“During the Cold War, there was an old joke about the Nordic countries: ‘Norway has NATO (to shield it), Sweden has Finland, and Finland has a very, very long border with the Soviet Union,’” said Amb. Eric Edelman, counselor at the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments.
Right about then, America named a new ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney who to many Turks was the embodiment of what they saw as America's "my way or the highway" approach to Mideast policy.
Inside Turkey, an anti-American backlash has already started, including statements from Turkish officials blaming the US and questioning Kerry’s initial statement about about the coup attempt, which could be read as ambiguous, said Eric Edelman, former US ambassador to Turkey and former undersecretary of defense for policy. He described Kerry and the Obama administration as “badly stung by the level of anti-american rhetoric.”
However, former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman, who has also served in other senior positions in the State and Defense departments, said in a telephone interview that U.S.- Turkish relations may be in for “a bumpy ride.” Edelman is especially concerned about anti-American rhetoric in Turkey alleging that the U.S. had a role in the coup. U.S. Ambassador John Bass on July 18 responded to those allegations. “Some news reports -- and, unfortunately, some public figures -- have speculated that the United States in some way supported the coup attempt,” he said. “This is categorically untrue, and such speculation is harmful to the decades-long friendship between two great nations.”
“Over the last 67 years and now more so after the coup plot, literally hundreds of general officers have been removed from the system,” says Eric Edelman, who served as the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy from 2005-09."
"The danger here is this could spiral out of control and turn into a full-blown civil war," Mr Eric Edelman, a former US ambassador to Turkey and former leading Pentagon official under president George W. Bush, said on Friday.