From the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China

I recently read Henry Kissinger's remarks in June about Turkey. I compare it to what he said about Turkey back in 1992, and the difference within the 25 years is heartbreaking. Developments in Syria are poisoning Turkey's intimate relations with its allies. Let me elaborate.

A seasoned diplomat once told me how it was Kissinger who coined the phrase "Turkic world from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China." It was in a closed meeting with then-Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel just after the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991. The late Mr. Demirel had just made his seventh comeback as prime minister after the military coup of 1980. 

The Soviet world was collapsing, and the American-backed liberal order reigned supreme. "I see a whole Turkic world from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China standing up," Kissinger noted. Later, Demirel used the phrase often to illustrate the awakening of a Turkish brotherhood across Eurasia. Turkey as a functioning democracy, and a thriving market economy, extended from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China. 

It captured the imagination, and Turks loved it. Here we were, a pivotal nation in a great new project. It was only 1992. Turkey's economic transformation had only just started in the early 1980s, but the country was fast transforming from an agrarian backwater to an industrial powerhouse. In 1980, per capita GDP was $1,500, by 1992, it was $2,500. Still lower than global average, mind you, but a significant change nonetheless. Exports increased from $3 billion to $15 billion. Still far from todays $150 billion, but we were getting there. So the transformative capacity of the country was far more modest in 1992 when compared to today's situation. Yet the country was on an upwards trajectory,...