Turkey: America's unacknowledged problem
Turkey is a NATO ally,
and U.S. President Barack Obama has called Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan his best friend. But Erdogan-led Turkey does not behave
as an ally or a friend of the U.S. This is not a new development.
Erdogan and his
Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), have ruled
Turkey since 2002. Erdogan's Turkey has gradually distanced itself from
the West, adopting domestic and foreign policies fueled by Ottoman and
Islamist impulses.
Turkey has been on the
road to an authoritarian regime for several years. Infringements on
human rights have gradually increased. In truth, Turkey has never had a
political system with checks and balances able to constrain attempts to
consolidate power around one politician. In recent years, Erdogan has
weakened further the few constitutional constraints against
"Putinization" of the Turkish political system.
The longer Erdogan
rules, the more power-hungry he seems. His authoritarian personality
becomes clearer every day. The press is hardly free. Erdogan arrests
even Islamist journalists who are critical of his policies. His party
has infiltrated the judicial system and the police. Foci of power, such
as the bureaucracy, the banking system, industrial associations and
trade unions, have been mostly co-opted by the AKP. Opposition
political parties are largely discredited. The military, once active in
politics as the defender of the Kemalist secular tradition, has been
successfully sidelined.
From a realpolitik
perspective, the domestic political developments, deplorable as they
may be in Turkey, could be ignored by the democratic West as long as
Ankara continues to be a useful ally. Unfortunately, Turkey no longer
qualifies as a trusted ally.
The
most recent examples of nefarious Turkish behavior are its support of
Islamic State and Hamas. Turkey is playing a double game on the issue
of Islamic State. It pretends to cooperate with the U.S. policy in the
attempt to contain radical Islam, but actually Turkey supports the
radical group. It allows passage of volunteers through Turkish territory
to join Islamic State in Iraq. The group gets logistical support via
Turkey, and sends its wounded militants for treatment in Turkey.
Turkish military forces stood idly by the besieged city of Kobani, just
across the Turkish border, while the Islamists killed Kurdish fighters.
Finally, Turkey denies the American air force access to Turkish bases,
forcing the U.S. to use faraway bases when attacking Islamic State
targets.
Turkey is also openly
supporting another radical Islamist organization, Hamas. Despite the
fact that the West regards Hamas a terrorist organization, Ankara
regularly hosts Hamas representatives to meet the highest Turkish
dignitaries. Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has a rabid
anti-American position. Moreover, Salah al-Aruri, a senior Hamas
operative, operates out of Istanbul. Recently, the Turkish branch of
Hamas was involved in a series of attempts to carry out terrorist
attacks against Israel, and in orchestrating a coup against the current
leadership of the Palestinian Authority.
Such behavior should
not surprise policy makers in Washington. In 2003, Ankara denied the
request from Washington to open its territory so that the U.S. military
could attack Saddam Hussein's forces from two separate fronts.
AKP-ruled Ankara also
defied American preferences on Syria, a country allied with radical
Iran and on the American list of states supporting terrorism. In January
2004, Bashar Assad became the first Syrian president ever to visit
Turkey. In April 2009, the two states conducted their first ever joint
military exercise. No other NATO member had such close relations with
the authoritarian regime in Damascus, which has been closely allied
with Iran for several decades.
Turkey further deviated
from the Western consensus in 2008 by hosting Sudanese President Omar
Hassan al-Bashir twice. Bashir, who was charged with war crimes and
genocide in Darfur, presided over an Islamist regime.
Turkey even welcomed
the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for
a visit in August 2008. No Western country has issued such an
invitation to the Iranian leader. Additionally, Erdogan congratulated
Ahmadinejad immediately after his re-election in June 2009. When it
comes to Iran's nuclear threat, Ankara, unlike its NATO allies, has
refused to adopt the U.S. stance on harsher sanctions, fearing in part
the economic consequences of such steps. In June 2010, Turkey voted at
the U.N. Security Council against a U.S.-sponsored resolution meant to
impose a new round of sanctions on Iran.
Turkey also has
consistently defied advice from Washington to tone down its anti-Israel
statements and mend relations with an important American ally. All
American efforts in this direction have failed.
There is also a clear
divergence between the U.S. and Turkey on important global issues such
as Russia and China. For example, U.S. wanted to send ships into the
Black Sea via the Bosporus Strait during the Georgia war in August
2008. Turkey flatly denied several such requests on the pretext that
the military vessels were too large. Moreover, Turkey proposed the
creation of a regional security framework involving Turkey, Russia,
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan that left out a NATO role. More
blatantly, Turkey has failed to participate in the Western economic
sanctions imposed on Russia during the recent Ukraine crisis.
Dissonance exists also
with regards to China. While the U.S. fears the rise of China, Turkey
sees this country as a potential economic partner and not a problem. It
held military exercises with China. Ankara even considered purchasing
anti-aircraft systems from Beijing, an incredibly brazen position for a
NATO member.
It is not clear why
Washington puts up with such Turkish behavior. The Obama administration
seems to be unable to call a spade a spade. It refuses to acknowledge
that Turkey is a Trojan horse in NATO, and that Ankara undermines
American interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Efraim Inbar is director of the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, a professor of political
studies at Bar-Ilan University, and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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