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During Tuesday night’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Sen. Chuck Hagel’s nomination to become secretary of defense, Sen. Joe Manchin made a curious assertion. Israel, he said, is the United States’ only ally in “that part of the world,” presumably meaning the Middle East. Above, I’ve tossed together a map of the countries that we might fairly label U.S. allies in the region (with a couple of caveats). Turkey, Manchin’s most surprising omission, is actually a NATO ally. The U.S. recently deployed some troops to Turkey to help defend the country’s border with Syria, on which the U.S. and Turkey have been cooperating closely.