The eruption of the Syrian conflict early
in 2011 heralded the demise of
What Sreeram Chaulia, the Dean of the
Jindal School of International Affairs in India
But in a more in-depth insight it is
unfolding as neo-Ottomanism that is pragmatically using “Islamization,” both of
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s legacy internally and Turkey ’s foreign policy regionally, as a tool to
revive the Ottoman Empire that once was.
Invoking his country’s
former imperial grandeur, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotoglu had written: “As in
the sixteenth century … we will once again make the Balkans, the Caucasus, and
the Middle East, together with Turkey
Quoted by Hillel Fradkin and Lewis Libby,
writing in last March/April edition of www.worldaffairsjournal.org,
the goal of Erdogan’s AKP ruling party for 2023,
as proclaimed by its recent Fourth General Congress, is: “A great nation, a great power.” Erdogan urged the youth
of Turkey to look not only
to 2023, but to 2071 as well when Turkey
“2071 will mark one
thousand years since the Battle of Manzikert,” when the Seljuk Turks defeated the
Byzantine Empire and heralded the advent of
the Ottoman one, according to Fradkin and Libby.
Some six months ago,
Davotoglu felt so confident and optimistic to assess that “it was now finally
possible to revise the order imposed” by the British – French Sykes-Picot
Agreement of 1916 to divide the Arab legacy of the Ottoman
Empire between them.
Davotoglu knows very well
that Pan-Arabs have been ever since struggling unsuccessfully so far to unite
as a nation and discard the legacy of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but not to recur to
the Ottoman status quo ante, but he knows as well that Islamist political
movements like the Muslim Brotherhood International (MBI) and the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation)
were originally founded in Egypt and Palestine respectively in response to the
collapse of the Ottoman Islamic caliphate.
However, Erdogan’s Islamist credentials
cannot be excluded as simply a sham; his background, his practices in office
since 2002 as well as his regional policies since the eruption of the Syrian
conflict less than three years ago all reveal that he does believe in his
version of Islam per se as the right tool to pursue his Ottoman not so-“hidden
agenda.”
Erdogan obviously is seeking to recruit
Muslims as merely “soldiers” who will fight not for Islam per se, but for his
neo-Ottomanism ambitions. Early enough in December 1997,
he was
given a 10-month prison sentence for voicing a poem that read: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our
bayonets and the faithful our soldiers;” the poem was considered a violation of Kemalism by the
secular judiciary.
Deceiving ‘Window of Opportunity ’
However, Erdogan’s Machiavellianism finds no contradiction
between his Islamist outreach and his promotion of the “Turkish model,” which
sells what is termed as the “moderate” Sunni Islam within the context of Ataturk’s
secular and liberal state as both an alternative to the conservative
tribal-religious states in the Arabian Peninsula and to the sectarian rival of
the conservative Shiite theocracy in Iran.
He perceived in the latest US withdrawal of focus from the Middle East
towards the Pacific Ocean a resulting regional
power vacuum providing him with an historic window of opportunity to fill the
perceived vacuum.
“Weakening of Europe and the US’ waning
influence in the Middle East” were seen by the leadership of Erdogan’s ruling
party “as a new chance to establish Turkey as an influential player in the
region,” Günter Seufert wrote in the
German Stiftung
Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) on last October 14.
The US
and Israel , in earnest to
recruit Turkey against Iran Turkey
could stand up to and sidestep the rising stars of the emerging Russian
international polar, the emerging Iranian regional polar and the traditional regional
players of Egypt and Saudi Arabia , let alone Iraq and Syria
For sure, his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood International (MBI) and
his thinly veiled Machiavellian logistical support of al-Qaeda – linked
terrorist organizations are not and will not be a counter balance.
He first focused his Arab
outreach on promoting the “Turkish
model,” especially during the early months of the so-called “Arab Spring,” as
the example he hoped will be followed by the revolting masses, which would have
positioned him in the place of the regional mentor and leader.
But while the eruption of the Syrian conflict compelled him
to reveal his Islamist “hidden
agenda” and his alliance with
the MBI, the removal of MBI last July from power in Egypt with all its
geopolitical weight, supported by the other regional Arab heavy weight of Saudi
Arabia, took him off guard and dispelled his ambitions for regional leadership,
but more importantly revealed more his neo-Ottoman “hidden agenda” and pushed him
to drop all the secular
and liberal pretensions of his “Turkish model” rhetoric.
‘Arab Idol’ No More
Erdogan and his foreign policy engineer Davotoglu
tried as well to exploit the Arab and Muslim adoption of the Palestine Question
as the central item on their foreign policy agendas.
Since Erdogan’s encounter with the
Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Economic Summit in Davos in January 2009,
the Israeli attack on the Turkish humanitarian
aid boat to Gaza, Mavi Marmara, the next year and Turkey’s courting of
the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” the de facto rulers of the Israeli
besieged Palestinian Gaza Strip, at the same time Gaza was targeted by the
Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 then
targeted again in the Israeli Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, Turkey’s
premier became the Arab idol who was invited to attend Arab Leage summit and
ministerial meetings.
However, in interviews with ResearchTurkey, CNN Turk and other media outlets, Abdullatif Sener, a founder of Erdogan’s AKP party who served as
deputy prime minister and minister of finance in successive AKP governments for
about seven years before he broke out with Erdogan in 2008, highlighted
Erdogan’s Machiavellianism and questioned the sincerity and credibility of
his Islamic, Palestinian and Arab public posturing.
“Erdogan acts without considering religion
even at some basic issues but he hands down sharp religious messages … I
consider the AK Party not as an Islamic party but as a party which collect
votes by using Islamic discourses,” Sener said, adding that, “the role in Middle East was assigned to
him” and
“the strongest
logistic support” to Islamists who have “been carrying out terrorist
activities” in Syria “is provided by Turkey” of Erdogan.
In an interview with CNN Turk, Sener
dropped a bombshell when he pointed out that the AKP’s spat with Israel Israel
many tenders were granted to Israeli companies and Turkey
has agreed to grant partner status to Israel
in NATO: “If the concern of the AKP is to confront Israel
then why do they serve to the benefit of Israel Malatya
are there to protect Israel against
Iran
Sener argued that the biggest winner of the
collapse of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad would be Israel because it will weaken Lebanon ’s Hizbullah and Iran , yet Erdogan’s Turkey
is the most ardent supporter of a regime change in Syria
Erdogan’s Syrian policy was the death knell to his strategy of “Zero Problems with
Neighbors;” the bloody terrorist
swamp of the Syrian conflict has drowned it in its quicksand.
Liz Sly’s story in the Washington Post on
this November 17 highlighted how his Syrian policies “have gone awry” and
counterproductive by “putting al-Qaeda on NATO’s (Turkish) borders for the
first time.”
With his MBI alliance, he alienated Egypt , Saudi
Arabia and the UAE, in addition to the other Arab heavy
weights of Syria , Iraq and Algeria
According
to Günter
Seufert ,
Turkey ’s overall foreign
policy, not only with regards to Syria
Backpedaling too late
Now
it seems Erdogan’s “Turkey Iran and
“Washington ’s request to end support for
radical groups in Syria
“Reconnecting” with Iran and its Iraqi
ruling sectarian brethren will alienate further the Saudis who could not
tolerate similar reconnection by their historical and strategic US ally and who
were already furious over Erdogan’s alliance with the Qatari financed and US
sponsored Muslim Brotherhood and did not hesitate to publicly risk a rift with
their US ally over the removal of the MBI from power in Egypt five months ago.
Within this context came Davotoglu’s recent visit to Baghdad ,
which “highlighted the need for great cooperation between Turkey and Iraq Karbala
Within the same
“backpedaling” context came Erdogan’s playing the host last week to the
president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, not in Ankara , but in Diyarbakir ,
which Turkish Kurds cherish as their capital in the same way Iraqi Kurds
cherish Kirkuk
However,
on the same day of Barzani’s visit Erdogan ruled out the possibility of granting
Turkish Kurds their universal right of self-determination when he announced “Islamic
brotherhood” as the solution for the Kurdish ethnic conflict in Turkey
Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism
charged by his Islamist sectarian ideology as a tool has backfired to alienate
both Sunni and Shiite regional environment, the Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian,
Emirati, Saudi and Lebanese Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Israelis and Iranians as
well as Turkish and regional liberals and secularists. His foreign policy is in
shambles with a heavy economic price as shown by the recent 13.2% devaluation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar.
“Backpedaling”
might be too late to get Erdogan and his party through the upcoming local
elections next March and the presidential elections which will follow in August
next year.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab
journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian
territories. nassernicola@ymail.com
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