{"id":18134,"date":"2012-04-19T16:06:33","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T12:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=18134"},"modified":"2012-04-20T16:13:39","modified_gmt":"2012-04-20T12:13:39","slug":"the-rise-and-rise-of-turkey-problems-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/showcase\/the-rise-and-rise-of-turkey-problems-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise and Rise of Turkey: Problems Ahead?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s besting Iran in the contest for the hearts and minds of advocates of change \u00a0in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa is proving to be both a\u00a0blessing and a curse. With tension mounting over Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions and the<\/p>\n

perceived window of opportunity for a military strike closing, Turkey faces increased challenges and the threat of a proxy war with Syria and the Islamic republic. This is\u00a0compounded by the fact that the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia need Turkey in their
\neffort to further corner the regime in Syria and to isolate Iran, but want to prevent a\u00a0shift in regional power away from the kingdom and the Israeli state to Ankara —\u00a0increasingly held up as the model of an economically successful, Islamist-led democracy.<\/p>\n

A concerted effort by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia to further isolate Iran has laid\u00a0bare\u00a0the challenges facing Turkey against the backdrop of an ever more severe\u00a0sanctions\u00a0regime, increased debate regarding a military strike to prevent the Islamic\u00a0republic from\u00a0developing a nuclear weapon and popular revolts sweeping the Middle\u00a0East and North\u00a0Africa.<\/p>\n

The challenges are evident in the anti-Iranian campaign\u2019s little noticed subtext,\u00a0with the\u00a0US,\u00a0Saudi Arabia and Israel seeking to prevent a shift of power in the\u00a0region from Israel\u00a0and the\u00a0Gulf to Turkey and Iran. All three see benefit in Turkey\u2019s\u00a0rising star as a result\u00a0of\u00a0its emotional support for Palestine, its deteriorating relations\u00a0with its erstwhile ally\u00a0Israel,\u00a0its perceived\u00a0support for the Arab revolt, an impressive\u00a0economic performance\u00a0and the\u00a0fact that it is ruled\u00a0by an elected Islamist government.<\/p>\n

(The Justice and\u00a0Development Party\u00a0(AK Party), despite\u00a0its Islamist origins and appeal\u00a0as well as a\u00a0continued widespread\u00a0perception of the party as\u00a0Islamist, rejects this label,\u00a0arguing that\u00a0it has put its Islamist past\u00a0behind it.) However, the trio\u00a0does not want\u00a0Turkey\u2019s\u00a0ascendance\u00a0to be at the expense of\u00a0either the kingdom or the Jewish\u00a0state.<\/p>\n

Turkey has so far largely been shielded from criticism that it, like the US, is seeking\u00a0to\u00a0maintain the status quo in the Gulf and has failed to match words with deeds in its\u00a0condemnation\u00a0of the Syrian regime\u2019s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters,
\none which has already\u00a0cost more than 5,000 lives. The veil shrouding contradictions in\u00a0Turkish\u00a0— as well as US, Israeli\u00a0and Saudi — policy could well soon be lifted, with Syria\u00a0emerging as a\u00a0crucial flashpoint in the mushrooming power struggle in the Middle \\\u00a0East \\\u00a0and North Africa\u00a0(MENA). Increasingly it is\u00a0looking like a matter of when rather\u00a0than if the\u00a0wave of protests truly spreads to\u00a0the energy-rich\u00a0Gulf countries, Saudi\u00a0Arabia first and\u00a0foremost among them.<\/p>\n

The gradual morphing of the 11-month old Syrian protests into a civil war, much as\u00a0was\u00a0the\u00a0case in Libya, leaves Turkey stuck between a rock and a hard place. With\u00a0little\u00a0appetite for\u00a0military intervention despite its support of the revolt and warnings
\nthat there\u00a0would be\u00a0consequences if Syria\u2019s President Bashar al-Assad failed to\u00a0engage with his\u00a0detractors and\u00a0initiate political and economic reform, Turkey risks\u00a0being perceived as a\u00a0paper tiger. Turkish\u00a0Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu insisted\u00a0Turkey was \u201cready for all\u00a0possible scenarios\u201d but\u00a0had as yet not considered military\u00a0intervention and didn\u2019t want to.\u00a0Similarly, he suggested that\u00a0Turkey could create a\u00a0military buffer zone within Syria,\u00a0should\u00a0tens of thousands of Syrians\u00a0seek refuge in\u00a0Turkey, all the while insisting that such\u00a0a zone\u00a0was \u201cnot on the agenda.\u201d This\u00a0reluctance to put its money where its mouth is from\u00a0Turkey\u00a0is not a stance it is likely\u00a0to be able\u00a0to maintain for much longer, with the failure of\u00a0Arab\u00a0League monitors in\u00a0Syria, tightening\u00a0economic sanctions and an Arab\u00a0League-backed\u00a0move to get UN\u00a0Security Council endorsement\u00a0of its call for al-Assad to\u00a0step down.<\/p>\n

Turkey could end up in the same boat as the US, which has seen its influence and\u00a0credibility\u00a0in MENA wane because of its inability to match its words with deeds. Despite\u00a0its denunciations\u00a0of al-Assad, Turkey has — like the US — remained silent on the need\u00a0for\u00a0change in the Gulf.Like the US it has a vested interest in ensuring that the revolt\u00a0does not\u00a0hit the region, Saudi\u00a0Arabia in particular, with full force.<\/p>\n

Consequently, the struggle of US President Barack Obama is one Turkey may well face.\u00a0The\u00a0US administration is finding it difficult to wield its influence in a region with a more\u00a0assertive Arab public opinion, one demanding that Washington make good on its\u00a0promises\u00a0in terms of both the revolution and declared support for an independent\u00a0Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s inability to do so, particularly in an election year, means that the US is finding\u00a0it\u00a0increasingly hard to perform its past balancing of diametrically opposed demands and\u00a0expectations from its allies in the Middle East and North Africa. US support for the\u00a0toppling\u00a0of\u00a0leaders like Egypt\u2019s Gen. Hosni Mubarak has damaged its ties to key autocratic\u00a0allies\u00a0like\u00a0Saudi Arabia, while the need to be seen to be make real steps in furthering\u00a0Palestinian independence threatens to put it on a collision course with Israel.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s potential policy dilemma is complicated by continued fallout from the 2010\u00a0killing\u00a0by\u00a0Israeli Special Forces of nine Turkish nationals aboard the Mavi Marmara,\u00a0a Turkish aid\u00a0ship\u00a0seeking to run Israel\u2019s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.\u00a0Israel imposed its\u00a0naval blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory in\u00a0June 2007, with Tel\u00a0Aviv\u00a0saying\u00a0it was necessary to prevent weapons being supplied to\u00a0militants in the strip.\u00a0Critics of\u00a0the sea\u00a0and land blockade describe it as collective\u00a0punishment of Gaza\u2019s 1.5\u00a0million\u00a0inhabitants.<\/p>\n

Turkey has painted itself into a corner with its refusal to reverse the downgrading of\u00a0diplomatic relations with Israel to the level of second secretary and the suspension of\u00a0all\u00a0military\u00a0cooperation. Ankara is adamant that these measures will continue as long
\nas Israel\u00a0fails to\u00a0apologize or offer compensation for the death of the Turkish activists,\u00a0and maintains\u00a0its blockade\u00a0of Gaza. Short term, Turkey\u2019s attitude has garnered it\u00a0popular support across\u00a0the Arab and\u00a0Muslim world, but longer term it has complicated
\nTurkey\u2019s efforts to shield\u00a0itself\u00a0from being drawn\u00a0into the region\u2019s multiple conflicts.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s stance on Israel means it has little (if any) ability to bring Israel and Iran back\u00a0from\u00a0the\u00a0brink of a military confrontation at a time that escalating tension between the\u00a0two\u00a0countries\u00a0threatens to impair Turkey\u2019s efforts to project itself as a regional Islamic,\u00a0democratic, economic\u00a0and military power.<\/p>\n

While Turkish defense and military officials have little doubt that Israel would prevail\u00a0in a\u00a0military confrontation with Iran, even if it is unlikely to fully destroy Iran\u2019s\u00a0decentralized and\u00a0heavily\u00a0fortified nuclear facilities, they worry that likely Iranian\u00a0retaliatory attacks against\u00a0Israel, as well\u00a0as against US targets in the Gulf and\u00a0Afghanistan, would escalate\u00a0confrontation with Iran. As a\u00a0result, members of Prime\u00a0Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an\u2019s\u00a0ruling AK Party have criticized him for responding\u00a0emotionally to Israeli policies. While they\u00a0remain critical of Tel Aviv, they have urged\u00a0Erdo?an to repair relations with Israel in a bid to\u00a0ensure that Turkey can truly act as a bridge\u00a0across the West-East divide as well as MENA\u2019s\u00a0fault lines. The key to Turkey\u2019s\u00a0role may indeed\u00a0lie partially in Israel, but Turkey has only a\u00a0limited window of opportunity\u00a0to keep the door open\u00a0as Western nations and Israel\u00a0increasingly rattle their sabers.<\/p>\n

In the event of a pre-emptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, any effort by\u00a0Ankara to\u00a0remain\u00a0on the sidelines risks Turkey\u2019s being portrayed in Tel Aviv and\u00a0Washington as having\u00a0not only\u00a0turned on Israel — often a yardstick in the West\u00a0for assessing Turkish foreign policy —\u00a0but also\u00a0sided with the enemy. Already\u00a0Tehran eyes Ankara\u2019s condemnation of al-Assad, as\u00a0well as its mounting popularity\u00a0in a swath of land stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to\u00a0the Gulf,\u00a0with suspicion.<\/p>\n

Tehran views these developments as a US-Saudi conspiracy designed\u00a0to prevent\u00a0the\u00a0Islamic Revolution of over 30 years ago getting the credit it deserves as an\u00a0inspiration\u00a0for the Arab revolt and to stymie the appeal of the Islamic republic for states in the\u00a0turbulent region.<\/p>\n

In a series of messages, Iranian leaders warned Turkey that Turkish support for an\u00a0international campaign against Syria, the Islamic republic\u2019s foremost Arab ally, and\u00a0Syrian\u00a0opposition groups\u00a0would constitute a red line — warnings Turkey has so far\u00a0ignored. Without\u00a0Syria, Iran would be\u00a0left only with Iraq as its foremost interlocutor in\u00a0the Arab world. Iraq lacks\u00a0Syria\u2019s relationship with\u00a0groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon\u00a0and Hamas in Palestine and is\u00a0unlikely to be as compliant and strategic a friend as\u00a0Syria is. Turkey compounded Iran\u2019s\u00a0narrowing options by not only setting its warnings\u00a0aside but going a step further with its\u00a0agreement to install on Turkish soil a NATO\u00a0radar system believed to constitute a shield\u00a0against Iranian ballistic missiles. In recent\u00a0weeks, it has also started looking at reducing its dependence on imports of Iranian oil\u00a0as Western powers crack\u00a0down on Iran\u2019s oil sales and the Islamic republic threatens to\u00a0retaliate by closing the Strait of\u00a0Hormuz. Turkey sought to soften the blow by\u00a0suggesting that majority state-owned\u00a0Halkbank\u00a0would continue to handle Iranian oil\u00a0payments as long as that does not run afoul of the\u00a0sanctions regime.<\/p>\n

Turkish officials and analysts fear that mounting tension with Iran could produce a\u00a0covert\u00a0proxy\u00a0war, with Iran and Syria supporting the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK),\u00a0which has\u00a0stepped up attacks on Turkish military targets in the southeast of the country.\u00a0Syria and Iran\u00a0have already\u00a0halted their security cooperation with Turkey with regard to\u00a0the Kurds.\u00a0Conservative Iranian columnists have denounced Erdo?an\u2019s government in\u00a0recent months\u00a0as\u00a0a Sunni Muslim\u00a0dictatorship that does not represent half the country\u2019s population — a\u00a0reference\u00a0to Turkey\u2019 large Kurdish and Alevi communities. They warned\u00a0that Turkey\u2019s\u00a0minorities\u00a0constituted its Achilles\u2019 heel and a potentially destabilizing factor.<\/p>\n

In a strange twist, Iranian soccer, pockmarked by nationalist and environmental protests\u00a0in\u00a0Iran\u2019s\u00a0East Azerbaijan Province, offers a perspective of how Turkey could respond in\u00a0a proxy\u00a0war with\u00a0Syria and Iran — one using ethnic minorities as pawns. The soccer protests in the\u00a0Bagh Shomal\u00a0and Yadegar-e-Emam stadiums in Tabriz, the capital of the\u00a0province, signal a\u00a0rise in Azeri nationalism. This trend would enable Turkey to exploit\u00a0secessionist sentiments\u00a0among its Turkic brethren in the predominantly Azeri East Azerbaijan Province, which borders\u00a0the Turkic former\u00a0Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, a\u00a0close Turkish ally.<\/p>\n

In the latest soccer incident in Tabriz, fans of Tabriz soccer club Tractor Sazi Tabriz F.C.\u00a0—\u00a0a\u00a0focus of Iranian Azerbaijan\u2019s identity politics owned by the state-run Iran Tractor\u00a0Manufacturing\u00a0Co. (ITMCO) — wore shirts bearing Turkey and Azerbaijan\u2019s flags and\u00a0raised the latter emblem\u00a0during a match against Fajr-e Sepasi F.C. of Shiraz. \u201c[The]\u00a0Iranian regime\u00a0will [\u2026] charge them\u00a0with separatism and even arrest them. The main\u00a0[Iranian concern] is that\u00a0the idea of Turkism is strengthening in South Azerbaijan,\u201d\u00a0Azeri news website news.az quoted\u00a0Saftar Rahimli, a\u00a0member\u00a0of the board of the World\u00a0Azerbaijanis Congress, as saying.\u00a0Rahimli\u00a0was referring to the East Azerbaijan Province\u00a0by its nationalist Azeri name.<\/p>\n

A conservative, pro-Iranian website, Raja News, confirmed the incident in November,\u00a0charging\u00a0that the soccer fans had employed \u201cseparatist symbols\u201d and shouted separatist\u00a0slogans during\u00a0the match. Raja News accused the fans of promoting \u201cpan-Turkish\u201d and \u201cdeviant\u201d objectives. It\u00a0urged authorities to ban nationalist fans from entering soccer\u00a0stadiums.<\/p>\n

The protests during the match against the Shiraz-based club followed similar protests in\u00a0September and October sparked by the Iranian parliament\u2019s refusal to fund efforts to save\u00a0the threatened Lake Orumiyeh and by anti-government protests in Tehran\u2019s Azadi Stadium.\u00a0The\u00a0latter occurred both during last month\u2019s 2014 World Cup qualifier against Bahrain and\u00a0at a\u00a0ceremony in May following the death of Nasser Hejazi, an internationally acclaimed\u00a0Iranian\u00a0defender and outspoken critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.<\/p>\n

A decision by security forces in early October to bar fans\u2019 entry into the stadium during a\u00a0match against Tehran\u2019s Esteghlal sent thousands into the streets of Tabriz shouting\u00a0\u201cAzerbaijan\u00a0is united!\u201d and \u201cLong live united Azerbaijan with its capital in Tabriz!\u201d Scores were\u00a0injured as\u00a0security forces tried to break up the protest. Cars honking their horns\u00a0choked traffic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever Tractor goes, fans of the opposing club chant insulting slogans. They imitate the\u00a0sound of donkeys, because Azerbaijanis are historically derided as stupid and stubborn.\u00a0I\u00a0remember incidents going back to the time that I was a teenager,\u201d said a long standing\u00a0observer\u00a0of Iranian soccer.<\/p>\n

Mounting Iran-focused tension serves, at least in the case of Israel and Saudi Arabia,\u00a0multiple purposes that go beyond the nuclear threat. It puts Turkey on the spot and shifts\u00a0attention away\u00a0from the wave of revolts sweeping MENA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JAMES M. DORSEY: Held up as a model of a modern Islamic state Turkey faces some formidable difficulties <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":18165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,692,82,60,482,265],"tags":[8634,24,2009,3037,3480,691,2398,1284,18303,1103,513,2453,2399,18300,18342,278,227,2734,2323,18306,4574,18321,4228,18311,3463,6879,18309,18332,2860,191,12580,18324,3181,406,11433,1747,1808,2204,3038,18275,2401,318,1102,18330,2744,12596,2904,18325,2454,18302,6760,2020],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}