Triumph of the Turks
Turkey is the surprising beneficiary of U.S. misadventures in the Middle
East.
Newsweek
Published Nov 28, 2009
>From the magazine issue dated Dec 7, 2009
By Owen Matthews and Christopher Dickey | NEWSWEEK
Archibald Wavell himself could scarcely have imagined how horribly accurate
his prediction would prove to be. Having watched in dismay as the victorious
European powers carved up the Ottoman Empire after World War I?"the war to
end war"?the British officer commented that they had instead created "a
peace to end peace." And sure enough, the decades since have spawned a
succession of colonial misrule, coups, revolutions, and an epidemic of
jihadist violence. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 could be viewed as
a last-ditch attempt by the world’s sole remaining superpower to impose
order on the region. Instead, the net result was to create a power vacuum,
leaving Iraq too weak to counterbalance its neighbors and threatening to
destabilize the whole map.
Turkey, the old seat of Ottoman power, did its best to stay out of that
fight, refusing even to let U.S. forces cross Turkish soil for the 2003
invasion. Still, it’s the Turks?not the Iranians, as many observers
claim?who are now emerging as the war’s real winners. In economic terms
Turkey is running neck and neck with Iran as Iraq’s biggest trading partner,
even as most U.S. businesses sit helplessly on the sidelines. And in terms
of regional influence, Turkey has no rival. The country’s stern-faced prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is working to consolidate that strength as
he asserts Turkey’s independence in a part of the world long dominated by
America. Next week he’s in Washington to meet with President Obama, but only
a few weeks ago he stood shoulder to shoulder with his "good friend" Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad in Tehran and defended Iran’s nuclear program.
That’s only one example of the behavior that’s disturbing many of Turkey’s
longtime NATO partners. Among the biggest worries has been the souring of
ties with Israel, once Turkey’s close ally, over the military offensive in
Gaza earlier this year that human-rights groups say killed more than 1,400
Palestinians. Erdogan walked out of the World Economic Forum in protest over
the deaths, and recently scrapped a decade-old deal allowing the Israeli Air
Force to train over Turkish territory. At the same time, the Turkish prime
minister has repeatedly supported Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir,
claiming he couldn’t possibly be guilty of genocide in Darfur because he’s a
"good Muslim." Right now there are "more points of disagreement than of
agreement" between Washington and Ankara, says Philip Gordon, Obama’s point
man on Turkey at the State Department.
What scares Washington most is the suspicion that Ankara’s new attitude may
be driven less by the practical pursuit of Turkey’s national interest than
by thinly concealed Islamist ideology. Erdogan has always denied mixing
religion and politics, but his ruling Justice and Development Party (known
by its Turkish initials, AKP) has been investigated repeatedly by Turkey’s
top courts on charges of undermining Turkey’s constitutional commitment to a
strictly secular state. But official policy notwithstanding, Turkish
attitudes toward Europe have displayed a marked cooling over the past five
years, and a corresponding rise in hostility toward Western institutions
like the International Monetary Fund. "No one in the government has made any
attempt to reverse rampant anti-Americanism in Turkey," says Kemal Köprülü
of the independent ARI think tank. "The government cannot admit it, but most
decision making in foreign and domestic policy simply doesn’t take Western
values into account."
On the other hand, Turks could be excused for thinking that Western decision
makers don’t always lose sleep over Turkish interests. During the Cold War,
Washington did anything necessary to stabilize the region and keep the
Kremlin from gaining ground, often backing nominally pro-Western despots
like the Shah of Iran and the Turkish generals who seized power from
civilian governments three times in as many decades. The result was a
disaster for America; it ended up with unreliable allies who were hated by
their own people. In Turkey, the cumulative anti-U.S. resentment peaked in
2003 when the Bush administration pressed Ankara to let U.S. forces invade
Iraq through Turkish territory?a plan that was derailed only at the last
moment by a parliamentary revolt.
That was the low point of Turkey’s relationship with the United States. But
it was also the start of Turkey’s rise to economic recovery and regional
influence, and the beginning of a new kind of relationship with Washington.
Indeed, Turkey’s new standing in the region has a chance of transforming the
country into something far more valuable to Washington than a subservient
tool or proxy. The Turks say they’re seeking to become what Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu calls a "partner to solve the region’s problems."
Whatever ambitions they may have harbored in earlier years, it’s only in
this decade?especially since 2002, when Erdogan and the AKP came to
power?that Turkey has had the economic and political strength, as well as
the military presence, to fill such a position.
Turkey’s economy has more than doubled in the past decade, converting the
nation from a backwater to a regional powerhouse. At the same time, its
financial focus has moved closer to home: Turkey now conducts more trade
with Russia, Iraq, and Iran than it does with the EU. Energy politics have
also favored the Turks, who find themselves astride no fewer than three
competing energy supply routes to Europe?from Russia, from the Caspian, and
from Iran. Years of reform and stability are paying off as well. Ankara is
on the verge of a historic deal with its Kurdish minority to end an
insurgency that has left 35,000 dead in the past quarter century. In turn,
Turkey is making peace with neighboring countries that once supported the
insurgents, such as Syria, Iran, and Armenia. The principle is simple, says
a senior Erdogan aide who’s not authorized to speak on the record: "We can’t
be prosperous if we live in a poor neighborhood. We can’t be secure if we
live in a violent one."
The advantages keep compounding. Thanks to judicious diplomacy and expanding
business ties throughout the region, Turkey is close to realizing what
Davutoglu calls his "zero-problems-with-neighbors policy." The new stance
has boosted Ankara’s influence even further; the Turks have become the
trouble-ridden region’s mediators of choice, called in to help with disputes
between the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, between Iraq and
Syria?even, before Erdogan’s outburst in Davos, between Israel and Syria.
Speaking at a recent press conference in Rome, Erdogan expressed little hope
that Turkey could do more for Syria and Israel. "[Prime Minister Benjamin]
Netanyahu doesn’t trust us," he said. "That’s his choice." But others in the
region still welcome Ankara’s assistance: Turkish diplomats are excellently
trained in conflict resolution.
That can scarcely be said for Iran. The Tehran regime remains paralyzed by
infighting and is far from loved in most of the Arab world. Saudis in
particular think back fondly to the Ottomans facing off against the
Persians, not to mention their feelings about Sunni Turks versus Shiite
Iranians. "Saudi Arabia is welcoming the new Turkish comeback," says Jamal
Khashoggi, editor of the influential Jidda daily Al-Watan. Not the least
important part of the charm is that Erdogan’s government has a distinctly
Islamic (and by Saudi lights, a distinctly Sunni Islamic) coloration?"even
if no Turkish officials would say that publicly, because it is politically
incorrect," says Khashoggi.
Still, the Turks believe they’re wise not to play an antagonistic role, and
officials in Ankara insist that Erdogan’s warm words to Ahmadinejad are no
more than atmospherics. At base, they say, Turkey shares the West’s goals
regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions; it’s just doing things in its own way.
"We have been dealing with [Iranians] for centuries," says the Erdogan aide.
"We show them the respect and friendship they crave. Would our being hostile
to Iran do anything to solve the problem of their nuclear program?" When the
International Atomic Energy Agency offered Iran the option of exporting most
of its low-enriched uranium in return for French-made fuel rods in October,
Erdogan offered Ahmadinejad a deal (apparently with Washington’s blessing):
Iran could store its uranium in Turkey rather than send it to a non-Muslim
country.
Tehran ultimately said no, but the effort demonstrated that Turkey is
prepared to do its part to keep the region peaceful and safe. Ankara insists
that its new friendships in the region are no threat to its longstanding
ties to the West. "NATO is Turkey’s strongest alliance, and integration with
Europe is the main objective of Turkish foreign policy," insists Davutoglu.
"But it doesn’t mean that because of these strong ties, we can ignore the
Middle East, we can ignore Asia, Central Asia, North Africa, or Africa." The
world has changed radically since the fall of the Ottomans, and Turkey is
unlikely ever to regain the imperial power it wielded for 350 years, from
Algiers to Budapest and Mecca. But as the world tries to move, at last,
beyond the 90-year-old peace that ended peace, no other country is better
positioned to pick up the pieces.
With Sami Kohen in Istanbul
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