Time USA - October 23, 2017

The Brief

THE RISK REPORT

Turkey-U.S. relations

are going from bad to

much, much worse

By Ian Bremmer

FOR DECADES, TURKEY HAS BEEN AN

important U.S. ally. It’s a secular Muslim-

majority democracy; a NATO member at

the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East

and Russia; and a key staging point for U.S.

activity in Iraq. In recent days, however, bad

blood has been rising on both sides.

On Oct. 4, Turkish police arrested a Turk-

ish employee of the U.S. consulate in Istan-

bul on espionage charges and accused him of

having links to Fethullah Gulen—a Turkish

cleric whom President Recep Tayyip Erdo-

gan blames for last year’s attempted coup and

wants extradited from his adopted home in

the U.S. The U.S. denied the charges and re-

taliated on Oct. 8 by halting all nonimmigrant

visa services for Turks hoping to visit the U.S.

Hours later, Turkey barred U.S. citizens from

obtaining visas to enter Turkey. This comes

after Turkey’s decision in September to pur-

chase a missile-defense system from Russia,

an extraordinarily provocative move for a

NATO country.

Relations are not likely to improve any-

time soon. The first problem is that Erdogan

can’t get the Trump Administration to see

things his way. The White House won’t give

up Gulen, it won’t give unconditional sup-

port for Erdogan’s bid to consolidate presi-

dential power, and it won’t end support for

Kurdish fighters in Syria whom Turkey con-

siders to be linked to terrorism. Erdogan had

grown used to the cold shoulder from former

U.S. President Barack Obama, but he hoped

things would be different with Trump. Like

Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Erdogan is angry

that those hopes have been dashed.

The second problem is that, like Putin,

Erdogan will probably see his name appear

in the U.S. press as part of special counsel

Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump

presidential campaign. Former National Se-

curity Adviser Michael Flynn allegedly halted

a military plan op-

posed by Turkey

after being paid hun-

dreds of thousands

of dollars by Turkish

lobbyists. If investi-

gators uncover more

details about those

allegations, Tur-

key’s thin-skinned

President won’t like

the media coverage

he gets in the U.S.

He’s likely to push for an early election in

2018, and we can expect a resurgence of anti-

American rhetoric on the campaign trail.

This diplomatic freeze isn’t yet a cold war.

Absent a crisis, Turkey won’t leave NATO

and NATO won’t expel Turkey. Erdogan may

not admit it, but he knows NATO is a much

more reliable long-term ally than Russia, par-

ticularly if the Kremlin knows Turkey has no

other options. And Turkey is too strategically

important for Europe and the U.S. to ignore.

But at least until Turkey and the U.S. have

new Presidents, the two countries will not be

true allies. □

ADVERTISING

Off-color ads by beauty brands

Dove has apologized for an online ad showing a black woman turning

white after using its soap. It’s not the first time a beauty brand has

been accused of racially insensitive advertising.—Kate Samuelson

NIVEA

In April, the German

skin-care brand

launched an ad for

invisible deodorant

that featured the

phrase “White is

purity.” The ad was

widely shared on

social media by white

supremacists.

SEOUL SECRET

In 2016, the Thai

cosmetics company

apologized for an ad

for whitening pills

that linked being

white with success.

In it, Cris Horwang

declared that by

“just being white,

you will win.”

VASELINE

The skin-care group

came under fire in

2010 for creating

an application that

allowed Facebook

users in India to

digitally whiten their

skin, a promotion for

its range of lightening

creams for men.

Erdogan

hoped things

would be

different with

Trump. Like

Putin, he’s

angry those

hopes have

been dashed

TICKER

Hurricane Nate

drenches the South

Hurricane Nate made

landfall in Louisiana

and Mississippi,

bringing with it floods

and power outages

across the Gulf

Coast. The storm was

the fourth to hit the

continental U.S. this

year and killed at least

22 people in Central

America.

Merkel agrees to

refugee limits

German Chancellor

Angela Merkel

agreed to limit the

number of asylum

seekers allowed to

enter the country on

humanitarian grounds

to 200,000 per year.

Merkel’s agreement

came as she prepared

to discuss forming

a new coalition with

the Greens and Free

Democrats.

India: Child-bride

sex counts as rape

India’s Supreme Court

ruled Oct. 11 that if

a man has sex with

a wife under the age

of 18, it counts as

rape. The ruling struck

down a controversial

legal clause that said

intercourse between a

man and his wife was

permissible if she was

age 15 or older.

Shark man handed

‘burqa ban’ fine

A man wearing a shark

costume to advertise

the McShark computer

chain was fined nearly

$180 by Austrian

police for disobeying

the country’s new

“burqa ban” law

forbidding most full-

face coverings. DOVE