The Foreign Service Journal, April 2006

Indeed, it is a revealing barometer of Bremer’s tenure to compare his unremarkable arrival in Baghdad in May 2003 with his intricately choreo- graphed exit on June 28, 2004. His departure, two days early for security reasons, entailed crawling out of a C- 130, dashing to a waiting Chinook helicopter and boarding a small U.S. government jet. Things that begin badly usually end badly. Dave Dunford is a retired Foreign Service officer whose overseas postings included Quito, Helsinki, Cairo, Ri- yadh and Muscat. He served in Bagh- dad from April to June 2003. He cur- rently teaches, writes and consults out of Tucson, Ariz. Turkic Delight Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World Hugh Pope, 2005, Peter Mayer, $35.00, hardcover, 413 pages, photos. R EVIEWED BY R ICHARD M C K EE After the disintegration of the USSR, the unfamiliar adjective “Turkic” came to characterize five new republics — Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azer- baijan — and minorities in China’s Xinjiang province, Russia, Afghani- stan, Iran, Iraq, Greece and the Bal- kans. All shared with Turkey lan- guages derived from a single source and sociological affinities, notably an attachment to Islam. The United States was already interested in this “strategic buffer zone” separating Slavic Europe and Asia from the often-turbulent lands to the south. But Washington’s interest grew sharply after the 9/11 attacks, due to the region’s utility as a base from which to launch a military assault on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Few observers are better prepared and positioned than Hugh Pope to enlighten Western readers about the 140 million Turkic residents of some 20 countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. Having read “Persian” and Arabic at Oxford, he settled in Istanbul in 1987, learned Turkish, and became the local corre- spondent of the Wall Street Journal . In 1989, a xenophobic spasm that obliged 350,000 Turkish-speaking citi- zens of Bulgaria to seek refuge in Turkey, and Pope’s courtesy call on Isa Alptekin, the aged and exiled leader of the Turkic Uygur minority of Xinjiang, led him to travel far afield to gather reportage that became material for this ambitious, often funny and occa- sionally profound book. Mercifully, Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World is nei- ther a guidebook nor a travelogue. In its pages, Pope highlights six col- lective qualities he discerns in Turkic peoples: their military leaning, affin- ity for strong leaders, shared history, complex attitudes toward the West, pragmatic approach to Islam and entrepreneurial confidence. He then devotes a section to each trait, as revealed in various locales he visit- ed. Along the way, he gives us sharply delineated portraits of such figures as Kazakhstan’s crafty Nursultan Nazar- bayev, Turkmenistan’s comically mega- lomaniacal Saparmurat Niyazov, and Uzbekistan’s hardline Islam Karimov, all acolytes of Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk. Pope’s insights into the Uygurs’ smoldering discontent are particularly valuable because Xinjiang is so inac- cessible. Devotees of the 19th centu- ry’s “Great Game” will appreciate his chapters on the Turkic republics’ efforts to loosen the Russian bear’s hug; the contest for influence between theocratic Tehran and secular Ankara (won by enterprising Turkish expor- ters, entrepreneurs, builders and moderate Muslim educators); and American oilmen and military officers (alas, no diplomats), far from home but close to the action. His encoun- ters with many colorful characters like Emre, a youthful Kazakh immigrant from Mongolia; Fidan Ekiz, an out- spoken Turk creating her own future in the Netherlands; and Arif Azci, who led a camel caravan from China to Turkey, vivify Pope’s generalizations. It is odd, however, that Pope lavish- es so much ink on the far-fetched claims to Turkic descent of North Carolina’s “Melungeons” but ignores the Tatars in the heart of Russia and, particularly, the Turks of Cyprus. The island’s unresolved status clouds Ankara’s quest for full European Union membership and has great potential ramifications throughout the Turkic (and Muslim) worlds. Is there a Turkic world and, if so, is it rising? Pope marshals arguments to answer both questions affirmatively, adducing architectural, culinary, psy- chological and physiological affinities, along with the six qualities cited above, A P R I L 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 73 B O O K S u Few observers are better prepared and positioned than Hugh Pope to enlighten Western readers about the 140 million Turkic residents of some 20 countries.