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In a 1992 issue of Time magazine, in an article on Turkey, the writer inserted the following "ad" in the middle: Help Wanted Nation to serve as go-between for the Western world and the Middle East and assist in turning suspicion into cooperation. Must be firm U.S.-European ally desirous of still closer ties yet, Islamic in religion and culture, capable of serving as a role model of secularized Western democracy for other Muslim states. Ethnic links with some of those states, booming free-market economy, permitting some assistance to poorer brethren highly desirable. Benefits: regional superpower within a few years; eventual major influence on wider world affairs possible. To which the article's author observed, "There is no need to look for such a country: Turkey fits every specification. Moreover, it wants the job." 1 This chapter will look at Turkey before and after the Gulf War, starting in the mid-1980s and concluding at the end of the 1990s. It will examine, among other things, the Time writer's glib assertion of Turkey's unequivocal readiness to serve as the West's policeman in the Middle East. The fifteen-year period under consideration confronted Turkey with an assortment of problems, whose ramifications are vital for an understanding of Ankara's moves during the Gulf crisis, in the war itself, and in the course of the 1990s. Among these problems were the apparent decline in Turkey's strategic value due to the decline in inter-bloc rivalries; Turkey's wearisome-and, some will add, fruitless-courtship of the EU; the Greco-Turkish conflict over Cyprus; disputes with Iraq and Syria over water resources; the persistent territorial quarrel with Syria over the Hatay province (Alexandretta to the Syrians); and Iraq's debt to Turkey (2-3 billion dollars). Other issues relevant to our discussion are Turkey's domestic policies; the country's conflict with its Kurdish minority; President Turgat Ozal's status in Turkish politics; the Islam-state relationship 1

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