All members of NATO, including the United States, have agreed upon a European name as the next Secretary General: Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The exception is Turkey.
President Abdullah Gul's recent remarks, emphasizing that Ankara doesn't object any specific candidate, don't mean a lot. The Danish joy might be just wishful thinking, because I feel that Turkey would still use her veto card against Rasmussen when the issue would be discussed in the NATO meetings.
I also think that Rasmussen is not the best candidate for this job and Turkey has got the right to veto him. If you are choosing the leader for a Transatlantic alliance, this person should be an incontestable visionary, a champion of international cooperation, an advertiser of multiculturalism and a fierce enemy of terrorism. Rasmussen, who opposes Turkey's EU membership and supports the PKK by providing a safe haven for its media outlet, have showed that he doesn't have any of these qualities.
On the other hand, the way that Turkey has opposed Rasmussen's candidacy has also worried me. Did you hear about the reasoning of Suat Kiniklioglu, deputy chairman for external affairs for the ruling AKP? Here are his words: "It is unacceptable that NATO be headed by an individual who has in the past rudely disrespected our values and religious beliefs." (...reminding Rasmussen's rejection to apologise after the cartoon crisis in 2005)
Flash back to 2007. Bulent Arinc, "the third man" of the AKP, was heralding their voters: "We'll elect a religious president." This was how the current president Abdullah Gul had been elected.
I fear that the next announcement from Ankara would be something like this:
"We'll elect a religious NATO chief!"
Having Rasmussen on top of the NATO is as ridiculous as having Gul as the Turkish President; because neither of them are the best names for these posts. On the other hand, refusing Rasmussen because of his stance against a religion is as stupid as electing someone the president of a state, which is constitutionally secular, because he is deemed as religious.
Turkey is the only Muslim member of NATO and it has got the right to consider its national interests in this alliance, but did its representatives ever ask what Rasmussen will really do as a NATO chief? Giving religious edicts or orchestrating a multinational military force?
