President Eisenhower is reported to have said that one way to solve problems is to expand them. This is an insight worth recalling as the United States and Europe try to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Europeans and Americans share vital interests in the Middle East and have pursued numerous initiatives to address the region’s most pressing problems. Attention is now rightly focused on the nuclear threat posed by Iran; Iran’s persistent refusal to respect the IAEA process and suspend uranium enrichment must further galvanize transatlantic thinking.

A new U.S. Administration will have the opportunity to make America’s global diplomacy more collaborative. While many new possibilities will be opened by such a change, there are three approaches that seem especially promising as Europeans and Americans consider how to respond together to the Iranian challenge.

I. Expand opportunities for diplomacy

The Bush Administration has supported from the outset the EU-III (U.K., France, Germany)  effort to negotiate with Iran, and having Undersecretary Nick Burns sit with the negotiating team, at least for one session, was a welcome step.

Transatlantic diplomacy should now strategically expand the problem beyond a single regional state; Europe and America need to try to solve simultaneously the three great challenges in the Middle East: making peace between Israelis and Palestinians; supporting a peaceful and successful Iraq; and stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

To accomplish these tasks, the United States and the EU should promote a regional negotiation based on the lessons learned from the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. [Note: Others have considered this proposition as well, including G. John Ikenberry and Ann-Marie Slaughter in the Princeton Project on National Security, September 2006. GMF was good enough to distribute my earlier reflections on this question in a GMF Opinion Brief in June 2008.] There are many differences, of course, between Europe of the 1970s and today’s Middle East and Persian Gulf. But, borrowing John Lewis Gaddis’ phrase describing the end of the Cold War, an”escape from determinism” is possible in the Middle East. People in the Middle East can live in pluralistic societies and make decisions about their own lives. If the United States and Europe put the kind of effort into solving the key problems of the Middle East that they directed to freeing Eastern Europe, escape from Middle East determinism is possible.

What lessons from Helsinki might be relevant? The current Iranian leadership wants a Western commitment to its borders and a promise not to change those borders or the regime by force. The question for those on the other side of a future negotiating table is what might Tehran be prepared to concede on the questions of their nucle ­ar weapons program, human rights and their support for terrorism in order to get these commitments?

As was the case in the 1970s, there can be no reliable answer to that question absent careful preparation and face-to-face meetings of the concerned parties. This Helsinki-like conference should include Russia, Israel, and Turkey as full participants, and would be focused on producing a”Middle East Final Act” with five components:

1. A commitment to the security of all states in the region, including Israel, Iraq, and an Iran without nuclear weapons.
2. A renunciation of terrorism by all parties.
3. A commitment to the creation and maintenance of a viable Palestinian state, existing side-by-side in peace with Israel.
4. A declaration of the”universal significance of human rights and freedoms … in conformity with the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations and the universal declaration of human rights,” as contained in the Helsinki Final Act.
5. A joint Western-Middle Eastern commitment to economic and social development in the region, driven by efforts to engage the states in the area, including Iran, in a discussion of environmental sustainability, alternative energy, climate change, and counter-narcotics.

An agreement with these contours should also leave open the possibility of creating a follow-on organization, similar to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), that would support realizing the Middle East Final Act’s goals.

II. Deterrence and containment: incentive and insurance

Diplomacy without the backing of strong defenses is diplomacy destined to fail. A Helsinki-like approach to the problems of the Middle East would not be easy nor, even if successful, an answer to all questions. The fact that nations met in Helsinki and forged an agreement was not independently sufficient to end the Cold War. Success depended upon other reinforcing steps, including the maintenance of strong NATO military forces and the will to deploy Pershing-II and GLCMs in the 1980s.

A Middle East Helsinki, standing alone, would also be insufficient to solve the region’s problems. It would be important, for example, to design an implementation plan that would not Balkanize the region. It will also be critical to establish enforcement or punitive mechanisms (including missile defenses) against the possibility of non-compliance (including Tehran’s return to nuclear ambitions) or aggression by Iran that threatens Israel, other states, or U.S. or allied forces in the region.

Any agreed plan for addressing the problems posed by Iran must thus include a clear message to Tehran that the transatlantic community intends to defend its interests while also prepared to talk. That message might be delivered in several ways. For example:

• Give NATO new momentum, capacity and vigor by immediately bringing France back into the NATO military structure;
• Explore NATO-GCC cooperation. The GCC states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) worry that they will be overpowered by an ascendant Iran. Building on the Istanbul Initiative, NATO should propose joint planning and joint exercises with the GCC. This would signal to  Iran that the West is prepared to defend its interests in the area and that NATO, which so successfully deterred the Soviet nuclear threat for decades, has the will and experience to do so again. Strong deterrence will support transatlantic diplomacy with Tehran. NATO-GCC cooperation might also help forestall a rush by GCC states to acquire nuclear technology in order to create their own perceived deterrent to the Iranian nuclear program.
• Explore NATO-Israel cooperation. Commentators in Europe and the United States have argued that it is time to find ways to bring Israel and NATO closer together. As with NATO-GCC ties, this could take the form of joint planning and joint exercises. NATO, Israel, and the GCC might be open (some day) to trilateral cooperation.
• Persuade Turkey to stop blocking increased NATO-EU military cooperation. EU High Representative Solana and NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer should broker a deal between France and Turkey to end Turkey’s veto in NATO of this vital cooperation. First, Solana and de Hoop Scheffer should argue to French President Sarkozy that Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the July 30 Turkish Supreme Court’s decision to leave Prime Minister Recep Tayyip  Erdogan and his AK Party in power are”new facts” justifying reconsideration of France’s opposition to the future full EU membership of Turkey. Second, in return for this change in Paris, Prime Minister Erdogan would immediately end Turkey’s veto of NATO-EU military cooperation and commit to a concrete schedule for additional Turkish political and economic reforms.

III. Focus on energy security

The United States and Europe should adopt a transatlantic energy security policy based on domestic actions by the United States and Canada, and support EU-wide policies aimed at promoting energy security. If Iran chooses to spurn Western efforts to engage, robust transatlantic actions to attain energy security by diversifying supplies while pursuing rigorous conservation and investing in renewables would make clear to Tehran that the West has alternatives to Iranian oil and gas. If Iran engages in a regional conversation that leads to ending its nuclear weapons ambitions and support for terrorism, the possibility of participating in moving oil and gas to world markets could then be considered.

* * * * * * *

It is not too late for the current U.S. Administration to adopt a broader course with Iran, including talking at lower levels or opening an Interests Section in Tehran. Indeed, doing these things might be the best gift it could give to a McCain or Obama Administration. The new president’s transition team will surely debate policy toward Iran in its first few days. One key part of his strategy should be to step up transatlantic efforts to meet this challenge. The United States and Europe have the chance to create opportunities for a peaceful end to Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions by expanding the vision of the threat and the opportunities. They should seize the moment.

Marc Grossman is a Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group. He was Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs at the Department of State from 2001-05. He is a member of GMF’s Board of Trustees.

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Bronislaw Geremek, who played a crucial role ending communist rule in Poland and then guiding Poland to democracy, NATO and the European Union, was killed in an automobile accident July 13. His was a public life to celebrate.

Born in Warsaw, Geremek escaped from the Warsaw ghetto when he was 11and remained in hiding until the end of the war. His father was murdered at Auschwitz. In August 1980, he was one of 64 Polish intellectuals to sign a document supporting Lech Walesa’s striking shipyard workers. Geremek became one of the giants of Solidarity. He was imprisoned for a year after martial law was declared in 1981.

I first met Bronislaw Geremek a few years later when Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead invited Lech Walesa and Solidarity’s senior advisors to the home of John Davis, U.S. Ambassador to Poland, to show American support for Solidarity. We had waited for hours for Walesa and his delegation to arrive; we worried that they had been arrested on the way to the Ambassador’s residence. There was a knock on the door and Walesa, Geremek, and other leaders of Solidarity filled the living room with their courage and hope. They had a vision for ending communism in their country. They believed in the principals of the Helsinki Final Act and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. They said America was a beacon to guide their own struggle. We talked, we listened, we laughed and we were inspired. I practiced that evening my first (and still only) two words of Polish: wszystko mozliwe — “all things are possible.”

On our next trip to Poland, we went to Gdansk to see Walesa in his home city. During that visit, and on each of our subsequent visits, we became ever more convinced that Solidarity would defeat authoritarianism and that Poland would some day be again a free country.

Bronislaw Geremek was one of the leaders of the Roundtable Negotiations that brought Solidarity to power. He served as Poland’s Foreign Minister from 1997 to 2000. These were the same years I had the honor to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, which brought me in close contact with Minister Geremek on numerous occasions. As an Assistant Secretary, I was not a person of much rank, but I will always remember the grace and kindness with which Foreign Minister Geremek treated me.

During his years as foreign minister, Geremek served simultaneously in 1998 as the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where he made ending the wars in the Balkans and stopping the murder in Kosovo continuing commitments. He negotiated Poland’s entry into NATO and stood with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and leaders from Hungary and the Czech Republic at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, in March 1999 to celebrate Poland’s transformation from a Warsaw Pact vassal to a member of the world’s most successful alliance. When NATO heads of state and government met in Washington in April 1999 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of NATO’s creation, Bronislaw Geremek was there not just to reap the benefits of NATO membership but to see Poland join the military effort to end Milosevic’s killing in Kosovo.

During and after his service as foreign minister, Bronislaw Geremek’s opinions were both widely sought and carefully considered. I last had a chance to visit with Geremek at the NATO Summit in Riga, Latvia, in 2006. We marveled that NATO was now meeting in the capital of a Baltic state. Who would ever have believed that they, too, would be free so soon? At least one friend had been urging him to write his memoirs. Sadly, we will now never have his personal recollections of his accomplishments, but we will have our memories of what he did for the cause of freedom.

Marc Grossman is a Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group. He was Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs at the Department of State 2001-2005. He is a member of GMF’s Board of Trustees.

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WASHINGTON — April 2009 will mark the 10th anniversary of the entry of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO.   The journey of these and other former Warsaw Pact countries to NATO and to the European Union is one of the most inspiring transformations in modern history.  

There are lessons from these remarkable achievements relevant to the current foreign policy debate in the United States, especially as our national conversation focuses on three crucial issues:

– The political, ideological and practical debate between “Realists” and “Wilsonians” over if and how the United States should promote democracy and pluralism around the world.

– The debate now engaged between Senators McCain and Obama about if, how, and when the United States should negotiate with our adversaries.

– The debate over how best to commit the tools of statecraft to bring peace and security to the Middle East, including an end to the Iranian nuclear threat.

A useful first step to bridging the gap between Realists and Wilsonians, making it politically plausible to confront our adversaries at the negotiating table and to promote peace, prosperity and stability in the larger Middle East, would be to study the diplomatic effort that culminated in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act.    

In his book The Cold War: A New History, John Lewis Gaddis describes the many reasons nations gathered in Helsinki for the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1975.   Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev wanted the United States and its Western allies to accept the post-war division of Europe.   The Kremlin was desperate to discourage further “Prague Springs” and to reinforce the Brezhnev Doctrine.   Gaddis notes that Brezhnev was willing to make extraordinary concessions to get this commitment from the West.   For example, the Soviets agreed to give advance notice of military maneuvers, to allow signatory states to join or leave alliances, and to recognize “the universal significance of human rights and fundamental freedoms €¦.in conformity with the purposes and principles of the charter United Nations and with the universal declaration of human rights.”

The Soviets were nervous about committing to this last condition but, as Gaddis reminds, it had “originated with the Western Europeans and the Canadians, not the Americans, which made it more difficult to oppose.   Moreover, the liberties it specified appeared in the largely unimplemented Soviet constitution: that too would have made rejection awkward.   So the Politburo agreed, with misgivings, to the inclusion of human rights provisions in the Conference’s €˜Final Act.’”   As Dr. Kissinger later put it: “Rarely has the diplomatic process so illuminated the limitations of human foresight.”   The path to freedom and to NATO and EU membership for the countries of Eastern Europe began at Helsinki.

Because no one could predict the consequences, liberals and conservatives denounced President Ford and Secretary Kissinger for having the abandoned the cause of human rights at Helsinki.   But the Final Act’s effect inside the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was transformational.   Helsinki became for the Russian empire what Gaddis calls “a legal and moral trap,” harnessing what Max Kampelman has described as the “power of ought.”   Brezhnev had, as Gaddis writes, “handed his critics a standard, based on universal principles of justice, rooted in international law and independent of Marxist-Leninist ideology, against which they could evaluate his and other Communist regimes.”   The following year saw the creation of “Helsinki groups” in Eastern Europe, including Charter 77.   By pursuing strong, purposeful diplomacy, the allies fused Realism and Wilsonianism to support those courageous individuals in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe who sought to undermine tyranny.

Do we have today the strategic diplomatic vision to organize a Middle East Helsinki?   The current Iranian leadership wants a Western commitment to its borders, a promise not to change the regime by force and a recognition of Iranian security concerns.   What might the Iranians be prepared to concede on the questions of their nuclear weapons program, human rights or their support for terrorism to get these commitments?   As much as Brezhnev did in 1975?      

Official rhetoric in Iran and many Arab states cynically refers to the protection of human rights and to the UN Charter.   Why not demand in a Middle East Final Act that they live up to their rhetoric by allowing insiders and outsiders to judge the distance between promises and policies just as Helsinki allowed the world to judge the former Soviet empire?  

The Gulf Cooperation Council states worry that they will be overpowered by an ascendant Iran.   To support a Helsinki-like Final Act in the Middle East, why not have NATO propose joint planning and joint exercises with the GCC?   Iran should know that the West is prepared to defend its interests in the area and that NATO, which so successfully deterred a Soviet nuclear threat for decades, has the will and experience to help do so again.

This Helsinki-like conference, which would include Russia, Israel, and Turkey as full participants, could produce a Middle East Final Act with five “baskets:”

– First, a commitment to the security of all states in the region, including Israel, Iraq, and an Iran without nuclear weapons.   Like the Soviets in 1975, the Iranians would be required to give commitments about the nature of their future behavior in the region.

– Second, a commitment to the creation and maintenance of a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace with Israel.

– Third, as in Helsinki, a declaration of the “universal significance of human rights and freedoms €¦.in conformity with the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations and the universal declaration of human rights.”

– Fourth, a joint Western-Middle Eastern commitment to economic and social development in the region.   This should include an attempt to engage the states in the area, including Iran, in a discussion of environmental sustainability, alternative energy, and climate change.

– Fifth, the creation of a follow-on organization, like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to promote the Middle East Final Act’s goals into the future.  

The challenges to structuring a Helsinki-like conference for the Middle East are of course legion, and we should take care to reason from the right analogies.   But consider how far we have traveled from what was once Eastern Europe.   When one encountered dissidents in those early years, they would pull from their pockets worn copies of the Helsinki Final Act, which they kept for inspiration.   The dissidents of the 1980s led their countries into NATO in 1999. The West’s vision in Helsinki in 1975 €“ including promises Western leaders were prepared to make to secure human rights commitments from the Soviet Union €“ fused the various strains of America’s foreign policy heritage into an ultimately successful outcome.

In the epilogue to The Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis highlights the escape from (Marxist) determinism that helped end the Cold War.   Such an escape from determinism is possible here, as well.   We should not accept as a permanent fact that people in the Middle East will never live in pluralistic, market-oriented societies that promote the right of individuals to make decisions about their own lives.   We must take the risks necessary to test whether the same pluralistic forces that were freed in Eastern Europe by Helsinki can be let loose in the Middle East.   We must have faith that peaceful and democratic change can be created by people of the region with the support of the West.   If the United States and its allies are prepared to make the same intellectual and political commitment to the Middle East that we made to Eastern Europe at Helsinki in 1975, escape from Middle East determinism and underdevelopment is possible.

Let’s take a chance on a big idea; what we are doing now is not working.     Iran is pursuing a dangerous nuclear program.   President Bush’s June 2002 vision of an Israeli and Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace is still a dream, even after Annapolis and increased U.S. diplomacy.   Democratic, economic, and social development lags in the Arab world.   Dependence on Middle Eastern oil is not just bad for the West, but retards rather than promotes real development in the region.

Preparing for a Middle East Helsinki conference would take time, energy, focus, and understanding that serious diplomacy is a tool of national security.   The current Administration should spend its remaining months doing the preparatory work for such a conference that could be convened in 2009 — using the anniversary of NATO’s expansion as inspiration — and then leave the plan front and center for action by the next President.

Marc Grossman is a Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group.   He is a GMF Board member.

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WASHINGTON — The news from Afghanistan on the counter-narcotics front is bad.   Opium production from Afghanistan’s 408,000 acres of poppy rose almost 50% in 2006, contributing to global heroin production that set a new record high of 606 metric tons in 2006.   The effort to stop the growing and production of illicit drugs, led by the United Kingdom and supported by a $600 million U.S. effort, is falling farther behind.

In Latin America, a region also plagued by poppy cultivation, there is ample evidence that illegal drug production carries with it a significant environmental cost. Trees in rain forests are cut down to make space for illegal drug laboratories.   Gallons of chemicals such as acidic anhydride, sodium carbonate, and ether, which are used to convert morphine into opium, are discarded into rivers and other waterways.   Fires are started to cover up illicit laboratories.

We also need to find alternatives to carbon-based fuels.   The Energy Information Administration projects world carbon emissions rising from 26.9 billion metric tons in 2004 to 33.9 billion metric tons in 2015.

Policymakers have so far addressed these problems with isolated or loosely coordinated efforts.   This approach ignores the possible nexus between these challenges and potential solutions.   Consider these two observations:

First, the seedpod of the opium poppy contains both gum and seeds that can be processed for drugs.   Poppy, which flourishes almost anywhere, is an understandable crop for Afghanistan’s poor farmers to grow and sell for conversion to lucrative €“ though illicit €“ products since poppy prices are 10 times higher than for wheat, and farmers do not fear the government’s eradication efforts.   The challenge for the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan is to find an alternative crop that will induce farmers to give up poppy cultivation or to find a reason to grow poppy legally.

Second, the effort to limit carbon’s impact on the global environment has led to increased interest in biofuels.   Biofuels are derived from organic materials known as biomass.   Americans are most familiar with ethanol, which is made from corn and added to gasoline.   Biodiesel, more familiar to Europeans, is made using soybean or other plant oils and can be used as a fuel in its pure form with some engine modifications, although it is usually blended with traditional diesel.   In a small Australian pilot program in 2005, Tasmanian farmers used biodiesel produced from poppy seed, which is about 50% oil, to run their tractors.   The poppy plant itself, like the jatropha plant that is being grown in India for biomass, has the potential to be a useful source for biodiesel.

There is a potential opportunity to connect the fight against poppy cultivation and the need for new sources of energy.   To test this hypothesis, the United States should fund a crash program of international research to determine whether the opium poppy can be turned into biomass for the large scale production of biodiesel and design the necessary technology to do so.   Assuming the scientific questions can be addressed, there will remain economic and social issues.   Can the Kabul government ensure, perhaps by buying whole crops with international assistance (which would be cheaper and more effective than an eradication program), that the price for poppy will equal or exceed the price that narco-traffickers are willing to pay?   Assuming that some illegal market will continue to exist in parallel with the legal one, what kinds of government controls, including a continuing eradication program to deter cheating, will be necessary to insure that the vast majority of the crop is sold for production of biomass fuel?

If opium poppy can be used to make biodiesel, and farmers shift production to a legal crop more profitable than today’s alternatives, it would deal a blow to narcotics traffickers.     Because truck drivers in Afghanistan and the whole South Asian region use diesel, Kabul could set up biodiesel plants in Afghanistan to process the poppy, providing thousands of jobs.     Getting more biodiesel into trucks in the area would have a positive impact on global warming and, since biodiesel contains no sulfur, would also reduce acid rain.   Other countries with drug production problems, like Pakistan or Colombia, might also adopt the process, reduce drug production, create jobs, and promote a more sustainable environment.

The 21st century will require that leaders think in new ways about how diverse challenges and solutions are related.   Fighting narcotrafficking and global climate change could be two dots waiting to be connected.

Marc Grossman is a Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group.   He is a GMF Board Member.

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WASHINGTON — Americans should pay close attention to the news from Turkey. The August 28 election of a new president, which has provoked strong opposition from the powerful Turkish military, is a test of Turkey’s democracy. The visit of Turkey’s energy minister to Iran earlier in August to sign energy deals, including the establishment of a joint Turkish-Iranian company to carry up to 35 billion cubic meters of Iranian natural gas via Turkey to Europe, is a test of America’s commitment to bring alternate sources of gas and oil to the world’s energy markets.

One interpretation of Turkey’s desire for closer energy connections to Iran is that Ankara no longer believes Washington, distracted by Iraq, actively supports what was once a major U.S. objective: creating an East-West energy corridor, the network of existing and proposed pipelines that bring oil and gas from the Caucasus to the West avoiding both Russia’s monopolized pipeline system and the crowded sea lanes in the Bosphorus. America runs the risk of losing the East-West energy corridor to alternate visions pursued by Iran, Russia, and China.

Tehran has made concessions to Ankara on energy transit questions to win Turkey’s cooperation. Russia is meanwhile trying to reduce the importance of Turkey as an energy hub by proposing that Turkmen gas skirt Turkey. Chinese President Hu Jintao signed agreements with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to move oil and gas east during his recent visit to the region. Leaders of Russia and China and four Central Asian states have just established an”energy club,” which does not include the United States. The U.S. Administration has tried to stay in the game by financing a new feasibility study with Azerbaijan for the construction of two new trans-Caspian pipelines, but it will take political and economic muscle to make studies reality.

In 1995, to promote supply alternatives, the United States announced support for an oil pipeline that would bring Caspian crude from Baku, Azerbaijan to the southern Turkish port of Ceyhan. Although some commentators said that the pipeline would never be built, they were wrong. In 2006, oil first flowed through the pipeline, which now runs through Georgia. With strong U.S. backing, diversity of supply became a reality.

Other important pipelines in Turkey can further contribute to that diversity. The South Caucasus pipeline (Baku-Erzurum-Ceyhan) began to move gas in July. The Shah Deniz project taps Azeri gas fields in the Caspian Sea and then transports the gas across Georgia and Turkey. An onward connection will carry this natural gas to Greece and Italy. Other lines across Turkey are also possible, and perhaps one day, a Turkey-Israel oil or gas pipeline.

Strategic foresight requires considering potential military threats to this energy supply, since investors want to know that the facilities will be secure. While no one can predict the ultimate outcome of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, what is certain is that protecting Western interests in and around the Middle East will require the presence of U.S. forces in the region for years to come. Decisions the Administration takes today about force levels in Iraq or arms sales to the Gulf can either expand or constrain America’s ability to promote these interests, including energy security. Saudi Arabia has reportedly begun setting up a 35,000-strong security force to protect oil infrastructure from potential attacks. The Turkish airbase at Incirlik is near Ceyhan, the end of the 1,760 kilometer BTC pipeline; it must be at the heart of any serious Turkish-Western thinking about how to be ready to protect the energy corridor.

Western leaders need to move quickly to renew energy security as a foundation for relations with Turkey. This requires more than friendly rhetoric and promises. The Turkish public will be skeptical of any proposal emanating from Washington, and U.S. policy choices about Turkey, including actions in Congress, should be made with Western energy security interests in mind. The U.S. Administration can gain traction on energy security by taking active measures against the PKK, the terrorist group committed to the dismemberment of Turkey that operates in Northern Iraq. The Administration should not permanently base U.S. forces in the Kurdish areas in the north of Iraq, which Turks will see as U.S. support for an independent Kurdish state. U.S. leaders must convince Turks that they won’t prematurely withdraw from Iraq, creating a vacuum that will leave that country in even further distress. Europeans should leave the door open to Turkey’s full European Union membership.

This American president and the next will need to pursue policies that increase energy conservation and efficiency and ensure the diversity of energy supplies. Turkey’s relationship with the West remains both frozen in Cold War glaze and downgraded by the focus on Iraq. A future-oriented commitment to energy security would bring new focus to this still vital partnership. To achieve this objective, Western leaders need to make decisions today that will keep open viable options for tomorrow.

Marc Grossman is Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group in Washington, DC. He was Ambassador to Turkey 1994-1997. He is a GMF Board Member.

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