonRay]

15. Both are rogue states IMHO