Erdoğan has to see this movie

What if Russia gets upset by energy pipelines through Turkey to Europe and decides to hit the US in an attack staged in Pennsylvania? Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan has not sent any of his ministers to this year’s American-Turkish Council (ATC) conference; no such thing has happened in many years.

The highest government official – other than newly appointed Turkish Ambassador to Washington Serdar Kılıç – is Dr. İsmail Demir, the newly appointed Undersecretary of the Defense Industry (SSM), which is still negotiating with the United States’ Raytheon and Europe’s MEADS over revising the choice of a Chinese company for Turkey’s first anti-missile system.

Well, the feelings are reciprocal; no minister from U.S. President Barack Obama’s Cabinet moved to attend this year’s ATC, despite the weeks-long efforts of Frank Ricciardone, the U.S. ambassador to Ankara.

The obvious reason for this situation on the diplomatic backstage is commentary criticizing the Turkish government following the corruption probe of Dec. 17, 2013. And because defense and energy companies are the major sponsors of the ATC, Erdoğan is getting upset when they press for major tenders in Turkey.

James Holmes, chairman of the ATC, announced his resignation as a result of this tension on the first day of the conference.

There might be a deeper reason for why Erdoğan would like to give a lesson to the ATC and to whom else it may concern. Erdoğan might think that those energy and defense companies could drop the intermediaries and that the lobbies (seeing the ATC as one of them) should come directly to the Turkish government, himself, as the holder of political...