The Ambassador

If we are unable to explain Turkey to the new American ambassador, Francis Ricciardone, we must be in trouble. An interesting personality we have in Ricciardone indeed. He won a Fulbright scholarship to teach and study in Italy upon his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1973. Iran was the next country he traveled to in 1976. He then visited all the important countries at present, including Turkey, followed by other short-term stays in countries in the region. He obtained thorough competencies in the Persian, Turkish and Arabic languages and began his tenure at the State Department in 1978.

I have checked what has been said of him so far. The general consensus is that “he served heroically for his country in the most troubled regions.” It cannot be denied. It must be very significant that an American diplomat became an “expert diplomat” in the region from Turkey to Egypt and Iraq to Afghanistan.

Inability to Understand Turkey

Before his appointment as ambassador to Ankara, Ricciardone served twice in different posts in Turkey. We saw him first as the chief consultant to Operation Provide Comfort, which provided services to Kurds. He traveled to Turkey after the first Gulf War in 1991. He provided communication between Turkish and American commanders. Francesca, one of his two daughters, was born in Ankara and went to school with her sister, Chiara, in Ankara.

What I am rather interested in is the period from 1995 to 1999, when Ricciardone served as the second-in-charge at the American Embassy in Ankara. This is the period when he established close relations with Turkish institutions, when the Feb. 28 post-modern coup d’état occurred in Turkey. Subsequently, Ocalan, the leader of the terrorist group PKK, was arrested and brought to Turkey. Interestingly enough, Ricciardone assumed the task during the same period — under orders from the Bill Clinton administration — of organizing the Iraqi opposition. This perhaps might have been his follow-up task from his aforementioned post in 1991. Connected to a particular lobbying group in Washington, the American Embassy in Ankara became the headquarters for the Iraqi opposition at that time.

This work helped Ricciardone get appointed as special coordinator for the transition in Iraq that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright supervised from 1999 to 2001. Ricciardone last served as ambassador to Egypt from 2005 to 2008. The U.S. Congress blocked his appointment to Turkey because he was believed to have established close relations with the oligarchic structures in the countries he served, in lieu of bringing to the foreground democracy and human rights as the guiding principles of American foreign policy. Congress did not finalize his appointment because of his “apathy toward democratization processes in U.S. allies.” President Obama went ahead with his appointment despite Congress.

Why do I remind you of all this? Because I would like you to know that Ricciardone is well aware of what is going on in Turkey. We might be facing an interesting character.

The Neo-Con Move

We have more and more signs showing us that Obama’s administration, which is so-called Democrat, might well be the continuation of the Republican George W. Bush administration. It does not suffice to just point your finger at Obama’s cabinet member, Robert Gates, who was the secretary of defense under the Bush administration. Hillary Clinton keeps appointing “neo-cons!” It is revealing, for instance, that former American Ambassador to Turkey Marc Grossman — one of the figures leading the U.S. to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and a fervent supporter of Israel — has been appointed as the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Clinton had appointed Dennis Ross, Paul Wolfowitz’s protégé, as her special adviser for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. Ross is known to see himself more as an Israeli than an American. Frederick Kagan, to name another, is adviser to General Petraeus in Afghanistan. Thus, the American administration left its Afghanistan (and by extension, Iran) policy to the hands of major figures of the Israeli lobby.

How odd it is that Marc Grossman, the ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997, was actually Ricciardone’s superior? We must be attentive to American ambassadors and the dynamics behind their appointments.