Syrian Kurds (YPG) have committed war crimes

Syria Comment: Yes, Syrian Kurds Have Committed War Crimes – Roy Gutman Responds to Aymenn Tamimi

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Yes, Syrian Kurds Have Committed War Crimes – Roy Gutman Responds to Aymenn Tamimi Posted: 12 Feb 2017 08:52 PM PST Roy Gutman Responds to Aymenn al-Tamimi on “Have the Syrian Kurds Committed War Crimes?” By Roy Gutman – @Roy_Gutman For Syria Comment – February 12, 2017 Any journalist covering a controversial topic like alleged war crimes can expect a hostile response from the subject of the story, but it’s extremely rare in my experience for a specialist in the field to respond to a major journalistic investigation by challenging the reporter’s professional integrity. The report I wrote for the Nation on Feb. 7, the first of two parts, details the pattern of mass expulsions and political suppression by the ruling People’s Protection Units or YPG that has led to the flight of an enormous number of Arabs and Kurds from the region. Mr Tamimi’s statements that the “author’s bias for the Syrian opposition and Turkey has been evident for years” and that he “uncritically relays dubious testimony that a far-minded journalist would have subjected to appropriate scrutiny” reads like an attempt to discredit the entire content of my story. It calls for evidence. The only previous article Mr Tamimi cites is my report from October 2012 about a defector from the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK and his debriefing by Turkish security services. The story reveals where the volunteer had served and why he defected, and provides a first person account of the rigors of life in the PKK. I was the only foreign journalist to report from Semdinli the previous summer. I first heard about the defection from the governor, so I had no reason to doubt that it had occurred. Obtaining the debriefing was an example of journalistic enterprise. I am sure the PKK was embarrassed. But that doesn’t discredit the 2012 story. It certainly doesn’t discredit this latest one. Likewise, in May 2013, at the start of a cease-fire with the PKK, I trekked into the no-man’s-land in southern Turkey and interviewed PKK fighters who were withdrawing from Turkey, but very slowly. I was once again the only reporter who ventured into the wilderness area to find the departing forces. Of the 50 plus articles I wrote for McClatchy about the PKK, why does Mr Tamimi pick one from 2012, that anyone else would say is good journalism? Mr Tamimi also lumps my reportage together with that of Sy Hersh, whose April 2014 report on the chemical weapons attack outside Damascus was based on unnamed former intelligence officials. Yet my sources are named, their statements can be verified and they can be checked out. This disparaging reference by Mr Tamimi also reads like is an attempt to discredit the entire story in The Nation. My biggest single objection to his posting is that while Mr Tamimi says my article “does raise some valid points for discussion,” he doesn’t discuss them. So here they are: Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands, of Arabs were forced from their homes by the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the People’s Protection Units or YPG. Well over 500,000 Kurds fled rather than submit to YPG rule and abuses. The expulsion of the Arabs was carried out in close cooperation with the Assad regime, which sought to rid the region of political dissenters and joined the YPG in destroying villages. Brutal expulsions continued through mid 2016. The YPG and its political organization, the Democratic Union Party, don’t acknowledge any of this, haven’t investigated haven’t punished anyone. Iran played a major role in the setting up of YPG role in northern Syria. The U.S. has been all but silent about the human rights abuses and possible war crimes. Did these alleged abuses and war crimes occur? Should the YPG acknowledge, investigate and punish them? Mr Tamimi doesn’t say. Instead of dealing with the content of the story as presented, he focuses on a few details. He questions the assertion that in Tel Hamis and Husseiniya in Hasakah province, the YPG burned houses and expelled residents after taking the towns without a fight. Amnesty International verified in 2015 that the destruction of Husseiniya occurred after it was captured without a fight. But my assertion that Tel Hamis was yielded without a fight in 2015 “can only be described as a travesty of the truth,” he says. Once again, Mr. Tamami can’t produce the evidence. He writes there were “abundant martyrdom’ commemorations” in the “extended campaign” to take the town. But surely he must be aware that one of the five death notices he links to, one was for a death in 2013, and the other four, including one for an underage fighter, were spread through March 2015. But ISIS abandoned Tel Hamis on Feb. 27. So the death notices don’t prove there was a major battle, or a battle at all. They certainly don’t support his claim there had been an “extended campaign.” According to Abu Ahmed, a commander of the Free Syrian Army’s Falcan Brigade, which ISIS had earlier ousted from Tel Hamis, the YPG waited three days before entering Tel Hamis and did so “without shooting a bullet.” Abu Ahmed, who no longer lives in the area, said he assembled his narrative from former brigade members who stayed in the area. He asked that his real name not be used. But I suppose Mr. Tamimi will discount that testimony as it came from the rebel side and that it hasn’t been “subjected to appropriate scrutiny.” But has he subjected his sources, whoever they may be, to “appropriate scrutiny?” Roy Gutman Middle East correspondent +90 537 205 3434 (Turkcell) +1 202 258 2875 (TMobile) roygutman (Skype)

US Policy on Turkey by James F. Jeffrey and Soner Çağaptay

 U.S. Policy on Turkey

JAMES F. JEFFREY

SONER CAGAPTAY

 

TURKEY, a NATO member, sits on prime real estate. Whether leveraged as a partner to fight the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq or Syria, end the war in Syria, stymie refugee flows from Syria into Europe, or, last but not least, address Russian influence in Eastern Europe, Ankara is a crucial ally for the United States. If the U.S.-Turkey relationship faces problems, Washington will be hard-pressed to implement its policies in Turkey’s neighborhood. Turkey is one of the most important countries for the United States overall, and of central importance for U.S. policy in southern Europe and the Middle East. But Washington’s mishandling of the Syrian civil war, along with its tilt toward the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in the fight against IS in eastern Syria, risks forcing Turkey ever more into the Russian camp out of pure self-defense. In this regard, the new administration should under­stand the motives and objectives of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the most powerful Turkish leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk established the Turkish republic in 1923.

Since 2002, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has tried to make Turkey a standalone Middle East power, so far without success. More­over, Turkish foreign policy looks now, ironically, as it did under former Turkish president Suleyman Demirel in 1995: uncertain relations with Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, with its only reliable allies the United States and thus NATO; (recently normalized) ties with Israel; and a relationship with the Euro­pean Union characterized by one step forward, one step back. An opening therefore exists for the next president to improve ties with Erdogan and enlist Ankara more securely in regional initiatives, if only in a transactional and inevitably frequently contentious way.

Why does the United States need a new policy on Turkey? The risks posed by a failed relationship with Turkey are immense, ranging from a setback for U.S. efforts to fight IS to a weakening of NATO’s ability to stem refugee flows into Europe, a development that would destabilize America’s allies. Furthermore, with or without Erdogan, Turkey is one of the most successful economic powers in the region, with a longstanding role as an important U.S. ally. Managing relations with Turkey well or badly will have ramifications throughout the world.

Flawed Traditional Approach

The next president, however, cannot bring Turkey more securely into America’s fold by using the traditional U.S. approach, whereby the United States assumes that it holds most of the cards with its foreign interlocutors, that given America’s championing of universal values it knows better than other states themselves what is good for them, and that the other countries both value relations with the United States above most other interests and feel they have few alternatives. Washington thus is often tempted to treat its friends and allies as a parent handling “misbehaving children,” with endless talk, persuasion, and, if necessary, threats to withdraw love. Not only does this approach often fail to elicit Washington’s desired outcome, but with President Erdogan and to some degree Turkey as a “system,” it has been, repeatedly, disastrously, counterproductive.

A Way Forward

Given these failings, the United States should adopt a transactional approach to Turkey focused on common security interests, while emphasizing, and to some degree negotiating to make progress on, democratic liberal values.

It is important in this transactional arrangement that the United States has tools with which to “trade.” The Obama administration has challenged the efficacy of many of these tools, but if the next U.S. president were to offer them, this would generate greater interest than usual. Washington can respond to Turkey’s needs with more vigor, effort, and resources if Ankara were more helpful on the U.S. agenda. This will vary specifically depending on the new administration’s priorities and global events, but would likely include more sensitivity to America’s legitimate concerns about Turkey’s domestic trends under Erdogan.

Erdogan’s Agenda

Step one to any “transactional reordering” is to understand Erdogan. His ultimate goal by 2023, the one hundredth anniversary of the Turkish republic’s establishment, is to steward the creation of an internationally and economically stronger, politically stable Turkey that would eclipse the epochal achievement of Ataturk himself. That goal does not include a greater anchoring of Turkey in Western values, although Erdogan appears supportive of at least formal democratic procedure, nor does it include loyal sacrifice for an American global security system. However, if convinced that such a system can advance his international and economic agenda, he can be persuaded to support it.

To achieve his goals, he needs Ataturk-like power. In 2014, Erdogan stepped down from his post as prime minister to become the country’s president. Despite his growing formal and informal powers, including continued de facto control over his party, the AKP, almost continuously running the government without coalition since 2002, the country remains a parliamentary system. Therefore, he has focused on transforming Turkey into an executive system ever since becoming president. Such a change would require a constitutional amendment to overturn the presidency’s constitutionally mandated nonpartisan status, thus allowing him to officially lead his AKP. Here, the fate that befell two past leaders, Turgut Ozal and Suleyman Demirel, is instructive. Both saw their movements wither after they became head of state. Erdogan, as seen in his recent sidelining of former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, is determined to avoid this outcome by retaining direct control of the party. In this arrangement, he would be Turkey’s head of state, head of its ruling party, and de facto head of government all at the same time.

Turkish law offers two ways to amend the constitution to eliminate the restraints on the presidency: through a two-thirds majority in parliament (i.e., 367 of the 550 deputies voting in favor) or a three-fifths majority (330 votes). In the latter case, the amendment would also need to pass a popular referendum. Currently, the AKP has 317 deputies in the legislature. Yet voting tallies and poll results indicate that the party may have maxed out its electoral support, so Erdogan will have to shift his approach to reach either of the thresholds for amending the constitution.

Enter the right-wing opposition Nationalist Action Party (MHP). By courting this party, its forty seats, and its base in the event of a referendum, Erdogan can garner at least enough votes to create an executive-style presidency. In order to win over MHP deputies and voters, he has threatened legal action against the ultra-Turkish-nationalist MHP’s bitter foe, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). Such motives also partly explain the president’s ferocious campaign against the insurgency conducted by the country’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist entity by Washington, as well as its opposition to the PYD, the PKK’s franchise inside Syria. By thus widening the AKP’s own popular support, Erdogan could help his party gain the majority it needs—whether in the current parliament, through early elections, or in a public referendum. Such an outcome would also effectively sideline Turkey’s main opposition faction, the secular-leftist Republican People’s Party (CHP), which currently holds 133 seats.

A second concern for Erdogan, besides the Kurdish nationalists, is the Gulen movement. Erdogan is convinced that this movement and its founder, Fethullah Gulen, a U.S. permanent resident in Pennsylvania, are behind the failed July 15, 2016, coup plot in which 244 Turks died and the Turkish president himself almost lost his life. Given his suspicions, Erdogan will likely never give up his quest to have Washington extradite Gulen. Many people in Turkey share Erdogan’s deep animosity toward the Gulen movement, including, most obviously, pro-AKP Turks (about half the country’s population) but also opposition Turks, among them secular Turks who deeply distrust the Gulen movement as a cult that has tried to take over the Turkish state. Secular liberal Turks see the AKP as openly Islamist and therefore dangerous, but view the Gulenists as secretly Islamist, insidious, and hence even more dangerous. Even the Kurdish nationalists despise the Gulenists. And the Gulenists, as staunch Turkish nationalists themselves, have long opposed both the PKK and cultural and political concessions to the Kurds.

What Can the United States Give?

For any relationship with Erdogan to succeed, it will, as noted, have to be transactional—that is, based on mutual interests and trade-offs rather than deep friendship and shared values. Thus, the incoming U.S. administration must know what its toolbox contains, and what it can “trade” with in such a relationship with Turkey. These trade items fall into three categories: bilateral issues, general foreign policy cooperation, and Syria/Iran.

BILATERAL ISSUES

For starters, with the Gulen issue uniquely uniting many Turks, including Turkish Kurds, around Erdogan, Washington must convince Turkey that it is swiftly and thoroughly reviewing Ankara’s request for Gulen’s extradition. If extradition is delayed or denied by the courts, the administration must rapidly deploy measures, such as limits on movement and investigation of funding, to constrain the ability of both Gulen and his organization to influence Turkish domestic affairs.

Separately, the United States can quietly guarantee Turkey that the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress will not pass. This has always been critical in the relationship, and most Turks care deeply about the issue.

On arms sales, the United States can make a serious effort to deal with Turkey’s longstanding complaints about delay-in-delivering, detuning, and resistance to offsets in the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program for Turkey. Washington should commit to an early trip by the secretary of defense that focuses not only on geopolitics but also on adopting a model like the U.S.-Israel arms sales relationship to ensure a smoother and better-managed program. The flagship F-35 program should be given special attention. More broadly, the next president and defense secretary should repair U.S.- Turkey military ties, which have been damaged in part by Defense Department perceptions of Erdogan’s negative role in the 2003 Iraq war, break with Israel, Syria policy—including, until recently, an open-door policy toward radicals there—and opposition to the Syrian Kurdish PYD’s alliance with Washington against the Islamic State.

SYRIA/IRAN

The greatest strain on the U.S.-Turkey relationship apart from Gulen has been Syria policy, a scenario with three related threats to Turkey’s south—namely, (1) the Assad regime, allied with Russia and Iran; (2) an anti-Turkish leftist Kurdish nationalist movement, the PKK, located in southeastern Turkey and in northern Iraq, and its sister organization, the PYD, in northern Syria; and (3) the Islamic State. The first is potentially existential. The second is a serious long-term threat to Turkish territorial integrity as well as a critically important domestic political football. The third is one danger among many to Turkey but not perceived as existential. The Obama administration, by contrast, saw its primary policy in Syria and Iraq as destroying IS. Officially, the administration wanted President Bashar al-Assad to leave and saw his regime as fueling Sunni Islamic terrorism and, as noted, considered the PKK a terrorist organization. In practice, however, the dangers of confronting Assad and the Russians, and the administration’s diplomatic ambitions with Iran, severely limited interest in confronting Assad and his allies. Furthermore, Washington needed the PKK-associated PYD in the fight against the Islamic State. Both such policies placed it at loggerheads with Ankara.

In this regard, the Turkish incursion into Syria in late summer 2016 offered an opportunity. The Jarabulus operation provided Turkey with a bridgehead in Syria that increased Ankara’s value to the United States as a partner in fighting the Islamic State. But U.S. and Turkish perceptions of how to fight IS in northern Syria are strongly divergent, with these differences coming to a head in early January 2017. After suffering significant casualties fighting IS in the al-Bab region, Turkish forces were unable, for technical reasons, to obtain U.S. air support and turned to the Russians for airstrikes. This led to a flurry of Turkish threats to close down the U.S. anti-IS operations out of Turkish bases. Setting aside technical issues, the underlying problem is the U.S. reliance on the PYD and its Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)

Arab allies for the assault on the IS capital, Raqqa, in eastern Syria. The Turks, for their part, fear that the PYD is using its U.S. alliance to eventually create a large, contiguous Kurdish-controlled enclave that would provide a new front for PKK activities against Turkey and possibly a corridor for Iran to reach western Syria and Lebanon.

These concerns are legitimate. If Washington could reach an agreement with Turkey on its northern Syrian safe zone that would support the Turks and their Syrian opposition allies with advisory teams and airpower, limit PYD activity in non-Kurdish areas, and refuse to recognize PYD autonomy, much of the rancor in the current relationship would dissipate. Such joint effort would also afford leverage to the United States against Iranian and Russian efforts to push for a total victory against the Syrian opposition despite the current ceasefire. Shared U.S.- Turkey efforts, including a possibly separate front to the west of the PYD forces against Raqqa, could expedite the destruction of the Islamic State. In any case, the United States can hardly prosecute a serious campaign against IS in northern Syria without Turkish bases, entailing a cost in cooperation.

 

The PKK provides another basis for cooperation. The United States could contribute more intelligence support in Turkey’s fight against the PKK, asking in return for additional insight into Turkish plans for combating the group. Washington also needs to manage the Turkey-PYD relationship in Syria beyond the Islamic State campaign. In the long term, managing this relationship should culminate in renewed peace talks between Ankara and the PKK (Ankara and the PYD both view each other through the lens of Turkey- PKK ties), a development that would almost immedi­ately change the tenor of Turkey-PYD ties. Erdogan, who wants to become an executive-style president, knows that if he can deliver a military victory against the PKK, this development would make him massively popular in the eyes of many voters. He could thus be rewarded with more than 50 percent of the vote, opening the path for an executive and partisan presidency and fulfilling his long-awaited dream.

Indeed, Turkey is unlikely to enter into peace talks with the PKK until Erdogan has forced the group into some sort of military defeat, which means Turkey- PYD ties will be fraught with tensions until Erdogan has registered such a victory. The United States might consider delivering enhanced military assistance to Turkey to help bring forth this outcome. In this regard, Erdogan’s greatest asset is Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s founder, who is now in a Turkish jail serving a life term. Ocalan has charismatic pull over the PKK—and also the PYD, with Ocalan posters in PYD offices and Ocalan badges on uniforms of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), as the PYD militia is known, signaling the group’s affiliation with the PKK. So far, Erdogan has kept Ocalan incommunicado. When he feels that he has inflicted enough military damage on the PKK, he will allow Ocalan to speak, at which point the PKK leader will likely call on the organization to lay down its weapons. Ocalan wants to get out of jail as part of a compromise with Erdogan, and to this end, he will deliver a ceasefire message to the PKK when Erdogan is ready for it. Both the PKK and the PYD will likely listen to Ocalan, their honorary and, more important, ideological leader. At this point, Turkey-PYD ties would seemingly shift back to the post-2013 period, with tensions falling significantly and Ankara and the PYD reestablishing contacts active in 2014–15.

Peace talks between Turkey and the PKK would help normalize Turkish ties to the PYD in Rojava, its Syrian homeland. In the long term, assuming an accommodation with Ocalan and the PKK, Turkey might even conceivably build a relationship with Rojava akin to its ties with the KRG. In 2007, the KRG leadership, realizing that it was surrounded by hostile states—Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey— and needed at least one friend to survive over time, picked Turkey. In the ensuing years, Erbil offered Ankara economic and financial incentives, such as access to KRG markets, as well as natural gas and oil deals. Economic ties became the building blocks of the relationship, establishing confidence, and soon closer political and even security cooperation ensued between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds.

Although Rojava does not have nearly as much oil as does the KRG, Turkish access to its markets and construction sectors would be a definite sweetener in any pursuit of rapprochement between Ankara and the Syrian Kurds. More important for Ankara, Rojava could offer Turkey a cordon sanitaire protecting Turkey from instability, sectarian warfare, conflict, and jihadist threats coming from the rest of Syria, in the same way the KRG acts as a very effective buffer between Iraq’s unstable center and Turkey.

The budding of a close relationship between Turkey and Rojava can only be envisioned against the backdrop of peace talks and good ties between Ankara and the PKK, and by extension good ties between Turkey and the PYD. For their own part, the Syrian Kurds might eventually decide, following the KRG example, that they cannot survive in a hostile neighborhood surrounded only by enemies, and that they will need at least one friend—Turkey—in order to survive in the long term. U.S. policy should help Ankara weaken the PKK militarily in order to usher in Turkey-PKK talks, a definite precursor to Turkey- Rojava normalization. Even if Turkey-Rojava ties never reach the level of Turkey-KRG ties, the KRG is a much larger entity than Rojava and offers Turkey many more economic benefits, Turkey and the Syrian Kurds could still come to a modus vivendi.

GENERAL FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES

Most important beyond the Syria/Iran conundrum is Russia. Highest-level discussions are needed to assess where Ankara and Washington stand on the issue of both Russia in general and Russia as an informal ally of Iran in Syria and perhaps elsewhere in the region. Turkey needs to know whether the United States will contain Russia or whether Turkey will be left on its own, as was recently the case in the al-Bab battle. For their part, U.S. officials need more clarity on the Turkish vision for the Turkish Stream pipeline project announced by Erdogan earlier this year in Saint Petersburg. If the intent is truly to substitute for the 60 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas now flowing annually through Ukraine (one-quarter to Turkey, the rest to EU states), it would have serious geostrategic and energy security implications requiring in-depth discussion. If the informal Russia-Iran alliance on Syria continues, particularly if the Russian deployments to Syria remain, Washington should also demonstrate a willingness to keep NATO’s Patriot presence, including redeployment of U.S. Patriot batteries in Turkey, until a final Geneva agreement on Syria or pullout of Russian reinforcements is enacted. The United States could also periodically deploy F-22 or F-35 fifth-generation fighters to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base to signal the seriousness of U.S. efforts to contain Russia. This U.S. commitment could also include more frequent Black Sea operations as part of NATO naval deployments, both by the United States unilaterally and with Turkey cooperatively.

 

On the Cyprus dispute as well as Turkey-Israel relations, Washington should increase engagement. This would be done in conjunction with U.S. efforts on eastern Mediterranean gas exports to a Turkish “Eurasian gas hub” and U.S. support of the Baku (Azerbaijan) pipelines to Turkey. Likewise, the United States could give concrete support with the EU on the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to bring Azeri and possibly other Caspian or even Iraqi gas to Europe through Turkey.

On Iraq, Washington and Ankara should continue their cooperation on security for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The United States should be careful, within the limits of its own relations with Baghdad, not to discourage Turkey-KRG hydrocarbons cooperation. Given the possibilities for both direct trade with and transit shipments through an ever more oil-rich Iraq, the United States should support reconciliation between Baghdad and Ankara. Real progress on this front, however, will depend on U.S.-Turkey success coordinating effective policy toward Syria and Iran.

Finally, Washington could find ways inside or outside the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) to deepen bilateral trade and investment. Going forward, building economic leverage in Turkey is the best way of ensuring U.S. political leverage in the relationship.

What Can Turkey Give in Return?

In return for the proposed U.S. steps, the five main issues on which Turkey can be helpful involve

                a stronger commitment to the fight against the Islamic State;

                a return to peace talks with the PKK;

                more flexibility on Cyprus and Israel;

                closer cooperation with Washington on military moves, especially in Syria and against Russian provocations all around Turkey; and

                more emphasis on democratic values, rule of law, and domestic freedoms.

 

Unfortunately, the Islamic State has targeted and, as seen with the New Year’s Eve Istanbul attack, will increasingly target Turkey; thus, cooperating with Turkey against the jihadist group provides an opportunity for building ties. Furthermore, even in the aftermath of Turkish-Russian normalization, the broader resurgence of Russia—now Turkey’s neighbor in Crimea and on the southern border— will undoubtedly remind Erdogan of NATO’s value and could help improve U.S.-Turkey military ties during the new administration. Relatedly, Russia’s aggression toward Turkey following the November 2015 downing of a Russian military plane demonstrated clearly how vengeful Moscow can be. Nevertheless, in agreeing to the Russia-brokered Syrian ceasefire in December, and then calling on Russia to provide (apparently ineffective) airstrikes around al-Bab in early January 2017, Turkey signaled to Washington that absent U.S. engagement and support for Turkish objectives, Turkey will make deals with Putin.

Ultimately, though, what the United States and Turkey can do against the Islamic State together, with potential peace between Turkey and Kurds in mind, will dictate the success of this transactional relationship. If Turkey makes peace with Kurds at home, something enhanced U.S. assistance to Turkey against the PKK can usher in, it can even more easily make peace with Kurds in Syria, facilitating a Turkish- Kurdish bond in the Middle East similar to Ankara’s with the KRG—and one in the U.S. interest.

Washington’s ability to deliver on Turkish issues is affected by Turkey’s behavior on human rights and democracy, and how Turkey is viewed from the outside. Therefore, it is important that U.S. policy on Turkey be guided by an emphasis on rule of law, which has been damaged considerably by a decade and a half of AKP rule. The next president must raise rule of law in his dealings with Turkey as a means not only of limiting the AKP’s authoritarianism but also of reminding Erdogan that he, too, will need this norm should the AKP and Erdogan fall from power.

In the last decade, under Erdogan, Turkey went from being a country of mostly poor to a country of mostly middle-income people. Now, Turkey has a chance to move up the ladder and become a high-income economy, despite slumping economic per­formance in 2016. The country, though, cannot do so simply by making cars, as it does now, but instead by becoming a hub for the “Googles” of the world and other value-added and information-based industries. This is where unfettered freedoms come into play. In order to be a hub for “Googles,” Turkey needs to become an open society, able to attract creative professionals from around the globe and to keep its creative people at home. Only a society that provides unlimited rights and freedoms, that is seen as having a respected and independent judicial system, will achieve such a result, one in the interests of all Turks. The United States is uniquely positioned to make this argument, but then only if both transactional cooperation and leader-to-leader personal relations function better than they do today.

It is possible that Erdogan’s impetuous actions, frequent disdain for the West, and penchant for ever more authority will render any cooperative policy with the United States moot. But that is a possibility, not a certainty. The United States can tip the scales toward a different outcome with the right policies and personal relations. The latter include reining in the understandable ire of many U.S. government and military officials who chafe under Turkish criticism, a characteristic of the relationship that predates, and goes beyond, Erdogan. Finally, Washington has little to lose with a more-carrots-than-sticks approach. Sticks are in short supply: the United States and the West need Turkey; Turkey and Erdogan, in return, need the United States.

THE AUTHORS

James F. Jeffrey, the Philip Solondz distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute , is a former deputy national security advisor and U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Iraq. Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute.

Turkey's Charm Offensive

Friday, January 27, 2017
Turkey's Charm Offensive
Erdogan Makes Nice
Nussaibah Younis
NUSSAIBAH YOUNIS is Senior Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, where she directs the Task Force on the Future of Iraq.


On January 7, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim visited Baghdad, marking a milestone in its warming relations with Iraq. Four months ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had warned that Turkey's deployment of troops to the Iraqi town of Bashiqa [1] threatened to trigger a regional war [2]. Turkey, which claimed for its troops the consent of the Kurdistan Regional Government, shot back that Iraq's sudden concern with Bashiqa had malicious [3 intent. An escalating war of words led to the mutual summoning of ambassadors and an Iraqi call, in October, for an emergency meeting [4] of the UN Security Council. But during the January visit, the prime ministers of Iraq and Turkey stood together and declared that they would solve the issue [5]of Bashiqa, in addition to strengthening bilateral trade, security, and economic cooperation.
Ankara's about-face follows a dramatic year for the country, in which an attempted military coup [6], escalating attacks by the Islamic State (or ISIS) on Turkish soil, and a deepening war with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) brought about a fundamental reexamination of the country's foreign policy priorities. (Turkey maintains good relations with the government of Iraqi Kurdistan, but considers the PKK a terrorist group.) As a result of the multiple domestic crises [7] that buffeted the Turkish state in 2016, Ankara is in the process of overhauling its foreign policy, increasingly pursuing stable neighborly relations and reigning in its impulse to project power regionally.

DO UNTO THY NEIGHBOR
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002 [8], initially pursued a policy of zero problems with neighbors [9], which sought to establish the country as the economic heart of an increasingly interconnected Middle East. But the developments of the Arab Spring led Turkey toward a more assertive foreign policy. The AKP decried the removal of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in a 2013 coup, threatened to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over his campaign of mass slaughter against Syrian rebels, and railed against former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for mistreating Iraq's Sunni population. Although these moves had a certain moral strength, especially among the region’s Sunnis, they led Turkey into the midst of regional turmoil, which the government is now attempting to back away from.
The first signs of Turkey's changing approach came in June 2016 when it normalized relations [10] with Russia, apologizing for the 2015 downing of a Russian fighter jet that had strayed into Turkish airspace from northern Syria. That same month, Turkey reached a settlement [11] with Israel resuming diplomatic ties [12] after a six-year freeze in relations, following Israel's 2010 attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that resulted in the deaths of several Turkish activists.
Turkey also moved away [13] from its staunch opposition to the Assad regime in Syria. Recently, its policy in the country has focused on preventing an autonomous and unified Kurdish region from forming in northern Syria rather than, as before, helping anti-Assad rebels to maintain a foothold in Aleppo [14]. In its recent effort to retake the Syrian town of al-Bab [15] from ISIS, moreover, Turkey has accepted air support from key Assad ally Russia, while publicly excoriating its traditional ally in Syria, the United States, for its lack of assistance.
Most dramatically of all, Turkey, along with Russian and Iran, helped forge a ceasefire in Syria without U.S. involvement in the final days of 2016, and brokered talks between opposition fighters and the Syrian government in the Kazakh capital, Astana. Although the ceasefire has collapsed [16] in numerous areas, and the talks made little substantive progress [17], the moves represent a new Turkish acceptance of Russia's authority in the Syrian conflict.

GETTING IT TOGETHER
The timing of this new strategy is no coincidence. As Turkey faces growing violence, instability, and economic turmoil at home, Erdogan has come to the conclusion that now is the time to revert to the policy of zero problems with neighbors [18]. Today, with a plummeting lira [19] and a contracting economy [20], there is little support among Turks for such adventurism. Even before economic woes began to take their toll, a 2012 poll found that two-thirds [21] of Turks did not support Turkish intervention in Syria.
Erdogan can little afford to face any popular unrest: he is currently locked in a tense political battle to transfer substantial power to his office by changing the Turkish constitution [22]. In foreign policy, he has therefore sought to prioritize efforts to undermine Turkey's substantial Kurdish minority, enabling him to tap into deep anti-Kurdish sentiment among the Turkish majority. For instance, after the Kurdish HDP party threatened the AKP's grip on power with a shock election result in June 2016 [23], the AKP escalated its war against the PKK [24], while seeking to conflate the terrorist group with the non-violent parliamentary party. Since then, focusing the Turkish public’s attention on the supposed threat of Kurdish violence has been a crucial part of the AKP's electoral strategy.
Yildirim's visit to Iraq last week was a reflection of this new logic. The Turks main goal is to convince Baghdad to drive the PKK out of Iraqi territory. [25] The PKK has been present in Sinjar, a Yezidi town in northern Iraq, since the expulsion of ISIS in late 2015. Indeed, local Yezidis have developed a close relationship with the PKK after the Kurds helped them escape from Mount Sinjar, where they had been trapped after other Iraqi Kurdish forces retreated in the face of ISIS onslaught. Since then, PKK forces have helped to train Yezidi militias and have received support from Baghdad.
Yet now it seems that Turkey has persuaded Baghdad to stop supporting the PKK, through diplomatic overtures and with the help of repeated mediation efforts by U.S. counter-ISIS envoy Brett McGurk. Ankara has also hinted that it may discuss withdrawing its troops from Bashiqa in exchange for the Iraqis ejecting the PKK from Sinjar. Turkey has, furthermore, co-operated with Baghdad in enabling a Turkish-trained Iraqi paramilitary force, known as the Hashd al-Watany, to merge [26] with the Baghdad-backed popular mobilization units. Ankara's strategy may be working: in the joint press conference on January 7, Abadi announced that [27] no force beyond the frame of the security forces or the formal Iraqi security forces will be allowed to work in Sinjar a clear condemnation of the PKK presence. Yildirim in turn thanked Abadi for Baghdad's seriousness in expelling terrorist organizations from the region.
The rapprochement with Baghdad also demonstrates a new willingness on the part of Ankara to move beyond its traditional partnerships in Iraq. In recent years, Turkey has invested heavily in its relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan's governing Kurdish Democratic Party, with which it has forged independent economic and energy agreements, but these have damaged Turkish relations with Baghdad. Any rapprochement between Iraq and Turkey would thus be nerve-racking for the Iraqi Kurds, who are economically dependent on the Turks and remain embroiled in disputes with the federal government over energy exports, revenue sharing, and the status of disputed territories. But there is tremendous scope for Turkey to expand its diplomatic and economic ties with the rest of Iraq growth that has thus far been stymied by poor political relations.
It remains to be seen whether recent positive steps will develop into a new era of Iraq-Turkish cooperation. Turkey will remain wary of withdrawing from Bashiqa before the PKK has withdrawn from Iraq, and it still expresses concern about the presence of Iraqi Shiite paramilitary forces to the west of Mosul and around the Turkmen town of Tel Afar. It must be emphasized, moreover, that Turkey's outreach stems from a growing domestic authoritarianism and a hyper-hostility to Turkish and Syrian Kurds that is ultimately damaging to Turkey's stability. A rapprochement with Baghdad would nonetheless herald a new era of economic and diplomatic co-operation that would likely prove a financial and strategic boon to two of the most vulnerable states in today's Middle East.

Taner Timur - Savaş, Kriz ve Populist Demagoji

Taner Timur

10 saat · 

31 Aralık 2016

2017’ye Girerken:
SAVAŞ, KRİZ ve POPÜLİST DEMAGOJİ

Savaş halindeyiz; 2017’ye savaşla giriyoruz; hem de birkaç cephede. Sonunda, Clausewitz’in “savaş, siyasetin başka araçlarla devamıdır” dediği noktaya vardık. FETÖ, IŞİD, PKK... düşmanlar belli. “Başkomutan”ları da Obama! Resmi söylem bunu söylüyor ve bunu söylerken de Trump’a göz kırpıyor. Gerçekten de yandaş medya çoktandır oklarını Obama’ya çevirmiş durumda. Obama’ya ve ülkesine.. “Gerçekte ABD ile savaşıyoruz!” diyor “Yeni Birlik” gazetesi. Kıdemli danışman Yasin Aktay da yazısına (Yeni Şafak,19 Aralık) “Beşiktaş ve Kayseri bombaları müttefiğimizden!” başlığını koymuş ve ihanetin nedenlerini sorguluyor: “Peki, diyor, ABD, NATO'daki en önemli müttefikine bunu niye yapıyor? Dünyanın en güçlü ülkesinin aynı zamanda dünyanın en güvenilmez, kendi müttefiklerine en büyük zararı veren, onlara karşı entrikalar çeviren bir ülkesi olmasının altında nasıl bir akıl yatıyor?”. İ. Karagül daha da açık: “Suçüstü yakalandı ABD” diyor; “hiçbir ABD yönetimi, dünyanın gözleri önünde, bir müttefikine karşı teröre bu kadar açık destek vermedi”. (30 Aralık).
Anlaşıldı; düşman cephesi bu. Ya dost cephesi? O da az çok şekillenmiş durumda. Rusya, İran, Türkiye ve.. (sıkı durun) Suriye! Bu cephenin komutanı da Putin!
İnanılmaz gibi görünüyor, ama gerçek! Birkaç ay öncesine kadar aynı “Masa”da toplanmaları hayal edilemeyecek ülkeler şimdi bir araya gelmiş, “ortak bildiri” yayınlıyorlar! İlk maddesiyle “Suriye Arap Cumhuriyeti’nin egemenliğini, bağımsızlığını, birliğini ve toprak bütünlüğünü” garanti altına alan bir bildiri.. Arka planda hedef “Kürt koridoru” olsa bile, askerlerimiz şu anda El Bab’da Suriye için savaşıyor. Bölgedeki hareketleri yakından izleyen İslamolog Olivier Roy da bu durum karşısında şaşırmış, soruyor: “Nasıl oluyor da yakın zamana kadar yurt içinde ve dışında Sünni İslam’ın savunucusu olan yeni ‘Sultan’, Şii davasının şampiyonluğunu yapan Rus-İran koalisyonunun uysal bir müttefiki haline geldi?” Ve hükmünü de veriyor: “Sünni dayanışma da, Yeni-Osmanlı rüyası da Halep’te öldü!” (Le Monde, 28 Aralık).
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Doğru, cephe değişti; hem de baş döndürücü bir U dönüşüyle! Artık Erdoğan, Rusya’yla ilgili konuşmalarına genellikle “dostum Putin!” diye başlıyor. O böyle başlıyor da, mallarımızın çoğuna konmuş olan ambargo da devam ediyor. Belli ki Putin’in acelesi yok. “Yavaş yavaş, diyor, acele etmeyelim, yavaş yavaş hepsi kalkacak!”.
Aslında ambargo tek sorun da değil. Bellekleri bir de 24 Kasım’da, tam da Rus uçağının düşürülüş yıldönümünde El Bab’a doğru ilerleyen birliklerimizin uğradığı saldırı kurcalıyor. Unutulmadı, saldırıda üç şehit vermiştik. Yine de saldırının neden ve kimler tarafından yapıldığı aydınlatılamadı. Ortada sadece bazı sorular ve iddialar var. Örneğin N. Bengisu Karaca, “Uçakların, diyordu, aynı bölgede bulunan ÖSO bileşenlerini değil de Hazvan Köyü Kifeyr mezrasında, yani El Bab yönünde ilerleyen Türk askerlerini doğrudan hedef aldığı biliniyor; sahada Rusya’dan habersiz kuş uçurulmadığı, rejimin Rusya’ya rağmen böyle bir saldırı yapamayacağı da!”. Yazara göre, işin aslı buydu! “Rusya bu saldırıyla, ‘IŞİD’le mücadele tamam, Fırat’ın batısıyla ilgili sınır güvenliğini temin etme işi, eh tamam, ama Halep artık senin meselen değil, orada dur” mesajı veriyor(du)”. Hesap kapanmıştı ve bu bir “Rus usulü ‘opening party’” idi. (HaberTürk, 26 Kasım). Yine de bu çok taraflı hesap kapanmamış olacak ki kısa bir süre sonra da Ankara’da Rus elçisi öldürüldü. Hem de Çevik Kuvvetler’de görevli bir polis tarafından!
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Elçi Andrey Karlov Ankara’da anlamlı bir sergiyi açarken öldürülmüştü. Arkadan katil etkisiz hale getirildi ve daha ilk günden itibaren de kendisinin bir FETÖ’cü olduğu anlaşıldı. Yine de kafalar karışmıştı. Fail Arapça sloganlar atmış, cinayetine El Nusra görüntüsü vermişti. Durum gerçekten aydınlanmaya muhtaçtı. Bu arada Putin’in de kafası karışmış olacak ki, o da araştırmalara katılmak üzere Ankara’ya bir heyet yolluyordu.
Zihinleri işgal eden temel soru şuydu: 22 yaşında, iş-güç sahibi ve çevik kuvvet elemanı olacak kadar sağlıklı bir insan, nasıl oluyor da tarihe adi bir tetikçi olarak geçeceği bir operasyon uğruna hayatını feda edebiliyordu? Cinayet hazırlıklarında yalnız olmasa, FETÖ’den, CİA’dan yardım almış olsa da, şahsen inandığı ve uğruna hayatını feda ettiği bir “dava”sı olamaz mıydı? Eğer varsa bu “dava” neydi ve kimlere hizmet ediyordu?
Cinayet, “Halep Savaşı”nın son aşamasında, Rus ve Suriye uçaklarının hastane, okul demeden yaptıkları bombardımanın Batı kamuoyunda feci kırım sahneleri olarak sunulduğu bir anda işlenmişti. Bu durumda bir “intikam operasyonu” hissi uyandırıyordu. Buna en çok sevinecek olanlar da kuşkusuz Haleb’i kaybeden cihadist güçler olacaktı. Bu koşullarda bütün dünyada cinayet Rusya ve Suriye’nin kırımlarına karşı bir misilleme olarak değerlendirildi ve katil polis de radikal İslamcılar tarafından yüceltildi. Hatta bazı Mısır gazeteleri cinayeti IŞİD’in üstlendiği yönünde (doğrulanmayan) haberler bile yayınladılar. AKP kadrolarının Obama’dan sonra umutla baktığı Donald Trump da katili bir “radikal İslamcı” olarak lanetliyordu.
Aslında bütün bunlar bir bakıma katil polisin ve ona yardımcı olanların hedeflerine ulaştıklarının da işareti sayılabilirdi. Katil polis, kendi sapık anlayışına göre bir “Cihad eylemi” yapmış, “şehit” olmuş, cennet kapıları kendisine açılmıştı. Ne var ki bu gibi korkunç cinayetleri lanetlemek ve failleri “etkisiz hale getirmek” yetmiyor. İşin köküne inmek, selefilerin beslendiği inanç sistemlerini çözümlemek ve o planda da bir savaş vermek gerekiyordu. Daha 120 yıl önce, Durkheim, Fransa’da intihar nedenlerini incelerken, bunlar arasında “özveri intiharları” (suicides altruistes) diye bir kategori de saptamıştı. Bu ad altında askeri ve dini dayanışmaların yol açtığı intiharlar anlatılıyordu. 1930’larda İspanyol faşistlerin “Viva la Muerte!” (Yaşasın ölüm!) çığlıkları ve 2. Dünya Savaşı’nda Japon “kamikaze” pilotları aynı esprinin daha yakınlardaki uzantıları idiler. Oysa İslam dünyası, önemli bir kısmı itibariyle, Fransa’da 16. yüzyılda yaşanan Saint-Barthelemy kırımı koşullarını hala aşamamış görünüyor. Ankara cinayeti de bu zihniyetin devamı gibiydi. Bu koşullarda Putin bile öfkesini içine attı ve esnek bir söylem benimsedi. Ona göre de “Cinayetin arkasındakiler FETÖ’cü militanlar olabilirdi”. Resmi Türkiye kendi cephesine katılmış, dolaylı şekilde de olsa Amerika’ya ve NATO’ya karşı tavır koymuştu. Haleb’i dünyanın gazabına uğramadan tahliye etmek Türkiye sayesinde gerçekleşmişti. Cihadistler ve sivil yandaşları bir kez İdlib’e yerleştikten sonra, yine Türkiye sayesinde oradan kovulmalarının yolu da mutlaka bulunacaktı. Zaten Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan da yakınlarda açıkça söylemişti: “Onları İdlib'e aldık. Gerekirse kendi topraklarımıza da alabiliriz. Dün akşam Sayın Putin'le bir görüşmem oldu. Bizlere teşekkürü oldu. Dediler ki, burada bu insanların kurtuluşunda sizin de kararlılığınız olmasaydı, el ele vermeseydik bu süreci bu şekilde bitiremezdik”. Kısaca Türkiye müttefiklerinden koparak Rusya-İran-Suriye kampına katılmış ve ABD önderliğindeki “Koalisyon”u da neden Fırat Kalkanı operasyonunu desteklemiyorsunuz diye lanetlemeye başlamıştı. Sadece bizi değil, bütün dünyayı da şaşırtan gelişmeler bunlar oldu. Olivier Roy gibi İslamologlar “bitti, dediler, AKP’nin Sünni İslamcılığı bitti”.
Oysa biten bir şey yok; sadece siyasal İslam’ın yöntem ve stratejisi değişiyor. Olan şu: Cumhuriyet tarihimizde defalarca tekrarlanmış bir oyun en ürkütücü boyutlarda yeniden sahnelenmiş bulunuyor. Atatürk, daha Cumhuriyetin birinci yıldönümünde, Vakit gazetesine verdiği beyanatta ülkeyi bekleyen tehlikeyi şöyle sergilemişti: “Türkiye’de esasen mürteci yoktu ve yoktur. Vehim vardı, vesvese vardı (...) Bundan sonra yalnız bir şey olabilir. O da bazı adî politikacıların, hasis çıkarcıların o vehim ve hayali uyandırmaya çalışması, o yüzden çıkar ve hırslarını tatmin düşüncesinden ibarettir”. Bugün de durum budur ve bu durumu da toplumsal evrim ve sınıf çelişkileri yaratır. Gerçekten de din ve dünya görüşü ile ilgili gelişmeler hiçbir zaman ülkedeki sosyal ve sınıfsal dönüşümlerden soyutlanamaz. Bu alandaki yeniden yapılanma çabaları hesaba katılmadan İslamcı politikalar ve bunların altında yatan motivasyon anlaşılamaz.
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Aslında Türkiye, tarihinin hiçbir döneminde İslam alemine önderlik edecek yorumcular, müçtehitler yetiştirmedi. Kanuni zamanında bile medreselerde Arap ve İranlı alimlerin yorumları esas alınıyordu. İslamiyetten sonra Ortadoğu’daki tüm devlet yapılanmaları da ideal tiplerini Sasani modelinde buldular. Şu anda yaşadığımız toplumsal kriz bile, Arap devletlerinden çok İran İslami Cumhuriyeti’nde yaşananlarla benzerlikler gösteriyor: Özellikle de -Zencani’si ve Zarrab’ı ile- bu ülkede Ahmedinecad döneminde yaşanan sınıfsal dönüşümlerle. Bu yıllarda, İslami Devrim’in başlangıçtan itibaren vurucu gücünü teşkil eden “Devrim Muhafızları” (Pasdaran) ihale, teşvik, özelleştirme politikalarıyla yeni bir sınıf konumuna yükselmişti. Bu sınıf politikası, siyaseti de etkiledi ve giderek Ruhani iktidarına yol açtı. İranlı düşünür Mahfaz Shirali geçen Ocak ayında bu süreci şöyle yorumluyordu: “Humeyni için tehlikede olan İslam’dı ve onu korumak lazımdı; yeni başkan için ise ekonomi tehlikede ve o korunmalı. Tek bir örnek vermek gerekirse, devrimci ordu generalleri (Pasdaran), ‘Allah’ın askerleri’ iken, iş adamları haline geldiler”. (Le Monde, 28 Ocak, 2016). Bu aynı zamanda (köktencilerin “yozlaşma” olarak gördükleri) bir çeşit “sekülerleşme” süreci idi. Olivier Roy’un Türkiye ile ilgili yorumunu anımsatan bu görüş, İran’daki Ruhani “pragmatizm”ine işaret ediyor. Gerçekten de artık ekonomide, özellikle petrol, gaz ve petro-kimya alanlarında önemli bir yer tutan Pasdaran, Ahmedinecad döneminde elçiler, valiler, belediye reisleri vb gibi mevkilere de adamlarını yerleştirmeyi başarmıştı. İşte AKP yönetiminin “Osmanlı Ocakları” ve palazlanan esnaf, KOBİ’ler, MÜSİAD vb temelinde –yer yer eski AKP kadrolarını da tasfiye ederek- yeni bir sınıf ve yönetici kadro yaratma çabası da bu tabloyu çağrıştırıyor. Üstelik Türkiye gibi petrol yoksulu bir ülkede, AKP, sınıf politikasına ihale, teşvik ve özelleştirme araçlarına son yıllarda bir de Osmanlı müsadere sistemini sokmuş bulunuyor. Daha geçenlerde Gümrük ve Ticaret Bakanı Nurettin Canikli “FETÖ'nün finansman kaynaklarının kurutulması çerçevesinde bugüne kadar TMSF bünyesine 46 grup olarak toplam 692 şirket devredildi(ğini); bu şirketlerde toplam 37 bin 858 kişi çalıştığını” ve “şirketlerin toplam aktif büyüklüğünün 34,1 milyar lira civarında olduğunu” ilan ediyordu. Bu vahşi kapitalizm yöntemleri sonunda tutuklanmış bazı yazarların tasarruf hesaplarına kadar uzandı. Ne var ki bütün bunlar yetmiyor, milli gelir azalmaya başlıyor ve Türk lirası da hızla değer kaybediyordu. Cumhurbaşkanı bu kez de halkı, tanklara direndiği gibi dolara direnmeye davet etti. Gezi, 17-25 Aralık ve 15 Temmuz darbelerini tezgâhlayan güçler bu sefer de TL’ye saldırıya geçmişlerdi. Sonra ne oldu? Erdoğan’a göre oyun bozuldu: “15 Temmuz darbe girişimini takip eden günlerde, şayet milletimiz 12 milyar dolar bozdurarak ekonomisine sahip çıkmasaydı, aynı oyunu orada da oynayacaklardı” diyordu Cumhurbaşkanı! Ne var ki bu kez beklenen olmadı. 3,50’lerden 3,30’lara inen dolar kuru kısa sürede aynı hızla yine 3,50’lere tırmandı. Yoksa daha Erdoğan konuşmadan, Sabah’taki köşesinde (13 Aralık) “Bu kampanyaların başarılı olması, ülkemizden parasını alıp çıkmak isteyen yabancı yatırımcının işini kolaylaştırmaz mı?” diye sorgulayan yazar haklı mı çıkmıştı? “Ülkemizin döviz rezervi eridiğinde, bunun ekonomimize geri dönüşü nasıl olacak? (...) Birileri dolar ucuzken sattırıp, pahalıyken bize satmak mı istiyor acaba?” diyordu H. Kaplan.
Aslında bu arada Hükümet de boş durmamış, o da iktidarın sınıfsal belkemiği olan esnafa can simidi teşkil edecek bir “önlemler paketi” hazırlamıştı. 1,6 milyon esnafın kredi engellerinin kaldırılması; kepenk kapatanlara maaş bağlanması; yıl sonlarındaki “defter tasdiki” eziyetinin kaldırılması.. tablo cazipti. Ne var ki, Erdoğan’ın bütün lanetlemelerine rağmen, esnafı ve Kobileri ezen faizler de bir türlü indirilemiyordu.
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Siyasal İslam, sosyal dönüşüm, sınıfsal yapılanma… Bütün bunlar bir de “Yeni Anayasa” ile taçlandırılmalıydı! Bu da “Yeni Türkiye”nin siyasi çatısı olacaktı! Şimdi bu son aşamadayız. İyi de kimler, hangi koşullarda hazırlıyorlar bu “Anayasa”yı? Daha doğrusu, Anayasa Doçenti Murat Sevinç’in sorduğu gibi, “Gündemdeki anayasa önerisi, bir anayasa değişikliği önerisi midir?”.. Elbette ki değildir. Girişim, fiilen zaten ortadan kaldırılmış olan anayasa yerine yepyeni bir “sistem” getirme girişiminden ibarettir. Tıpkı 1933’te, Portekiz’de, Salazar’ın “Estado Novo”nun (Yeni Devlet’in) temellerini atacak yeni bir “Anayasa” ısmarlaması gibi.. Bu bakımdan Meclis Komisyonu’nda yapılan “anayasa tartışmaları”nı parlamenter demokrasi tarihinin düşünsel ve kurumsal referansları içinde kavramaya çalışmak da beyhude bir çaba olacaktır. Kaldı ki, Erdoğan. daha geçenlerde tarımcılara seslenirken dayandığı felsefeyi, herkesin anlayacağı bir dille, şöyle ortaya koymuştu: “Çobanlık deyip hafife almayın; çobanlığın felsefesini anlamayan, onun psikolojisini yaşamayan insan yönetemez. Ben de bir çobanım.” Ve bu arada AKP ve MHP vekilleri de bu felsefeye en uygun “anayasa”yı hazırlıyorlardı.
Siyasal İslam, sınıfsal dönüşüm, daralan ekonomi, artan işsizlik, “anayasal” yapılanma.. Sonunda da savaş! Zırh olarak da Trump ve Putin adlarını taşıyan iki demagog popülist arasında sıkışıp kalmış, ne İsa’ya ne de Musa’ya yaranacak bir diplomasi. Bütün bunları pekiştirici nitelikte de bir sıcak savaş olgusu.. El Bab’da karla ve düşmanla savaşan Mehmetçikler.. Ne yazık ki 2017’ye bu koşullarda giriyoruz.

Reassessing the reasons for the failed Turkish coup attempt

Reassessing The Reasons For The Failed Turkish Coup Attempt

Fri, Oct 21, 2016

Chaosistan, Hybrid Wars, Turkey

By Andrew KORYBKO (USA)

                                                                                                         

It’s been a little over 3 months since some rogue members of the Turkish military failed to oust President Erdogan in their spectacular coup attempt last July, and the passage of time has allowed many analysts to more calmly assess what happened during this dramatic time and fully investigate its origins. This review aims to reevaluate the motivations for the regime change attempt and argues that the US exploited sharp preexisting differences within Turkey’s military, elite, and society in order to instigate the coup for envisioned zero-sum geostrategic ends against Russia.

Reconceptualizing The Socio-Political Situation

There was a long-standing illusion that Turkey was a Western-modelled liberal-democracy before the coup attempt and subsequent crackdown, but that presumption doesn’t accurately capture the transformational processes that have occurred since Erdogan first rose to power in 2003. Outside observers that don’t closely follow Turkish domestic politics might naïvely have assumed that Turkey’s prior form of governance would be unchanging due to its NATO membership, EU aspirations, and US partnership, but none of these three are necessary prerequisites for an enduring liberal democracy. What’s been happening in Turkey over the past 13 years is that the country has been transitioning from a secular western liberal democracy to an Islamist “national democracy”, with the former only remaining as a shell of its older self in order to barely disguise the core of the latter.
The only other famously regarded Islamic Democracy is Iran’s, though that one is formally a republic and is relatively more open than Turkey’s. Erdogan is known as an admirer of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, so it’s likely that the comparatively more centralized characteristics of his evolving model are due to the influence that this organization has had on him. The Turkish President formally hosted the group after its 2014 expulsion from Qatar, and prior to that, his 2011 “Arab Spring” “victory tour” to Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia showed that he has long held a desire to lead the countries where he expected the Muslim Brotherhood to usurp power after their successful regime change operations. As part of his Islamist mission, Erdogan wants to change the secular constitution that Turkey’s modern-day founder Kemal Mustafa Ataturk implemented, which critics fear will result in the imposition of a Salafist-style state on all Turks that would then pressure them to accept a religious socio-political system through various means of coercion.
In all fairness, however, the 20^th-century secular state of Turkey is an historical anomaly for its people considering that they had lived for centuries under the caliphate, yet Ataturk’s reforms were so successful that secularity became a defining feature of Turkey’s national identity and came to symbolize its rapid modernization in socio-political terms. Turkey maintained this system until after the Cold War, when rural society began to progressively Islamify much to the dismay of the secular urbanites. The eventual outcome of this process was that the majority of the country came to embrace the outward expression of religion, particularly in the socio-political form, and they were the reason why Erdogan’s AK Party came to power in the first place in 2003. Erdogan represented the formal politicization of this trend, but he knew that he had to proceed incrementally with his vision so as not to scare the remaining members of the secular society, his country’s international (Western) partners, and the military.

“Deep State” Wars

At the same time, though, Erdogan didn’t hide his Islamization intentions, and this spurred a predictable reaction from some members of Turkey’s “deep state”, or its permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies. The military has a long tradition of coups, especially those that were meant to safeguard the country’s constitutional secularity, which is why Erdogan didn’t move as fast as he wanted to with his plans and instead spent the past 13 years steadily dismantling this “deep state” infrastructure. The series of domestic scandals during this time were symptomatic of just how fierce the “deep state” war had become, since these sorts of conflicts are never meant to spill out into the public domain unless they absolutely have to.
The reason that such scandals as these happened is because Erdogan wasn’t just confronting the formal “deep state”, but also the informal one as represented by non-state actors such as the Gulenists that are ideologically opposed to his rule. Sometimes these individuals and sympathizers would infiltrate into “deep state” institutions, but other times they’d be embedded in the media and academic spheres. Erdogan’s quest to rid the country of all formidable regime change opposition to his rule defined his time in power thus far. For as power-hungry and radically transformational as Erdogan and the AK Party might be, one shouldn’t lose sight of the ‘inconvenient’ fact that they’re still the democratically elected and legitimate government of the country that represents the electoral desires of the Turkish majority.
Even so, Erdogan’s polices were indeed polarizing, and he came to symbolize what the opposition saw as an existential threat to the Turkish Republic. The crux of the problem is that the Islamifying AK Party stands against the secularization enshrined in the Turkish Constitution, which thus puts them at immeasurable odds with all secularists, some of the military, and the Gulenists who conspired to exploit these preexisting socio-political tensions for their own regime change ends. This was the domestic climate in Turkey on the eve of the coup attempt, but nothing would have happened had it not been for the geopolitical trigger that Erdogan himself unwittingly pulled and which prompted the US to encourage the coup plotters to make a decisive move against his government.

Great Power Politics

None of Erdogan’s centralizing Islamization policies would have mattered to the West, NATO, and the US on a high-level strategic plane so long a Turkey still continued to support their Mideast policies. In fact, the case can even be made that an Islamifying Turkey is beneficial to the US if one understands the “Arab Spring” as a theater-wide Salafist Color Revolution and Turkey as the envisioned “Lead From Behind” hegemon of a constellation of Muslim Brotherhood governments. This didn’t pan out as expected because the historically secular Syrian people stoutly refused to fall for this foreign-concocted regime change plot and stood firmly behind their government, though the US and Turkey obviously didn’t take their refusal for an answer and thus commenced the ongoing War on Syria that continues to this day.
The nature of that conflict has changed, however, because Turkey rapidly restored its strained relations with Russia after the tense freeze that followed the shooting down of the Russian anti-terrorist jet over Syria, and this has served as a major game-changer in the US’ Mideast calculations. Erdogan’s initiative didn’t occur in a vacuum, but played out in response to the US-Turkish strategic divergence that eventually widened over the War on Syria, particularly as it relates to the Kurds. Turkey had been fighting a long-running war against the PKK since the 1970s, with only a brief intermission over the past couple of years, but the conflict was reignited because of two driving factors. The first is that the Turkish Kurds were encouraged by the anti-Daesh gains of their Syrian and Iraqi brethren and the international sympathy and support that followed, while the second is that Erdogan decided to “rough up” the Kurds a bit as an electioneering tactic before the second round of voting in order to attract the MHP nationalist vote (which he succeeded in winning).
All the while this was happening and even beforehand, the US was providing the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds with weapons, training, supplies, airstrikes, and special forces assistance. What predictably followed was a classic security dilemma between the US and Turkey. Ankara truly believed that the US wasn’t just trying to defeat Daesh, but also had ulterior motives in in helping the Kurds craft a sub-state transnational “Kurdistan” between Syria and Iraq. This prospective polity would allow the US to powerfully pressure Turkey. Ankara views the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia as a terrorist group inseparable from the PKK, so Turkey understandably identifies the creation of this entity as a terrorist state along its southern borderland and thus lost its erstwhile blind trust in the US. “Kurdistan” is an existential threat to the Turkish Republic, but it also endangers the grand strategic designs of Syria, Russia, and Iran, which quietly agree that this pro-American proxy state would be nothing less than a “second geopolitical ‘Israel’” in the heart of the Mideast. It’s the convergence of Turkey and Russia’s threat assessments vis-a-vis “Kurdistan” that spurred the lightning-fast political reset between both sides.

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

The Russian-Turkish rapprochement is a fundamental game-changer for undermining the US’ Mideast strategy because of the potential that it has to morph into a quadrilateral coordination platform between Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Moreover, the restoration of positive Russian-Turkish relations also allows for Iranian-Turkish ties to become strengthened too, given the shared interest that Moscow and Tehran have in fighting terrorism in Syria. The linking of the Russian, Iranian, and Turkish Great Powers is referred to by the author as the Tripartite, and an earlier article series for Katehon explored the broad geopolitical potential that this new power grouping has to reverse the destabilization that the US has wreaked all across the “Eurasian Balkans”. Additionally, it shouldn’t be forgotten that each member of the Tripartite has their own New Silk Road relationship with China, so one can expect for Beijing to use this renewed period of multilateral Great Power pragmatism to its world-changing advantage by seeking to advance the transnational multipolar connective infrastructure projects that are collectively referred to as the One Belt One Road (OBOR) vision.
All of this is a nightmare for US strategists, which is why they felt immediately compelled to act against the catalyst of this profound scenario forecast by stopping Erdogan in his tracks before he could take Turkey further down the path of multipolarity. US intelligence agencies, by the very nature of doing the job that they’re tasked to perform, obviously have influence within and access to the Turkish “deep state”, which was made even easier to acquire in this case because of the country’s NATO membership and its “Lead From  Behind” position in the War on Syria. They accordingly took advantage of the antecedent cleavages in Turkey’s socio-political systems in order to encourage the coup plotters to prematurely execute their plans before they were even ready, assuring them that they’d succeed because the CIA would direct the entire operation from an island in the Sea of Marmara and even provide them with Erdogan’s coordinates so that he could be assassinated.
The domestic differences that the US sought to exploit in ‘justifying’ the coup were as follows:
* Turkey’s gradual progression away from constitutional secularity and towards an intensifying de-facto Islamist system;
* the affiliated transition from a Western-modelled liberal democratic system to one of national democracy;
* the deep unease that some members of the military felt because of the systemic efforts that Erdogan undertook to weaken their institution and centralize his own power;
* and the growing international suspicion surrounding Turkey for its centralized Islamization, its support of Daesh, and its role in facilitating the Immigrant Crisis, all of which were ironically brought to global attention by the efforts of Russia’s international media outlets.
These four factors alone wouldn’t have been enough for the US to throw its backing behind the coup preparations that certain actors were already undertaking against Erdogan so long as Washington thought that it could still control Ankara, but the rapid renewal of Russian-Turkish relations made the US second guess the submissive loyalty of its Mideast underling and thus served as the geopolitical impetus for abruptly setting the regime change events into motion. The coup ultimately failed though because Erdogan was tipped off about it at the last minute, dramatically escaping death to iconically rally his people through a nationally televised iPhone Facetime message to take to the streets in his support. Whether he recognized it or not, this was an implementation of Reverse Color Revolution technology, in which traditional Color Revolution tactics such as street protests are used not for the purpose of regime change, but for ‘regime reinforcement’.

Information Trickery

Despite victoriously regaining power shortly thereafter, Erdogan had a much tougher time deflecting the fallback damage control narrative that the US began to spin in the aftermath of its failed operation. Washington and its affiliated international mainstream media outlets began to promote the conspiracy theory that Erdogan had staged the coup himself in order to gain more power, and this clever suggestion quickly caught on even among many alternative media supporters, commentators, and outlets. People fell for this ruse because it took perfect advantage of the information backdrop that Russian international broadcasters themselves had previously promoted during the times of Russian-Turkish tensions, chiefly that Erdogan is a dangerous Islamifying ‘dictator’ who will stop at nothing in his lust for power, including supporting Daesh terrorists in Syria. All of this is factually true, but the problem with media and policy is that the former doesn’t predict nor can elegantly accommodate for pivotal changes in the latter, which is why many people were suddenly left scratching their heads and wondering why Russia would all of a sudden team up with the same ‘tyrant’ that it had previously despised.
To simply explain it, Russia does not have a “state-controlled media” in the same sense as the West does, as surprising as this may seem to many. Although RT and Sputnik are publicly funded, they are not directly controlled by the Kremlin or any other Russian decision-making “deep state” organs. In contrast, Western “private” media companies such as CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times are paradoxically under an even more intense degree of state influence that they accuse their Russian counterparts of being exposed to. This is why, for example, there were differing narratives about the origins of the coup plot and its normative legitimacy in both of these aforementioned Russian outlets, because plainly enough, they allow for a diversity of viewpoints and are not “state-controlled”. If they were, then they would have been able to more flexibly adapt their messaging before, during, and after the US-backed coup in order to account for the rapid Russian-Turkish rapprochement and clearly explain the geopolitical underpinnings of this to their audience so that they wouldn’t be as confused as many of them still are. The West has no such problems in this regard because they don’t have “free speech”, no matter how much they claim the contrary, and this is proven beyond a doubt by the consensual narrative that they all spewed in unison about how Erdogan purportedly faked his own coup in order to seize more power.
The author thoroughly debunked this claim in a previous article about “Why The Failed Turkish Coup Attempt Wasn’t A “False Flag” Power Grab By Erdogan”, and the reader is welcomed to read it in full if they’re interested in a more comprehensive explanation about this, but there are a very relevant details pertaining to it which should be mentioned at this time. The first is that Erdogan’s power centralization had already been occurring for a long time before this happened, and that he was already doing it in such a systematic way that it should have been obvious to all that he had previously identified his targets well in advance. The failed coup attempt just gave Erdogan a mandate to accelerate this process and to carry it out more publicly without fear of significant protests against him (which he could use the state of emergency to quell). On top of that, the enthusiastically supportive reaction of Russia and especially Iran to Erdogan’s successful victory over the coup plotter speaks volumes about these state’s analyses of the situation. Quite clearly, both of them calculated that it’s much better for their own respective and collective interests (especially in regards to Syria) for Erdogan to remain in power than if he were replaced in a US-orchestrated coup. Even more convincing was the very mild reaction that each of them gave to Turkey’s military involvement in northern Syria, which could logically be taken to mean that they had previous knowledge about it and tacitly supported (if not coordinated) this move in order to disrupt the creation of the US’ “second geopolitical ‘Israel’” of “Kurdistan”.

The Path Ahead

Having come to a clearer understanding about the origins of the US-backed coup attempt against Erdogan, it’s now possible to forecast the path that Turkey will tread in the future. Ankara won’t totally ditch the US, EU, West, and NATO, but it knows that it is impossible for it to join the European integrational bloc in the post-Brexit reality, especially given Turkey’s complicity in engineering the same Immigrant Crisis that contributed to London’s voluntary removal from the organization. What it will do, however, is move closer to the multipolar world in response, and this could take the form of strengthened multidimensional cooperation with the Tripartite and/or broader multilateral engagement with the SCO and BRICS.
The most dramatic expression of the Tripartite would be if Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Syria were to openly coordinate their anti-Daesh activity in the Arab Republic. Each of the Great Powers already have their own separate type of military forces presently active in the country which could effectively supplement one another if deployed in coordination. For example, Russia’s airpower would greatly augment the combat viability of Iran’s special forces, Turkey’s tanks, and Syria’s conventional troops, but the problem is that none of these actors are multilaterally working together for these ends. Syria is bilaterally coordinating its liberation offensives with Russia and Iran, but it doesn’t appear as though Moscow and Tehran are directly working together with one another. Damascus doesn’t seem to have any influence over what Ankara is doing in northern Syria, whereas Russia and Iran look to be dealing with their Turkish Great Power peer and handling this on Syria’s behalf. What’s needed is for all four countries to get together, pool the available military resources that they have the political will to commit, and push aside the US’ “anti-terrorist” coalition in beating Washington in the “Race for Raqqa”.
Even if Erdogan doesn’t team up with Putin, Rouhani/Ayatollah, and Assad in taking out Daesh, he’s still committed an unpardonable sin in the eyes of the US by surviving the coup and normalizing relations with Moscow and Tehran. It’s now clear to all that since the US fatefully chose Gulen and the Kurds over Erdogan, the Turkish strongman is rightly convinced that Washington will continue to use these two non-state actors against him in the coming future. The most obvious way that this can happen is through an emboldened Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey, fought by American-trained “Peshmerga” and YPG forces which were directly supplied by the Pentagon ostensibly under the pretenses of “fighting Daesh”. Related to this, the leftist terrorism that plagued the country during the 1970s might return as well, to say nothing of Daesh itself turning more fiercely against its former patron. It also can’t be ruled out that Erdogan’s plans to revise the constitution in order to strengthen the presidency and formally Islamify the state could serve as a trigger for another Color Revolution attempt against him. Whether all of these scenarios are ‘naturally occurring’ or predetermined processes encouraged and/or orchestrated by the US for geopolitical purposes, they all have the likelihood to individually or collectively become self-perpetuating and enter into a state of auto-synchronization that fulfills the neoconservative weaponization of chaos theory.
The Hybrid Wars that could break out against Turkey would be predicted on the theoretical law that determines the course of these conflicts, which is to disrupt, control, or influence multipolar transnational connective infrastructure projects through the exploitation of identity conflicts. Turkey is pivotally situated at the Eurasian crossroads that invaluably connect Asian energy resources and commercial trade to Europe, thus giving it a heightened position in both Iran and China’s grand strategies, respectively. Turkey needs to retain stability within its borders and pacify the southeast so that the New Silk Road could travel into the country from Iran and fortify Beijing’s globally transformational plans to re-engineer Eurasian geopolitics. Even if Erdogan achieves his goal of controlling the Turkish Kurds, he might never be able to fully keep a lid on the domestic dissent that’s bound to incessantly sizzle so long as he pursues his constitutional plans to formalize the Islamization of his society. The Color Revolution plots that will undoubtedly spring up in reaction to this might be put down by the Turkish security services, but they’ll at least accomplish the mission of painting Erdogan out to be an “Islamic dictator” who in the eyes of the Western audience is long overdue for removal.
The chief irony of the Turkish story over the past five years looks to be that the unipolar country bit off much more than it could chew in the War on Syria, and now its “deep state” has recanted and begun to veer in the direction of multipolarity out of the self-interested desire to preserve its own strategic security. Turkey’s American patron turned on it by choosing the Kurds over Erdogan, and Ankara’s gambit in promoting its Neo-Ottoman interests at Damascus’ expense paradoxically ended up diminishing its own internal security and socio-political stability, made even worse by Erdogan’s polarizing drive towards centralized Islamization. Although weaker than it ever has been in its recent history, Turkey interestingly has more potential than anyone would have previously thought possible due to the advantages that it stands to reap from its pragmatic partnerships with the multipolar Great Powers of Russia, China, and Iran, though it remains to be seen whether the US will allow its former subordinate to taste the ‘forbidden fruit’ that Washington had forcibly withheld from it for generations.
Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for Sputnik agency. He is the author of “Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach To Regime Change” (2015).