America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

ANKARA

An aide whispers to President Turgut Ozal that his Prime Minister and senior military advisers have arrived, no doubt to discuss the latest American request for the use of Turkish bases in the attack on Iraq, now only hours away. "Let them wait a moment," says Ozal. "The war is important, but so is the nature of the peace that comes after."

Ozal calls for an atlas and opens it to a map of the region. "Look where we are and what is going on around us," he says. As he traces the boundary of his country's giant neighbor to the north, Ozal reaches with his other hand into his pocket and pulls out a string of jet-black worry beads.

No wonder. The immediate menace of Iraq may soon be eliminated, but the disintegration of the Soviet Union will be an ugly fact of global life for a long time to come. Last week's focus of anxiety was the Baltics, but passions for secession and instincts for repression run at least as deep in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. Much of the population there is Muslim and speaks languages closely related to Turkish.

"As the Russian system of empire collapses and new structures take its place," says Ozal, "we can serve as a counter to the influences of religious extremism coming up from here" -- he points to Iran -- "and from here" -- he indicates the Arabian Peninsula. He believes he has persuaded the Kremlin, through its former Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, that "Turkey can play a stabilizing role inside the U.S.S.R."

Then he gestures from Pakistan to Algeria: "In all these countries, too many people have too little hope." Hence their susceptibility to Islamic fundamentalism as well as the kind of anti-Western militancy Saddam Hussein personifies but by no means monopolizes. Both those threats, Ozal warns, will survive the present conflict, and they will grow worse if the poor and the helpless feel that the rich and the powerful have prevailed again.

This crisis-prone, autocracy-ridden area needs a model to emulate in the coming period of postwar reconstruction and realignment. Arab victors and vanquished alike will need in their midst an Islamic country that, whatever its faults, is a secular state with a democratic political system, a market- oriented economy and close security ties to the West. Turkey is not just the best candidate -- it's the only candidate.

Yet Turkey has too often been snubbed or patronized by its more prosperous NATO allies, whose interests it defends and to whose company it aspires. A year ago, the European Community fended off Turkey's bid for membership. In 1993, when the E.C. is again open to outsiders, Turkey should be at the front of the line.

For decades, large Greek- and Armenian-American lobbies in the U.S. have frequently let grievances against the Turks going back to the days of the Ottomans get in the way of sound policy, common sense and simple fairness. Congress has insisted on apportioning military aid to Greece and Turkey by a rigid and arbitrary formula that links the two, even though geography has assigned Turkey a far more active and vital mission on the front line of international peacekeeping.

Ozal was one of the founders of the coalition against Iraq. Last week his government agreed to let the U.S. conduct bombing strikes as well as search- % and-rescue missions from Turkish bases. For its staunchness in this crisis, Turkey will not only want new respect and lasting acceptance -- it will deserve them.