A
Turkish friend just wrote me that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has sold his soul to the Devil. That implies Erdogan is succeeding on
every front, as if by magic. More accurately, however, the trick is that
Erdogan’s foreign policy is failing on almost every front but he’s able
to convince Turks that the situation is the exact opposite.
Let’s examine the list of developments in objective terms:
--He
has made no progress on membership or integration in the European
Union. Similarly, his diplomatic efforts to ease relations with
neighboring Armenia have borne no fruit.
--Erdogan
has thrown away the virtual alliance with Israel without gaining
anything materially in the Arabic-speaking world. Although few seem to
understand this point, it was not Israel that groveled in accepting
Erdogan’s terms but the exact opposite.
The
Syrian situation has a lot to do with this, as does—amazingly enough—a
bit of U.S. pressure (see below), but also he had a new problem. As an
Israeli diplomat explained:
“Turkish
export routes to the east used to go through Syria, to the East and to
the Gulf. That’s not possible anymore. Turkish exports are shipped to
the port of Haifa, where they’re loaded onto trucks, which cross Israel
and then go to Jordan, and then from Jordan, they are shipped to the
Gulf and to the East. Israel has now become a [pivotal] point for
Turkish exports."
--Turkey
had gained no real influence over the Palestinian Hamas and the
Lebanese Hizballah groups on which he has lavished much attention.
--In
Syria, despite Turkey’s good relations with the dictatorship there, he
has backed a rebellion in which he seemingly had great influence. But
now Erdogan is clearly having second thoughts, becoming scared that he
may have produced a Frankenstein’s monster, a radical Islamist state
next door which might cause troubles for Turkey.
--And now Turkey is bordered also by not one but two Kurdish “states.”
While
he has done well in keeping good relations with the Kurdish-governed
district in northern Iraq, its flourishing existence must be worrisome
to him, including its effect on Turkey’s own large Kurdish minority. And
now there is a much more militant Kurdish statelet in Syria ruled by
his old adversaries, the Kurdish Workers’ Party’s local branch. Erdogan
does have a plan to deal with Syrian Kurdistan building
on the Iraq model: good relations, regional autonomy, and no attacks
from there against Turkey. Still, how certain can he be that there
won't be big problems?
--Most
important of all, perhaps, is that Erdogan’s attempt to gain wider
leadership in the Middle East (called “neo-Ottomanism,” recalling
Turkey’s pre-World War One empire in the region) has fallen flat on its
face. While Erdogan stresses his Muslim credentials, nobody who speaks
Arabic has forgotten that he isn’t one of them.
--And
now his love affair with President Barack Obama is on the rocks, at
least temporarily. Erdogan’s level of anti-Israel and even antisemitic
invective has risen so high and became so obvious that the U.S.
government could no longer ignore it. For the first time, questions were
raised about the great model Islamist in Washington.
That was one of the key motives for the president’s effort to effect an Israel-Turkey conciliation. As
always, Erdogan has gone out of his way to be provocative. He told the
Fifth UN Alliance of Civilizations meeting in Vienna,
for example, that Zionism was a "crime against humanity." Since such
crimes should presumably be punished, this can be regarded as Erdogan
calling for genocide against Israel and its residents.
“Just
like Zionism, anti-Semitism and fascism, it becomes unavoidable that
Islamophobia must be regarded as a crime against humanity,” he alleged.
It
is
also possible--and there is some evidence for this--that the U.S.
government feels that Erdogan misled it on Syrian issues now that it has
partly awakened to seeing that country about to go under radical
Islamist rule. America followed Turkish advice and the result is
advanced weapons in the hands of terrorists who may soon be running the
country. I warned about this two years ago, but perhaps the U.S.
government is a bit ticked off at being made to look like idiots and
having gotten into a dangerous situation.
Let's
also remember that Erdogan's projected trip to the Gaza Strip would
have disrupted U.S. "peacemaking" efforts and after talking
to Obama, Erdogan backed off (but see below). And, finally, let's
remember that the whole Israel-Turkey rapprochement might still fall
apart due to Erdogan and leave Obama and Kerry looking foolish.
The
problem is that since Erdogan has received U.S. praise and support as
he has bashed U.S. interests he then doesn't need to respect U.S.
interests. Many or most Turks today can combine two seemingly discordant
views: Obama and his government love Turkey's government and views it
as a friend; they themselves increasingly hate the United States and its
goals.
We
will know more after Erdogan visits the White House on May 16. If that
turns out to be another Obama-Erdogan love fest, more demonstration of
the fact that Erdogan is Obama's favorite Islamist, with no criticism in
evidence despite all that the Turkish prime minister has done
deliberately against U.S. interests, it would be safe to conclude that
Erdogan owns the White House for the next three years. He will know that
he can do anything he pleases.
But there are few in Turkey who understand this list of losses.
On
the contrary, Erdogan has successfully sold the situation to them as
one of tremendous success. They can be proud of their country’s return
to international power and great respect, or at least so it seems. In
this view, Turkey is acting in a properly Islamic manner, the Arabs love
them, America recognizes their greatness (they can do whatever they
want and the United States caves in), he made Israel apologize, and so
on.
On
top of this, Turkey’s muscle-flexing boldness, anti-Americanism, and
hostility to Israel pleases the left and the nationalist right; his
Islamic policy pleases the pious. As a result, Erdogan enjoys the
support of a strong majority.
Consequently,
Erdogan is the world’s most successful leader in fundamentally
transforming his country. Step by step, he is seizing all of the
country’s institutions for Islamism. Graduates of Islamic schools, who
have now been given parity with university graduates, are flooding into
the state bureaucracy.
The
army’s political power has been broken and Islamists are now going into
the officer corps. The media has largely—but not completely—been bought
up and intimidated. Only the judiciary remains. The economy is doing
reasonably well.
In
this context, Erdogan increasingly appears to be a dictator who is
building a cult of personality. Everywhere there are signs claiming that
Erdogan “gave” the people whatever public works’ project or new school
exists in the vicinity. His situation is comparable to Russia’s dictator
(in everything but name) Vladimir Putin.
Here's
a case study, the Israel-Turkey agreement on resolving the dispute over
the Gaza flotilla. Under pressure from President Barack Obama, Erdogan
agreed to Israel's terms while pretending that this was a great victory
for himself. Yet there is increasing reason to believe that the Turkish
government will NOT implement its draft agreement with Israel.
There
are two factors involved here.
First, Erdogan, as usual, is overreaching abroad, getting nothing
because he tried to get too much. Second, though, Erdogan doesn't care
because his real intended audience is domestic, using the flotilla
aftermath to stir up hatred against Israel and now claiming he has
forced Israel to surrender in what constitutes a great victory for
Turkey. What Israel's conciliatory behavior actually did was to expose
the Turkish regime's bad faith, showing that it is impossible to deal
with it, an experience comprehended now in Washington for the first
time.
Now Erdogan has vetoed Israel's participation in NATO maneuvers and Erdogan says he
won't send back his ambassador unless Israel stops all sanctions
against the Gaza Strip. He knows that this demand will kill the deal.
Yet at home he can claim to be the champion of Muslims and of
Palestinians. That domestic propaganda is all that counts for him.
Similarly, after agreeing to postpone his provocative trip to the Gaza
Strip Erdogan then merely rescheduled it for May. And on top of that, Erdogan then announced he would (for the first time) send an ambassador to Palestine even when refusing to send an ambassador back to Israel. Once again, he threw a pie in Obama's face.
Why
does this make sense? Again, because he doesn't care about the
international implications but only domestic political bragging rights.
Moreover, none of his antics materially hurt Israel but--note this
well--there are some interesting ways in which Erdogan is going to lose
by forfeiting Israel's cooperation.
Meanwhile,
the West, especially the mass media, has not yet quite caught on to the
fact that the Turkey of Kemal Ataturk, the secular republic, is gone.
Massive rural migration to the cities has created a wave of traditional
behavior that has been funneled and retrained as Islamism.
Turkey has also become an increasingly repressive state where
journalists tremble, critics may be thrown into jail on trumped-up
charges, and a cultural revolution to reverse Ataturk’s reforms is far
advanced.
Erdogan's
greatest achievement in terms of the international scene is that by his
maneuvers and Obama's approval, he has made the world uninterested in
the escalating repression in Turkey including ridiculous Stalinist-style show trials of dissidents. The latest event is the sentencing of an internationally famous Turkish concert pianist to ten months' imprisonment for tweets "insulting" Islam and a court decision claiming a 700-year-old church was illegally run as a state museum making possible its conversion into a mosque.
Thus,
Erdogan has put together a winning combination: fake victories abroad;
repression, seizing institutions, and mobilizing support through
patriotism and Islam at home.
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
No comments:
Post a Comment