© AP
The death of NATO appeared to be all but written on the wall in the wake of the failed coup attempt when Turkish Labor Secretary Suleyman Soylu said during a live interview with Haberturk television that "The US is behind the coup" - a statement that Ankara still refuses to condemn.
The situation became worse as the country's provocative President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded that the US extradite the "head of terrorist" referring to US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara claims was behind the failed government overthrow effort while the crowd sang "death penalty for Feto"
But it was Prime Minister Binali Yidlirim who really lowered the boom threatening to go to war with "any" country that supports Fethullah Gulen - a direct reference to the United States.
Since accusing the United States, their long-time ally, of masterminding a failed attempt to overthrow a government whose connections to Islamic terrorist organizations - with evidence showing that Ankara has been engaged in regular weapons and oil trade with Daesh and reports connecting the Erdogan regime with a false-flag sarin gas attack in Syria - already much too close for Washington's liking many believed that the United States would pack up and leave.
Instead, the US State Department has cautioned that accusing the United States of attempting to overthrow an allied government is "harmful to bilateral relations," expressing continued support for the Erdogan regime, and has attempted to explain to Turkey that under US law evidence is needed to support the extradition request Turkey seeks.
The final straw may very well have come several months ago with the attacks against three US marines in Istanbul on Wednesday by a group of Turkish nationalists who will no doubt be emboldened by their leaders' statements that the Americans were behind the attempt to destabilize the country. The attackers put white hoods and bags over the heads of the US soldiers while yelling "Yankees go home" while calling them "murderers" and throwing orange paint on them.
"Because we regard you as murderers who kill men, we require that you leave our country," one of the Turks said in English while the soldiers were chased down the street. Despite the Obama administration's attempts to downplay this growing sentiment among the Turkish people, a poll in October revealed that only 19% of Turks welcome Americans.
Washington now faces a critical challenge with Turkey serving as the linchpin to America's security strategy in the Middle East and the Balkans based on its geography and longstanding alliance with the United States.
NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis explained in a recent Foreign Policy magazine article that Turkey has been critical to "virtually every NATO operation with significant impact: training Afghan Security Forces and leading coalition efforts in the central district, including Kabul; sending ships and aircraft to Libya; participating in counterpiracy operations; maintaining a steady presence in the security and peacekeeping force in the Balkans."
Despite its strategic importance, Ankara has increasingly become a thorn in the side of the Obama administration and NATO which houses some 90 tactical nuclear weapons at Incirlik Airbase only 60 miles northwest of the Syrian border with growing political instability raising the prospect of a "loose nuke" falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
That possibility looms large as the Erdogan regime engages in a full-scale purge of opposition having locked up over 10,000 alleged supporters of Fethullah Gulen from the country's education, judicial, and military sectors while hinting at the idea of bringing back the death penalty to engage in mass executions by saying earlier this week "why should I keep them locked up and feed them."
Washington now faces a conundrum of setting back its defense strategy a decade by losing access to a critical regional base or enduring repeated accusations that it attempted a coup against its ally, attacks on US soldiers by an increasingly hostile Turkish population, the threat of weapons of mass destruction falling into the waiting arms of terrorists, and sanctioning the activities of a leader who has hinted at killing off over 10,000 people on allegations of treason.
It may ultimately not be Turkey that leaves NATO, but rather the West that decides Ankara has drifted too far down the road of perdition. One way or another, the clock appears to be ticking on the waning hours of the once great military alliance.
Turkey has been rocked by a failed attempt to forcefully remove President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from power and the subsequent purges in the armed forces, the judiciary, law enforcement, education etc., which have made the country weaker and have also adversely affected NATO's capabilities in the region, security analyst Gerd Portugall asserted.
"Volatility in Turkey means that NATO's anchor of stability in the region has weakened. In other words, the alliance will also become weaker in the region," he told Deutsche Welle.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, who served as the bloc's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 2011 to 2014, expressed similar sentiments in the days following July 16. "Sadly, not only will Turkey be weakened by the failed coup, which saw soldiers firing on other soldiers, but NATO as a whole will be weakened - at least in the short term," he said.
Like Shirreff, Portugall maintained that this trend could be reverted in the future. "I don't think that NATO's southern flank has been completely destroyed. This is a terrible shock, but the situation will become better and stabilize in the medium term," he said.
On July 16, a group of mid-level military officers staged a coup, but failed to seize the power. Erdogan and his supporters have blamed influential US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen for the events, launching a major crackdown that has left more than 60,000 military personnel, police officers, judges, civil servants and teachers fired, suspended or detained.
The crackdown presents at least a short-term challenge for Turkey, Portugall noted.
"If you remove military commanders, many in law enforcement and the judiciary, as well as scholars and teachers, at first there will be no one to replace them. This implies that certain institutions will not be as efficient as they used to be," he said.
On the other hand, Ankara has the second largest military in the alliance. As a result, "for any fired general there is a colonel ready for a promotion," the analyst observed.
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