Not a Good Argument

One of the reasons that Turkey fails to convince the EU at its members' citizens that it should be able to join, is the really bad arguments of many of its supporters. This is a classic.

Turkey’s full membership to the EU is supported by all the Muslim countries. Many Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt and Palestine, have openly expressed their enthusiasm to see Turkey as a full member of the EU. Even countries like Syria and Iran, which are seen as “enemy” by the West, have stated that they would be pleased to be neighbor with the EU with Turkey’s membership, and that they supported Turkey in the membership process.

To which the only rational answer can be so what. Other Muslim countries want Turkey to join so we are obliged to act?

There are no Muslim representatives in the G-8 or among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. To put it short, there are serious representation deficiencies in global governance.

Further weakening his argument. What this is effectively saying, is that he sees Turkish membership of the EU as getting Muslim representation at the top table. How is this going to persuade European who are frightened (obviously wrongly in his opinion) of 70 million new Muslim members.

EU’s rejection of Turkey on the ground that it is a Muslim country and reconstruction of the EU on the basis of Christian fanaticism will turn the much-expected miracle into impossibility, and in a sense, will justify how right the extremities such as al-Qaeda are. In this case, it will be a mere dream to think that the conflicts will be confined to Beirut, Baghdad or Ramallah.

Which sounds like a threat. Not the best way to convince sceptics is it.

And there is one final thing, he starts the article thus:

Almost all the unsuccessful politicians in many of the EU countries have recently been talking about the issue of Turkey’s full membership to the EU.

And then goes on to mention Sarkozy more than once. If Sarko is a failure, I wonder what a success looks like?