Radikal, Turkey
Dec 17 2011
Confronting Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus
by Cengiz Candar
Beirut -Readers of [Turkish writer] Refik Halit Karay are familiar
with Jounieh. He spent his exile years there. Gamblers as well know
it. The Casino de Liban, at one time one of the world’s most important
gambling facilities, is there. The Lebanese summer resort on the
northern seashore that, due to heavy traffic, is reached from Beirut
in 45 minutes, had become the de facto capital of the Christians
during the blood civil war period from 1976 to 1990, has now grown and
turned into a city.
Lebanon’s most watched, most successful, and most influential
television channel LBC is there. The day before yesterday, when I
entered the LBC studio for the television programme ‘Naharkum Said’
(it connotes more “good day” than its literal meaning), which lasts
for an hour and a half and is very popular, I asked the famous hostess
Dima Sadek “what are your red lines?” We were going to discuss, for an
hour and a half, Turkey’s new place in the Middle East, and
particularly its Syria policy. DimaSadek brushed the question off by
saying “there is no such thing as a red line on LBC.” Referring to
Syria, I pushed, saying “let us not attract the wrath of your
neighbour by speaking too frankly.” She insisted: “There are no red
lines.” Still, during the lengthy programme, I referred to [Syrian
President] Bashar al-Asad by his title; during the discussion, which
was conducted in Arabic, I referred to the “Dead Man Walking” as
either “the Leader Al-Asad” or “Syrian President Al-Asad” when his
name came up.
“Dead Man Walking”? It is the name of an unforgettable film, made by
Tim Robbins in 1995, which was shown in Turkey as well. Susan Sarandon
won an Oscar award for her role in the film, and Sean Penn was also
nominated for one; the film swept the prizes in the direction,
screenplay, and music categories.
Sean Penn immortalized the character he played, that of a convict
condemned to death, a “dead man walking.” He had not yet expired on
the short path from his cell to the electric chair, but he was
considered a “walking corpse.” He was on a path of no return. The
expression “Dead Man Walking” is a term used in English for the
situation in which the convict walks the short distance to his death.
Or else such an expression came about with that film. As for the “Dead
Man Walking” in our region, it is Bashar al-Asad. Frederic Hof, the
Special Middle East Coordinator of the US State Department, used this
expression in his regard. In providing information to the Congress
regarding the situation in Syria on Wednesday, he compared Bashar and
his regime to a “Dead Man Walking.” In other words, he is finished. In
Hof’s view, the Damascus regime is like a convict being taken from his
cell to the electric chair. It has not yet given up the ghost. But it
is walking step by step towards its end.
Despite this, while saying that “change is definitely coming to
Syria,” he also said that “it is difficult to calculate how much time
they have left.” When a neighbour comes from Turkey and looks at Syria
from Lebanon, which is so inextricably interrelated with it, it
becomes even more difficult to estimate this time period. Syria has
the absolute support of Iran. It retains its influence in Lebanon,
particularly via Hizballah. Russia, and to a lesser degree China, and
also India, are preventing the “massacre spread out over time” from
coming to the UN Security Council. And it also has Baghdad behind it.
In speaking of Baghdad, this means Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Having gotten Tehran behind him and engaging in Shi’ite sectarianism,
and fearing at the same time that for power in Syria to pass into the
hands of the Sunnis that comprise over 70 per cent of the population
there would have negative effects on Iraq, he is providing support to
the Damascus regime. One of the points in which sanctions implemented
against Syria will not function is Iraq. The Damascus regime can
expand its breathing space in its west to the sea via its own shore
and via Lebanon, and in its ea st to Iran and the Gulf via the Baghdad
regime. In other words, it has enough breathing space not to give up
easily.
The “axis” in question is beginning to turn into an anti-Turkey
chorus. Al-Maliki, on his Washington visit, responded to a question he
was asked regarding “Iranian influence” by replying along the lines,
while there was no ostensible reason for it, that “I fear not Iranian
influence over Iraq or threats to the country, but rather Turkish
interference.” Just in that same timeframe, Iran’s former Foreign
Minister, Supreme Leader Khamenei’s adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, made a
statement with reference to the AKP [Justice and Development Party]
government that “Turkey’s approach to Islam is not correct, and does
not fit the Arab world.” Iran is naturally unhappy with the stance
that Turkey has taken against the regime in Syria. They are either
expressing this in their own way or are having their allies express it
even more harshly.
It is as if a Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus axis is forming in the south in
the face of Turkey’s “pro-change” position regarding the “Arab Spring”
or the “Arab Revolution,” which “favours the people” against the
“bloody police regimes.” As for Lebanon, it is like a “debate hall”
for this international and regional rivalry and struggle. There are a
good many players here such as to bring Turkey into question in
various ways.
When it was noted to me in the television interview that Turkey is
seeking to spread its influence in the region and that it is
struggling against Iran in this regard, I said that it is true that
Turkey, for the past few years, has influenced the region to a degree
that had not previously been the case, but that it has been doing this
not via vehicles like “military force, assassinations, messages
delivered with explosives, and plots” but by setting out on the basis
of common cultural foundations, and through trade, the economy,
diplomacy, and politics. When I voiced the words “ikhtiyalat”
[deception], “infijarat” [explosives], “mutafajjirat” [detonations],
and “mu’amarat” [conspiracies], I was certain that no one would be
able to understand better than the Lebanese to what and to whom I was
referring. Indeed, the hostess, who had been trying to pressure me
with questions, began to smile. Two hours later, in the middle of
Beirut, a uniformed airport official called to me by my first name.
When I turned and tried to figure out where we had met -I did not in
fact know him -he said: “I saw you on television; it was good” and
then walked off.
Turkey is in a paradoxical situation. If [Prime Minister Recep] Tayyip
Erdogan is unable to turn the sympathy, prestige, and influence that
he won in the Middle East with “talk” in recent years into “action” in
terms of Syria, he could begin to “come down from the heights.” It is
possible to pick up signs of this in Lebanon.
It is evident that Bashar is not going to be able to suppress the
popular movement in Syria. On average, 30 to 40 people are dying per
day. The security forces are losing people as well. But it is also
clear that the Syrian opposition, with its current strength -in the
military sense -is not going to be able to overturn the regime. It is
a sort of stalemate situation.
The country is either going to move towards a sectarian civil war,
which brings with it the potential for geographic fragmentation, or
else the conditions for a foreign military intervention that will
somehow get Bashar to “stop” will begin to come about.
I said that Turkey is definitely against the first of these, and that
it would be against its interests. I also underscored that it looks
coolly on the second alternative. A position of this sort, however,
which would inevitably be based on “inaction,” cannot be sustained
indefinitely merely via statements and declarations. Could there not
be a shift towards Bashar again? Such a question arises.
“No, because Bashar has shed a great deal of blood. A government in
Turkey that is obliged to rely on the people can no longer, with so
much of the Syrian people’s blood being shed, return to the point of
supporting this regime.” The hostess, not satisfied with the response,
interjected: “Can it be credible for Turkey to suddenly act on the
basis of the principle of human rights?” She said: “It has not even
recognized most Kurdish rights. Additionally, its stance on the
Armenian Genocide of 1915 is well known.”
I answered by saying: “You are right. But I never told you that Turkey
was perfect. Regarding these things you are saying, there is at least
a debate and struggle underway in Turkey.” Erdogan and [Foreign
Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu, while coming out against bloodshed and
noting the geographical, historical, and cultural closeness between
the two peoples, had made statements along the lines of “Syria is an
internal matter for us.” It is clear that Turkey, and particularly the
more it shows itself in the region during such a historical period, is
also becoming more transparent internally.
[translated from Turkish]