Old friends

So far, the challenge seems to have gone undetected by the Bush administration. On Nov. 20, the State Department warned Americans to defer "nonessential" travel to Turkey. In Turkey's hour of need, our first response has been to urge Americans to avoid the country, creating a human embargo on a nation that wants nothing more than to connect itself to the West. President Bush himself has not spoken any meaningful words to the Turkish people, and the travel warning will dampen business travel and investment. It is exactly the wrong message, at exactly the wrong time, to exactly the wrong country.

That is not to say that the bombs were insignificant. They were devastating to the people of Turkey, who believed themselves impervious to Al Qaeda. They were embarrassing to Bush, who was trying to enjoy the pomp and circumstance of a state visit to Great Britain. But whisking Americans away from the scene of the crime is hardly a plan for the future.

To date, Bush's policies hardly inspire confidence among Turks. Polls register a dramatic decline in positive views of the United Statesfrom 52 percent in 2000 to 30 percent in 2002 to a grand total of 12 percent in 2003. Of course, Turkey's refusal to allow US troops to stage an invasion of Iraq from its soil was an unfortunate setback for the relationship, but one that was utterly avoidable if Bush had invested some personal capital (a visit, perhaps? a speech to the Turkish people?). Following the debacle, it was odd to hear Americans talk of promoting "democracy" in the Middle East while lambasting the Turkish parliament for debating the American invasion and finding it dubious.

Since then, there have been other miscues. On July 4, American soldiers captured 11 Turkish army regulars in northern Iraq; the nature of their mission was murky, but photographs of the soldiers with hands tied and sacks over their heads provoked widespread anger in Turkey. Later, US officials proudly declared that Turkish forces would be sent into Iraq, only to reverse themselves when the Iraqi Governing Council, recalling centuries of Turkish occupation of Iraq, voted unanimously against accepting the troops. That bumbled decision embarrassed both countries.

Clearly, the best thing the United States can do is to reciprocate the respect that Turkey has shown us in our moments of hardship -- a respect that goes back much farther than most people realize. In 1830, the Ottomans turned to the US Navy for help in modernizing their navy. When the Civil War broke out, the Ottoman Empire was the first European power to express solidarity with Lincoln's beleaguered government. During that war, in 1863, the first American college outside the United States (Robert College) was founded by a missionary and a philanthropist in Istanbul.

No nation responded more quickly than Turkey when the United States asked for allies to send troops to Korea in 1950, and Turkish troops sustained heavy casualties in some of the toughest fighting. Similarly, Turkey was the first nation to sign up when we needed help stabilizing Afghanistan in 2002.

No one can force tourists to travel to a region that has become more dangerous, but we should be sensitive to the devastating impact a decline in tourism will bring to Turkey (which derives nearly a quarter of its revenue from tourism). We need a grand gesture of solidarity, reminiscent of an event that almost no American remembers, but which all Turks do -- the decision to send the USS Missouri to Istanbul in 1946, at the beginning of the Cold War. Ostensibly, the Missouri's mission was to return the remains of Turkey's late ambassador to the United States, M. Munir Ertegun (the father of music mogul and future Atlantic Records cofounder Ahmet Ertegun). But it was clear that the ship's arrival was also a signal to the Soviets to back off the Bosporus.

Battleships are the last thing Turkey needs at the moment, but a combination of economic assistance and well-chosen words from the White House would help. During the last two years, Turkey has been going through a wrenching process of modernization, in part to fulfill the conditions of European Union candidacy. The government has abolished the death penalty, improved relations with Greece, and made its public finances more transparent.

Until Nov. 15, the economy was looking up, and a recent Moody's Report boosted Turkey's economic prospects. Since then, the Turkish stock market has operated sporadically, and the lack of US support has hardly encouraged investors.Since the efforts of Kemal Atatrk to bring Turkey into the West's orbit, Turkey has been that rarest of creatures -- a historically Islamic nation that remains astonishingly secular and in some ways anti-Islamic. That will not change soon. Even Prime Minister Erdogan, whom some mistrusted because of Islamist rhetoric in his past, has taken pains to identify Turkey with the West. Still, it is strongly in America's interests to show some backbone now. We need to exert more pressure on our European allies to support Turkey's candidacy for the EU. And we need to bring Turkey into the postwar planning in Iraq.

That does not mean more Turkish soldiers. Instead, the United States should hold a major economic conference in Turkey to plan the rebuilding of the Iraqi economy. While giant American corporations are lumbering through the Middle East, smaller Turkish and regional entrepreneurs can invest more quickly and creatively in Iraq, to the benefit of people on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border. An increase in commerce would especially benefit Turkey's southeast, which suffered after the 1991 Gulf War deprived it of its usual trade with Iraq. To alleviate poverty in one of Turkey's poorest regions is a promising way to fight terrorism and help the Erdogan government continue its path of political and social reform.

It is hard to overestimate Turkey's importance to the United States. Turkish success will make our efforts that much easier in all directions from Istanbul. In the Balkans, where we have seen meaningful -- but fragile -- progress in Bosnia and Kosovo. In Georgia, struggling to stay intact after a precarious revolution and new pressures from Russia. In the Middle East, where Turkey has long played a constructive role advancing peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. In Iraq itself, which shares the Tigris and Euphrates with Turkey, and where hopes (and fears) for the region are currently focused. And in Islamic nations everywhere, seeking to find the right balance between democratic aspirations and the desire to preserve their religious inheritance.

There has never been a more important time to stand by an old friend.

Faruk Birtek is professor of sociology at Bogazici University in Istanbul, and a visiting fellow at the C.V. Starr Center of Washington College. Ted Widmer is director of the Starr Center, and was director of speechwriting at the National Security Council from 1997 to 2000.