Thread by @Zemenides

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Sorry @heissenstat - this “take” is not only off, it is quite clear that you are not dealing with the actual policy debate.

Since you appear on/listen to the @GreekCurrent, it is easy to detect that the #NoJetsForTurkey campaign IS NOT aiming for a “full break” with 🇹🇷,

https://twitter.com/heissenstat/status/1669018352004546560

NOR does it present a laundry list of “vague” demands. Also, you’ll hear us quoting @stevenacook’s description of “Neither Friend Nor Foe,” so your charge that the campaign is just tagging 🇹🇷 as an “enemy” is similarly way off.

You restate the case that those who want to trade F-16s solely and entirely for Sweden’s accession and seem to be making zero effort to present the opposing view. That is your right - and clearly your choice - but to throw around the epithet “dumb” is pretty disingenuous here.

But let’s look at the ACTUAL policy debate: last year, an NDAA Amendment was introduced in House (where it passed) & Senate (where it didn’t). It required that the Administration certify that 🇹🇷 was not using American F-16s to challenge Greek sovereignty before new F-16 sales.

Wondering what exactly is your problem with such a requirement?

@StateDept consistently proclaims there is no question of Greece’s sovereignty over its islands.

Furthermore, in the NDAA’s (as passed) explanatory statement, Congress provided:

“We believe that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies should not conduct unauthorized territorial overflights of another NATO ally’s airspace.”

So, U.S. policy is that both Turkey’s challenges to Greek sovereignty AND the manner in which which such challenges are conducted (with overflights by armed F-16s) are illegitimate. But you consider attempts to change this illegitimate behavior “dumb”?

Honestly, there are plenty of very detailed conversations AND policy recommendations (rather than vague demands)-but clearly neither Ankara (or its appeasers in DC) want to engage in those discussions.

I know who you are NOT getting briefed by, but those that are giving you the information on which you are basing your assertions are either lying to you or are not engaged in the full policy debate.

We long ago realized how far 🇺🇸 🇹🇷 relations have shifted (subscribing to Steven’s “work with them when you can, oppose them when you must, ignore them when there are low/no stakes”). So the concept that there could be a “win-win” transaction with Ankara isn’t a foreign concept.

But this ISN’T a win-win. 🇸🇪 in NATO cannot be the Α and the Ω for a few reasons:

1. Succumbing to blackmail makes the tactic more attractive and legitimate for others (and for Turkey to employ once more). Other problems are being created for agenda in Vilnius because of this).

As I noted in @ekathimerini “Turkey’s intransigence against Sweden’s NATO membership has rightfully raised the ire of Ankara’s Western allies, but the prospect of a Greco-Turkish war is a far more serious threat – an existential threat – to NATO.”

ekathimerini.com/opinion/121218…

When @SinanCiddi says @POTUS can demand “more” for F-16s, is it “dumb”? No, and neither is the ask that since a F-16 sale is being considered purportedly for reasons of “NATO alliance unity”, it isn’t “dumb” to demand that those weapons aren’t used for conflict within NATO).