How the Syrian conflict has changed the world

A look at how the Syrian conflict has changed the world

AP  - Mar 14, 2016                   

                                

BEIRUT – The Syrian conflict has had outsized impact on global politics. Five ways the world has changed:

Rise of the Islamic State

It was in the vacuum of the deteriorating Syrian conflict that a little-known and horrifically violent branch of al-Qaida grew into the foremost terror group on the planet.
In 2014, the Islamic State group completed its takeover of the eastern Syria city of Raqqa and went on to conquer Iraq’s Mosul. It eventually took over an area straddling the countries’ border the size of Britain — absorbing weapons, wealth, and personnel along the way. The expansion went largely unchecked by the Syrian government, busy fighting opponents in its more populated regions closer to the Mediterranean coast.
IS has sparked deep anxieties in the region and around the world by slaughtering minorities, institutionalizing sex slavery, vanquishing state armies, and killing opponents in gruesome spectacles of violence. It destroyed heritage sites, such as temples in the ancient city of Palmyra, and fueled the global antiquities trade.
The group has waged terror attacks from France to Yemen and has established a beachhead in northern Libya that could outlast its so-called “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq. Perhaps most confounding, thousands of young men and women from Europe — not all of Muslim origin — have flocked to join it.

Resurgent Russia

“There is one man on this planet who can end the civil war in Syria by making a phone call, and that’s Mr. Putin,” British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said recently.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has established a renewed Middle East foothold after watching for years as the United States called shots in the region. Last September, after showering arms, advisers, and economic assistance on President Bashar Assad to insufficient effect, Putin sent his air force to pound the Syrian government’s opponents. The recent ebb in violence is largely because Russia dictated it. Russia’s designs for Syria are still veiled, but whoever leads Syria next will largely owe their chair to Putin.
Before Syria, there was Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, precursors to the current intervention, where Putin was unafraid to show the lengths he would go to protect perceived Russian interests. Now, Russia is positioned as a major broker in the region with significant oil and gas wealth. Expect political movements of all stripes to ask how Russia can serve their interests.

Europe destabilized

When Europe fashioned its open border agreements late last century, it did not anticipate over a million migrants — mostly refugees from Syria — in one year alone, as happened in 2015. Thousands have died trying to cross by sea, posing a moral challenge for the continent. The stream, which continues unabated, has brought on both generosity and xenophobia, ultimately shaking the open-border arrangement to the core.
Europeans are now erecting barriers along the migrants’ Balkan route from Greece to Germany, after initially allowing entry to hundreds of thousands. Multitudes fester in squalid conditions in southeastern Europe. Many face legal limbo around the continent, waiting for asylum applications to be processed or residing without permits.
The Islamic State attack on Paris in November, though largely perpetrated by French and Belgian nationals, sparked security recriminations across Europe and boosted nationalist politicians. Echoes could be heard as far away as the United States, where Republican front-runner Donald Trump shocked many by proposing a ban on Muslims entering the country.
Europe is now exploring a deal to send all migrants arriving in Greece back to Turkey, in exchange for admitting pre-selected refugees from Syria. On top of its currency crisis, the mass migration has strained Europe’s unity to the limit.

Neighbors subverted

Europe’s migrant crisis is dwarfed by the wave of displacement that has washed into Syria’s neighbors. Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan alone host around 4.4 million refugees from Syria; in Lebanon, they make up more than one-fifth of the population.
Syrian refugees have brought capital and labor and produced mixed economic outcomes in their host societies, depending on what figures are consulted.
The Syria conflict has also ensnared militias and state actors across the region, destabilizing fragile neighbors like Lebanon and reawakening ethnic tensions in Turkey, where the Syria conflict has provoked concerns of a civil war with the Kurds.

Iran ascendant

The Syria conflict has rebalanced regional axes of power. Predominantly Shiite Iran’s sphere of influence now extends from Beirut to Tehran, with dependent governments in Baghdad and Damascus. The commander of the elite Quds Force of the vaunted Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, has visited Russia and is often seen directing deployments in Syria and Iraq. Iran has militias in both countries said to operate outside sovereign command structures.
In Lebanon, Iran is powerfully represented by Hezbollah, the party-militia hybrid that expelled Israel from the south of the country in 2000. It has sent thousands of fighters to prop up Assad in Syria. Israel glumly watches its nemesis training with modern artillery alongside Russian and Iranian contingents, and fortifying its position along the Jewish state’s northern border. Hezbollah steadily marginalizes Saudi-backed opponents in Lebanon’s government.
Saudi Arabia, the regional Sunni powerhouse, is struggling to maintain support for the mainly Sunni rebels it backs in Syria while also fighting Iran-supported Shiite rebels in Yemen.

Erdoğan must reform or resign

Turkey’s Erdogan must reform or resign 

By Mort Abramowitz and Eric Edelman March 10 at 7:33 PM

Mort Abramowitz and Eric Edelman, both former U.S. ambassadors to Turkey, co-chair the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Turkey Initiative. Abramowitz is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and Edelman is a practitioner-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has steadily descended into authoritarianism and instability. The recent government seizure of one of the main opposition media groups, including Turkey’s highest-circulation newspaper, is only the latest demonstration of how Erdogan has betrayed his county’s potential.

When Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) took power in 2003, they strengthened the Turkish economy and improved Turkey’s relations with its neighbors. The AK Party pursued European Union membership, ended military domination over Turkish politics and tried to find a peaceful solution to the country’s long-standing Kurdish problem.

By 2012, Erdogan could confidently declare, “We have a bright future.” After nearly a decade of political progress, economic growth and growing international approval, he could dare to promise that by 2023, the centenary of the republic, Turkey would be “one of the greatest powers of its region and the world.”

Today, Turkey’s future looks much bleaker. Rather than greatness, Erdogan has steered it toward authoritarianism, economic slowdown and civil war.

Clearly, democracy cannot flourish under Erdogan now. The transformative reforms the AK Party originally promised have given way to systematic abuses of basic freedoms and legal rights. The AK Party’s heralded attempt to hold the military accountable for its undemocratic behavior was a show trial in which manufactured evidence served to implicate political opponents. Early interference with the media — slapping an opposition media conglomerate with a $2.5 billion tax fine in 2009 and forcing a newspaper to fire a critical columnist in 2007 — was just an indication of the AK Party’s now far-reaching efforts to muzzle the press, whether by jailing journalists or authorizing government takeovers of critical outlets. Nor has civil society been spared Erdogan’s heavy-handed tactics: In 2013, protests against the government in Istanbul’s Gezi Park were met with deadly police violence.

Indeed, recent developments in Turkey bring to mind frightening cliches and dark moments of 20th-century totalitarianism. An AK Party parliamentarian led a mob to attack the offices of a newspaper lambasted by Erdogan just days prior. Several AK Party members, including former president Abdullah Gul, have been removed from an official online list of the party’s founding members. Among thousands of others, a 13-year-old boy was arrested for insulting Erdogan, and a woman who did likewise was denounced in the courts by her own husband. Tens of thousands of children, including religious minorities, have been forcibly sent to Islamic schools or subjected to mandatory Islamic religious education. Now, as Erdogan seeks to transform the Turkish constitution to entrench his power as president, such abuses will likely become the norm.

Authoritarian leaders usually justify their rule by insisting they are bringing their citizens stability and prosperity. In Turkey, Erdogan’s policies are putting both of these further beyond the people’s reach. After supporting and arming extremist groups in the Syrian conflict, Turkey is now experiencing dangerous blowback from the terrorism it helped stoke. Bombings in Istanbul and Ankara have created shocking scenes of carnage. Yet Turkey continues to insist that Syrian Kurdish groups — not the Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra — are the greatest threat in Syria.

The repercussions of this authoritarianism and instability are taking their toll on Turkey’s tourism industry and scaring away foreign investors, leaving many economists worried about the future of the Turkish economy. In 2008, the Turkish lira was almost equal to the dollar. Now the exchange rate is 3-to-1 . And while Turkey’s efforts to care for millions of Syrian refugees are truly impressive, they tax the Turkish economy in ways that ordinary citizens are all too aware of.

Worse, the collapse of negotiations between the AK Party and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) last year has reignited a military conflict that many hoped Turkey was on the verge of resolving. The PKK is a terrorist group with a track record of violence that hardly makes it an ideal partner for peace, but the Turkish people nonetheless have the right to hold their government accountable for the negotiations’ failure. Now, Turkish soldiers and civilians continue to die in a worsening conflict, and the government has no realistic plan for stopping or winning it. The horrible bombing in Ankara on Feb. 17, carried out by a PKK splinter faction, portends a spread of violence that could throw Turkey back into the civil war that decimated the country in the 1970s and ’80s.

We continue to believe that a strong, stable and democratic Turkey is both possible and essential. But this requires a government committed to these goals and intent on achieving them. If Erdogan still wants to deliver a brighter future for his country, he has to reform or resign.

 

To be a reformist in Iran -Mehdi Khalaji

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A REFORMIST IN IRAN?

PolicyWatch 2583
March 10, 2016

By Mehdi Khalaji

Read this article on our website:
http://washin.st/1RT78si

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An unprecedented combination of regional turmoil, international pressure, and authoritarian machinations have coopted the reformist movement, leading many Iranians to view the current regime as Iran's only means of survival.

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The meaning of the term "reformist" has fundamentally changed in Iran since the movement's heyday in the 1990s. Having reconciled themselves to the policies of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, today's reformists are primarily concerned with gaining power.

NO MORE CONFRONTATION

Akbar Ganji, a well-known reformist journalist in exile, has offered a sound critique of the movement by explaining that reformists no longer accept the views of the late Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the influential figure who was once a designated successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini but later became a sharp critic of velayat-e faqih, the system under which the Supreme Leader wields absolute authority. As Ganji put it in a March 3 interview, "Reformists now believe that instead of confronting Ayatollah Khamenei, they have to reconstruct their relations with him. Therefore, in their view, the election result should not be interpreted as a 'no' to Ayatollah Khamenei [intended] to incite him to react in a costly and unpredictable way...In [their] view, the worst policy in the current situation is confrontation with him. They say, 'Instead of confrontation, we should act in a way that encourages Khamenei to support the government as he did during the nuclear negotiations'" (for more on their post-election narrative, see PolicyWatch 2582, "Reformists Apply the 'Lesser Evil' Theory to Iran's Elections," http://washin.st/1RRw9Ej).

Ganji's claim about reformists giving up their defiant approach to Khamenei and his military, intelligence, and economic apparatus seems right. In other words, they are trying to alter the very notion of reform in order to assure Khamenei and other hardliners that "enemies" such as the United States cannot use the movement to subvert the regime. In revolutionizing the idea of reform, they hope that Khamenei will in turn reform the notion of revolution, so that he will once again view them as loyal to the Islamic Revolution's principles and easily appropriated by the system without causing trouble. A cynic might therefore say that "reformist" refers not to a distinct ideology, but rather to individuals associated with the Khatami government in the late 1990s who now wish to return to government.

This exceedingly deferential approach is more comprehensible when one considers Iran's lack of well-established political parties, which makes individual members of parliament much more vulnerable to outside influence. For example, over the course of its six-year term, the outgoing Majlis has completely changed its attitude toward each of the past two presidents based solely on actions and statements by the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Such behavior shows the degree to which parliamentary politics have become subordinated to the dynamics of the regime's unelected core.

ELECTIONS WITHOUT CHANGE

The Islamic Republic can best be categorized as "electoral authoritarianism." In such regimes, elections are just as important as the state's authoritarian agenda, though not for the usual reasons. These systems are not as closed as true autocracies, but not as open as true democracies. Instead, multifactional elections and other formal democratic institutions operate within or alongside authoritarian practices and policies. As scholar Andreas Schedler put it, election results in these systems "are the combined outcome of two unknown and unobservable variables -- popular preferences and authoritarian manipulations." Regimes use creative mechanisms to run these elections and incite people to take part in an ostensibly competitive process, and while the exact results are not always predictable, they do not undermine the system's core. In this manner, political struggle between various factions is constrained within the regime's rules and redlines.

Holding elections is vital for such regimes because they cannot rely solely on undemocratic sources of legitimacy; this is particularly true for Iran given its historical background, anti-monarchical revolution, and highly modernized society.  Elections serve the regime's authoritarian nature, insulating it against popular uprisings. Whether one calls such regimes "pseudo-democracies," "disguised dictatorships," or "competitive authoritarianism," what they all share in common is a mixture of democratic and authoritarian practices that effectively close the door on both reform and revolution. Occasional inclusive gestures are used to refresh a regime's image at home and abroad, but other restrictions keep the political competition to a minimum (e.g., in Iran, Jews, Christians, Sunnis, and women can all vote like anyone else, but with little if any substantive impact). For most citizens, hope is coupled with fear of brutal suppression, so even minor changes can keep their hope alive.

ROUHANI EMPOWERED?

As usual, Khamenei interpreted the high turnout in the latest election as the people's vote of confidence in the regime, but President Hassan Rouhani took a different view. In a press conference shortly after the vote, Rouhani depicted the outcome as a popular endorsement of his foreign and economic agenda: "Today, sanctions -- even those unrelated to the nuclear issue -- have been lifted. This has been announced [by the West] too...But people want all of the sanctions lifted, and that's okay. We will let the negotiating team negotiate [on nonnuclear sanctions] again, and we will certainly conclude that [deal] too." Yet Khamenei is no doubt confident that the newly elected parliament cannot empower Rouhani enough to back those words up, since that would involve forcing the Supreme Leader to compromise on Iran's foreign policy, the main cause of the remaining nonnuclear sanctions.

This outlook is evident in the moves Khamenei made in the days following the elections. First, he appointed an anti-Rouhani hardliner to one of the most important posts in Iran. Right after the election, news outlets reported the death of Abbas Vaez Tabasi, the custodian of an institution called Astan-e-Qods Razavi since 1979. Formally charged with overseeing the shrine in Mashhad, this organization is actually Iran's largest endowment complex and financial enterprise, involved in various industries (e.g., telecommunications, automobiles, energy, mining, agriculture, banking, and construction) as well the educational, medical, media, and charity sectors. The colossal apparatus and its billions in annual revenue are exempt from taxes and government investigation -- Astan-e-Qods Razavi is accountable only to the Supreme Leader, and its financial activities are not transparent to any of the government's three branches.

Appointing Tabasi's replacement was important not only for its own sake, but also as an indicator of how the elections would -- or, rather, would not -- affect Khamenei's approach to the "reformists." On March 7, he appointed Sayyed Ebrahim Raisi al-Sadat as the new custodian. A top-ranking judiciary official for more than three decades, Raisi is a well-known hardliner who won a seat in the latest Assembly of Experts election. In 1988, he was involved in mass executions of political prisoners, as revealed in Ayatollah Montazeri's memoirs. His family ties are hardly encouraging either -- Ahmad Alam al-Hoda, his father-in-law, is a top Mashhad imam who has frequently criticized Rouhani and moderates in general.

Raisi's appointment fits Khamenei's recent pattern. In June 2015, he appointed judiciary chief and well-known hardliner Sadeq Larijani to succeed Muhammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, a traditional conservative, as head of Imam Sadeq University and its associated organizations and endowments. Two months prior, he appointed IRGC Welfare Foundation chief Parviz Fatah to chair the Imam Khomeini Relief Aid Committee, replacing traditional conservative Habibollah Askar-Oladi. Thus, even after elections in which hardliners were not major winners, Khamenei strengthened their position in nongovernmental institutions that play an outsize role in Iran's politics, economy, and regional activities, without presidential or parliamentary supervision.

WHY SHIFT NOW?

The conventional makeup of Iranian politics has been destroyed by the recent turmoil in the Middle East and the ongoing pressure on Tehran. Khamenei warned the people that the turmoil following the contested 2009 presidential election was designed by the West to overthrow the regime and destabilize the country, claiming that the only alternative to the Islamic Republic was chaos. This narrative gained considerable traction after the 2011 "Arab Spring" ushered in a period of unimaginable violence in the region, discouraging many Iranians from taking part in any political actions that might undermine the system. At the same time, increasing international sanctions increased their fear of a military attack.

These concerns, coupled with the outcome of the nuclear negotiations, have raised the people's hope that minor changes through elections can save the country from war and chaos. The high vote tallies for non-hardliners can be interpreted as the public's longing for politicians who will take a less hostile approach to the West and guarantee their peace, prosperity, and security. In that sense, the people voted not so much for the regime's legitimacy, but rather for its unique ability to keep the country from falling apart. In the absence of any political alternative to the regime, and without any guarantees that an uprising would produce a democratic outcome, Iranians seem to regard the current system as Iran's only hope for survival.

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MHP İstanbul Milletvekili Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu’nun 05 Mart 2016 Cumartesi günü TBMM Genel Kurulu’nda Dışişleri Bakanlığı bütçesi üzerinde yaptığı konuşmanın tarafımdam kısaltılmış metnini sunuyorum. (07 Mart 2016)

“Ülkemiz, cumhuriyetin kuruluşundan bu yana içte ve dışta yaşamakta olduğu en sıkıntılı günlerini yaşamakta, beka mücadelesi.vermektedir.

Bir ülkenin dış politikası esas itibarıyla millî menfaat prensibi üzerine dayalı olmalıdır. Millî menfaatin bütüncül olması için dış politika ile iç politika arasında sağlam bir bağın olması gerekir.,

İç politikada kullanılan kutuplaştırıcı ve çatışmacı üslubun dış politikada kullanılması ne kadar isabetlidir?

Bir ülkenin başarılı dış siyasetinin olması için uzun vadeli stratejik hedefleri olmalı ve bunlar arasında önceliklerin tayin ve tespiti gerekmektedir. Dış siyasetin hedefleri, konusu ne olursa olsun bir yapabilirlik kudreti, bir istiap haddi vardır, her ülkenin bu limitleri vardır.

Dış politika sahasında kırk tarakta bezimizin olması acaba üstün bir meziyet midir?

Hükûmetin dış politikasının temelinde "ilkeli duruş" ve  "vicdan ve insan odaklı" olması vasfı bulunmaktadır. Bizim bu kavramlara itirazımız olmaz

Ancak, ilkeli olmak başka ülkelerin iç işlerine müdahale hakkını bahşeder mi bize?

Cumhuriyet döneminde ilk defa başka bir ülkenin iç işlerine karışmaya başladık. Komşumuz Suriye'de iç savaşa su dökmek yerine başka şeyler döktük.

Musul Valisi Etil Nüceyfi'nin daveti üzerine -bunu, Sayın Savunma Bakanımızın bu kürsüde söylediği sözlere dayalı olarak söylüyorum- Mart 15'te biz asker gönderdik, gönüllülerin eğitimini başlattık 4 Aralık 2015'te bizim Başika Zerikan kampına gönderdiğimiz takviye güç haberi üzerine, Irak Başbakanı diyor ki: "Bu, Irak'ın egemenliğine tevcih edilmiş bir darbedir, askerlerinizi derhâl çekiniz.", biz diyoruz ki: "Bunu IŞİD için gönderdik, teröre karşı.", buna da "Hayır." diyorlar ve Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nin savunma yetkilileri bu gönderdiğimiz takviyenin IŞİD'e karşı olmadığını ifade ediyorlar.

25 Aralıkta ise Arap ligine gidiliyor ve Arap ligindeki 22 ülke -hatırlatıyorum size, lütfen- oy birliğiyle Türkiye'yi kınıyor ve askerini çekmesini istiyor. 22 ülkeden 1 tanesi, 2 tanesi ya da çok samimi olduğumuz, bugünlerde iş birliği yaptığımız 2 ülkesi bari Türkiye'ye müzahir olsun, o da yok, müstenkif, çekimser olsun, yok Bu, Orta Doğu siyasetimizin yanlış esaslar üzerine oturtulduğu ve yanlış icra edildiği manasına gelir.

Peki, Türkiye ile Irak arasında Başika Kampı için en azından bir mutabakat zaptı gerekmiyor muydu? Niye yapılmadı

Bizim Orta Doğu'da onlarca yıldan beri devam eden politikamızın temelinde 3 tane faktör var: Birincisi, İsrail'i devlet olarak tanımak.

İkincisi Filistin halkının meşru haklarını… Başkenti Kudüs olmak üzere devlet kurma ve işgal edilen toprakların geri alınması dâhil, Türkiye Filistin halkının, devletinin ve hükûmetin yanında durmuştur.

Üçüncü prensip, Arap ihtilaflarına girmemektir.  Orta Doğu politikamızın temel kavramlarından bir tanesi Arap ihtilafları arasına girmemektir ve 1950'den bu yana Türkiye buna riayet etmiştir.

Suriye hiçbir makul gerekçesi ve saiki olmayan mezhebî bir çatışmanın içine sürüklenmiştir. Şunu söylemek istiyorum: Suriye'de mozaik eskiden beri vardır, tarih boyunca vardır ve savaştan önce bu mozaik arasında bir çatışma potansiyeli yoktu. Çatışmanın ilk olduğu günlerde de bu değişik Müslümanlar, Şiiler, Hristiyanlar, Dürziler vesaire hepsi kendi aralarında bir "coexistence" vardı, bir arada yaşama kültürü vardı,

Suriye'nin ve bütün komşularımızın toprak bütünlüğü, merkezî hükûmetlerin bütün topraklarına egemenliği bizim temel tercihimiz olmalıdır. Bugün ülkemizde güneydoğuda yaşanan vahim durumun ve orada masum vatandaşlarımızın düçar oluğu büyük sıkıntıların, etrafımızdaki ateş çemberinden vareste olduğunu kim iddia edebilir?

Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, tarihinde ilk defa başka bir ülkenin içişlerine karışıyor. Bu konunun meşruiyet zemini olmadığı gibi, dış siyasetin temelini teşkil eden millî menfaat açısından akla ziyandır.

Bunun yanı sıra, ayrıca Orta Doğu'da, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, Rusya, İran arasında doğan yeni bir güç dengelerinin unsurlarını iyi kavramak lazım ve bunlara göre yeni pozisyonlar tespit etmek lazım..

Geçtiğimiz kasım ayında Rus uçağının düşürülmesiyle, Türkiye ikinci soğuk savaşının ilk sıcak temasını sağlamıştır. Hâlbuki kırk yılı aşkın soğuk savaş döneminde bir fiske dahi, bir kurşun dahi iki taraf arasında atılmamıştır. Türkiye, Rusya'yla neredeyse gelecek sene yüzyıllık savaşsızlık hâlini yaşamıştır.

Eski bir dostu, yeni bir dostu düşmana çevirmek gerçekten akıl alacak bir şey değildir.

Birinci husus, bizim ihtiyacımız stratejik bir planlama.

Şimdi, ikinci mesele, şahıs merkezli politikalar "Biz Esad'ı sevmiyoruz, onu düşüreceğiz." Neyle düşüreceğiz? "Güçle düşüreceğiz." "Biz Nuri Maliki'yi sevmiyoruz." Nasıl düşüreceğiz? "Parlamentodaki öbür gruplarla şey edeceğiz." "Biz Musul Valisi Esil Nuceyfi'yi seviyoruz çünkü ailesi bizim dostumuzdur, onun davetinde gideceğiz." Böyle karar nasıl alınabilir, ben anlamıyorum. Kurumlar nerede? Diplomatik esaslar nerede?

Biz 2008 senesinde yani 160 civarında temsilciliğimizin olduğu dönemde Birleşmiş Milletler Güvenlik Konseyinin üyeliğine talip olduk ve ilk oylamada ülke 151 oy aldı. Parlak bir netice; 192'den 151 alıyorsunuz. Bu, Türkiye'nin itibarı. Bu fakirin de o çorbada tuzu oldu yani 50'ye yakın, İslam İşbirliği Teşkilatının üyeleri arasında olmuştur.

Şimdi, gelelim, 2008'den 2014'e geçelim. Türkiye yine talip oldu. O doğru bir karar değildi. Çünkü, çok kısa zaman içerisinde Güvenlik Konseyi üyeliğine ikinci defa talip olmak akıllıca bir karar değildi. Fakat, varsın olsun, bir bakalım, nasıl oldu. İlk oylamada 109 aldık. Öbür sefer, ilk oylamada 151 aldık, burada 109 aldık. Peki -bari bu aldığımız 109 oy- bir de etrafımıza baksaydık; oradaki hava bizim lehimize mi gidiyor, aleyhimize mi gidiyor, ona göre karar alıp çekilelim mi, kalalım mı. Çekilmedik, ikinci oylamada 73'e düştük, üçüncü oylamada 60'a düştük. Hâlbuki bu anda bizim dış temsilciliklerimiz 300'ün üzerinde..

Türkiye, komşuları, müttefikleri, Avrupa Birliği ve Rusya'yla münasebetlerini yeniden sağlam komşuluk, dostluk ve ittifak esasları üzerine oturtmalıdır. Bu arada, Mısır'la ilişkilerimizin yeniden tesis edilmesi için gayret etmeliyiz..

Kıbrıs meselesiyle ilgili şunları söylemek istiyorum: Türkiye'nin millî davasıdır. Her zaman dış politikamızın öncelikli meselesidir. Son dönemde  hızlandığını gördüğümüz çözüm sürecinde, Kıbrıs Türklerinin tarihî haklarının ve müktesebatının korunması siyasetimizin temeli olmalıdır.

1959 Zürih ve Londra anlaşmaları ve onlara bağlı olan ittifak ve garantörlük anlaşmalarının sağladığı hak ve müktesebatın korunması gerekir. Bunun yanı sıra, 1974 Barış Harekâtı'nın, zulüm ve gadre uğrayan Kıbrıs Türklerine fiilen sağladığı güvenlik ortamının korunması dikkat edilmesi gereken hususların başında. Yönetim şekli, mülkiyet ve toprak konuları, yeni anayasal düzen esasları ve diğer temel meseleler müzakere edilirken, biraz önce işaret ettiğimiz hususlar korunmalı ve Türk tarafının meşru hakları teminat altına alınmalıdır.

Türkiye'nin hâlen içinde bulunduğu dış politika dar boğazından çıkması için, haleldar olan millî menfaatlerimizin onarılması için, itibarın yeniden tesisi için bazı hususlara dikkat etmek lazım.

Birincisi: Türkiye, menfaatlerini gözetecek. Komşularının toprak bütünlüğüne karışmayacak. Ve onların parçalanması karşısında çok sağlam bir duruş lazım.

Dost ve müttefik ülkelerle karşılıklı saygı ve güvenilirlik duygularının yeniden tesis edilmesi, onlarla olan münasebetleri zedeleyen tavır ve davranışlardan kaçınılması lazım.

Dostları düşman hâline dönüştürücü söz ve eylemlere mahal vermeden, son dönemde atılan adımlar ciddi şekilde gözden geçirmeli.

Dinî hassasiyet ve mezhebi farklılıkların çatışma yapma eğilimlerine kesin bir şekilde karşı çıkmalıyız. Tarihimize ve medeniyetimize ters düşen dinde aşırılık tehlikesine karşı uluslararası iş birliğine destek vermeliyiz.

Tam yüzyıl önce dünyanın mukadderatına hâkim olan güçler "hasta adam" ilan ettikleri Osmanlı Devleti'nin mirasını kendi aralarında gizlice paylaştılar. O gün devletimizi idare edenlerin bazıları gaflet içinde, diğerleri başka hâllerdeydi. İstiklal Savaşımız olmasaydı bu vatana sahip olamazdık. Bugün ise, tam yüzyıl sonra, bölgenin parçalanmasına yol açacak bölünme şartları hazırlanmıştır.

Dış politika konusu millî bir sorumluluktur. Burada iktidar-muhalefet çekişmesinin çok ötesinde ülkenin yüce menfaatleri bahis konusudur. Ülkenin birlik ve beraberliği tehlikeye maruz kalınca her şeyi bir tarafa bırakmalı, millet ve Meclis yekvücut olmalı ve sağlam bir irade göstermeliyiz.

Ülkemiz ve bölgemiz dönüşü olmayan meşum bir maceraya sürüklenmek istenmektedir. Türkiye'nin yeni pozisyonlar alması gereğini bir daha hatırlatarak sözlerime son veriyor, hepinizi saygıyla selamlıyorum

 

M.Kemal Atatürk'ün İsmet İnönü'ye, Cumhuriyet'in ilk hükumetini kurmasını önerdiği mektubu

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk'ün Cumhuriyet'in ilk hükümetini kurması için İsmet İnönü'ye muhatap mektubunun içeriğini bazı kişilerce unutulmuş olabileceği düşüncesiyle, aşağıda aktarıyorum.

"SEVGİLİ Paşam, Cumhuriyetin ilk başbakanı olarak seni düşünüyorum. Dur, hiç itiraz etme. Niye seni seçtiğimi şimdi anlayacaksın. Bizi yine büyük bir savaş bekliyor. Durumumuzun bir bölümünü Cephe Komutanı ve Lozan Başdelegesi olarak elbette biliyorsun. Büyük devletlerin bu sefil duruma bakarak, kısa zamanda pes edeceğimizi sandıklarını Lozan dönüşü sen bize anlattın. Ben sana şimdi bildiğinden daha da acıklı olan genel durumu özetleyeceğim. Bize geri, borçlu, hastalıklı bir vatan miras kaldı. Yoksul bir köylü devletiyiz. Dört mevsim kullanılabilir karayollarımız yok denecek kadar az. 4.000 km. kadar demiryolu var. Bir metresi bile bizim değil. Üstelik yetersiz. Ülkenin kuzeyini güneyine, batısını doğusuna bağlamamız, vatanın bütünlüğünü sağlamamız şart. Denizciliğimiz acınacak durumda. Köylümüzü topraklandırmalı, ihtiyacı olan bir çift öküz ile bir saban vererek çiftçi yapmalıyız. Doğudaki aşiret, bey, ağa, şeyh düzeni Cumhuriyetle de insanlıkla da bağdaşmaz. Bu durumu düzeltmeli, halkı kurtarmalıyız. Her yerde tefeciler halkı eziyor. Güya tarım ülkesiyiz ama ekmeklik unumuzun çoğunu dışarıdan getirtiyoruz. Sığır vebası hayvancılığımızı öldürüyor. Doktor sayımız 337, sağlık memuru 434, ebe sayısı 136. Pek az şehirde eczane var. Salgın hastalıklar insanlarımızı kırıyor. Üç milyon insanımız trahomlu. Sıtma, tifüs, verem, frengi, tifo salgın halinde. Bit ciddi sorun. Nüfusumuzun yarısı hasta. Bebek ölüm oranı 60ı geçiyor. Nüfusun 80i kırsal bölgede yaşıyor. Bunun önemli bölümü göçebe. Telefon, motor, makine yok. Sanayi ürünlerini dışarıdan alıyoruz. Kiremiti bile ithal ediyoruz. Elektrik yalnız İstanbul ve İzmirin bazı semtlerinde var. Düşmanın yaktığı köy sayısı 830. Yanan bina sayısı 114.408. Ülkeyi neredeyse yeniden kurmamız gerekiyor. Yunanistandan gelen göçmen sayısı da 400 bini geçecek. İktisadi hayatımız da, eğitim durumumuz da içler acısı. İktisatçımız da çok az. Zorunlu okuma yaşındaki çocukların ancak dörtte birini okutabiliyoruz. Halkın eğitimi hiç çözülmemiş. Oysa Cumhuriyetin insan malzemesini hazırlamalı, namus cephesini güçlendirmeliyiz. Kültür eserleri kaçırılmış, kaçırılmaya devam ediliyor. Raporlarda daha ayrıntılı, daha acı bilgiler var. Bunları Bakanlara ve parti yönetim kuruluna da ver. Genel durumu tam bilsinler. Bütçemiz, gelirimiz yetersiz. İktisadi çıkmazdan kurtulmak için geliştirdiğim bir düşüncem var. Bu düşünceyi günü gelince konuşuruz. Hedefimiz milli iktisat, bağımsızlığın sürekli olması için iktisadi bağımsızlık temel ilkemiz olmalı. Osmanlı bu gerçeği geç fark etti. Fark ettiği zaman çok geç kalmıştı. Cumhuriyete uygun bir anayasaya gerek var. Bu zor durumdan nasıl çıkılabileceğini gösteren ne bir örnek var önümüzde, ne de bir deney. Ama yılmamak, ucuz, geçici çarelerle yetinmemek, halkı kurtarmak için sorunları çözmek, kalkınmak, ilerlemek, milli egemenliğe dayalı, uygar ve özgür bir toplum oluşturmak, yüzyılımızın düzeyine yetişmek, kısacası çağdaşlaşmak, bu büyük ideali tam olarak başarmak zorundayız. Bu ana kadar bu ideali koruyarak geldik. Bundan sonra daha hızlı yürümek zorundayız. Bunun için gerekli yöntemi, yolu birlikte arayıp bulacağız. Yoksul ve esir ülkelere örnek olacağız. Kaderin bizim kuşağımıza yüklediği kutsal bir görev bu. Bu büyük görevin ağırlığını ve onurunu seninle paylaşmak istedim. Allah yardımcımız olsun."
( Google arama motorundan alıntılandı. 03 MART 2016)

Iran's foreign policy: Geopolitical rather than ideological

THE STATE(S) OF IDEOLOGY IN IRAN

PolicyWatch 2576
February 29, 2016

By Said Amir Arjomand

Read this article on our website:
http://washin.st/1XW8iWu

Read other contributions to the TWI series on State(s) of Ideology:
http://washin.st/1oXXACR

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Iranian policymakers understand the failure of their effort to export the Islamic Revolution, and acknowledge the more feasible path to hegemony offered by geopolitics.

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The conception of ideology expressed in the Islamic Republic of Iran's constitution gains clarity when placed in historical perspective.

REGIONAL BACKGROUND

The period of interest here dates to after World War II, when the so-called age of ideology emerged in the Arab Middle East after dimming in Western Europe. In particular, Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser championed Arab nationalism, which reached its apogee with the short-lived United Arab Republic of 1958-1961. Thereafter, the Baath Party, in both Iraq and Syria, carried the Arab nationalist banner.

As for the seeds of Islamic political ideology, they were sown in the early works of the Indian-Pakistani thinker Abul Ala Maududi (1903-1979), who continued developing these ideas in striving to make the Islamic Republic of Pakistan "an ideological state." In the Middle East and North Africa, Islamic ideology was radicalized by Sayyed Qutb (1906-1966), who considered Nasser's Arab nationalist ideology false -- a mere imitation of the infidels' nationalism. Yet eventually, the Islamic ideology forged by Maududi and Qutb would mellow into "electoral Islamism," as embodied this century by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Ennahda in Tunisia. Against such developments, one can persuasively argue that the Islamic State considers the electoral Islamists imitators and regards its own mission as returning to the pure, anti-ideological tradition of the Salaf ("pious ancestors," or early generations of Muslims), uncontaminated by sectarianism or Western-inspired ideologies.

THE IRANIAN PATH

State ideology in Iran has had a trajectory distinct from that elsewhere in the Middle East. Iranian nationalism, in particular, arose during the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911, in opposition to the decaying late-Qajar monarchy, and was appropriated entirely by the state's modernizers under Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1925-1941). Although the nationalism of Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq (1951-1952) troubled the West, he and his National Front allies were no ideologues, and the Iranian leadership successfully suppressed the Tudeh Party, along with its communist worldview. Also insignificant was the fascist SUMKA, although the party may now be enjoying an afterlife thanks to the retrieval of its Greater Iran maps by former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohsen Rezaii and their possible use by IRGC generals. Meanwhile, the Islamic ideology of Maududi and Qutb began creeping into Iran through translations in the early 1970s, but it paled against the modernist, eclectic, and revolutionary Islamic ideology of Ali Shariati (d. 1974). Ruhollah Khomeini's followers did not embrace Shariati's anticlericalist tone, however, and only during and immediately after the 1979 Islamic Revolution did Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti and Hassan Ayat quickly forge a suitably clericalist ideology to supplant it.

Shariati's conception of Islamic modernism was further assailed by Mehdi Bazargan, the former interim prime minister, beginning in the late 1980s. Ultimately, in his famous 1993 essay "Farba-tar az ideolozhy" (Richer than Ideology), published in the periodical Kiyan, Bazargan rejected ideology as demeaning when applied to Islam.

Latecomer though it was, the clericalist ideology based on Khomeini's vaguely sketched idea of "velayat-e faqih" (literally, guardianship of the jurisprudent) was indeed incorporated into the Islamic Republic's constitution. From the viewpoint of ideology, however, the declared success of Iran's revolution as the first of a new global Islamic ideology marked a commitment to export the Islamic revolution. It is true that this commitment initially had a strongly pan-Islamic intent. The preamble to the Islamic Republic's constitution affirms this commitment to continuing the revolution abroad in order to create a "unified and universal community of believers ('umma')." Nevertheless, the attempt to implement the commitment soon proved feasible only in countries such as Lebanon, with the creation of Hezbollah. The venture failed badly in places like Iraq, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and especially Pakistan, provoking a Muslim sectarian backlash there and elsewhere in the long run.

This backlash was fiercest in the emergence of the Sunni global jihad led by al-Qaeda in the 1990s and later the rise of the Islamic State, developments that deflated Iran's role as the exporter of Islamic revolution. The makers of Iran's foreign policy, irrespective of their varying positions on other issues, have no illusions about the embrace of their Islamic ideology in the Middle East today. They know it expired long ago.

Given this awareness, one can proceed to an assessment of the relative weights of ideological commitment versus regional hegemony in the Islamic Republic's foreign policy. The story thus turns to the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose personal contribution to the country's official ideology was highlighted in his campaign targeting former president Mohammad Khatami and the notion of Western "cultural invasion" (hojum-e farhangi). More recently, while he refrained in 2014 from explicitly endorsing the nuclear talks, hardliner opponents of a nuclear deal, led by the newspaper Kayhan, waited in vain for the ayatollah to signal a return to his earlier position. When the signal finally came late in 2015, it took the softer form of preventing a "cultural penetration" (nofuz-e farhangi) from accompanying lifted sanctions. Such a gesture, however, was likely meant as domestic appeasement for hardliners after the nuclear deal and will not affect Iran's foreign policy. The hardliners' foreign policy aims, meanwhile, appear to be geopolitical rather than ideological. The same effectively holds for President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, although they tend to emphasize long-term regional hegemony and the shorter-term goal of ending economic sanctions and Iran's isolation as a pariah state.

OLD MAPS, ENDURING AMBITIONS

The maps recovered by IRGC commanders roughly show the boundaries of the Sasanian Empire on the eve of the seventh-century Muslim conquest. Its capital, Ctesiphon, is located near Baghdad, and the map encompasses the southern shore of the Persian Gulf as well as Yemen. To be sure, the dusting off of these maps did not indicate an interest in reviving SUMKA ideology but rather a desire to restore Iran's regional hegemony. In April 2015, the day before parameters for a nuclear deal were announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi paid a well-choreographed visit to downtown Tikrit, which had recently been liberated from Islamic State control. Despite unconvincing denials on all sides, every player knew the previous week of U.S. air attacks had been decisive in breaking the siege.

Stepping back a bit further, the Islamic State's capture of the so-called Sunni Triangle forced the Iranian government to dispatch Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC Qods Force, to Baghdad in June 2014, ahead of Iranian ground troops. In 2008, it should be recalled, Soleimani had proposed a deal with the United States through Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who was then Iraq's president, completely bypassing the Iraqi prime minister and his government. In September 2014, on the very day of President Rouhani's arrival in New York, the United States launched its first air raid in Syria, attacking the training camp of the Khorasan Group, an al-Qaeda offshoot declared by the U.S. national intelligence director to be a greater homeland security danger than the Islamic State. The group's leader had been identified by the U.S. Department of State in 2012 as an al-Qaeda operative given asylum in Tehran after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the director of its operations from Iran. There can be little doubt that the Qods Force gave the U.S. commanders in Iraq valuable information about Khorasan for launching its raids in Syria.

GRASPING REALITY

In the more general picture, Iranian policymakers, extending to Ayatollah Khamenei, clearly understand the failure of their effort to export the Islamic Revolution, most glaringly in Iraq, where they lost the war to Saddam Hussein, and in Pakistan, where sectarian violence was particularly damaging to the Shiite community. They recognize further that Iran's gains in regional politics owe nothing to the revolution's export and effectively everything to the fall of its chief neighboring enemies, Saddam in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. And they know they have ceded the mantle of revolutionary Islam -- first to the global jihad of al-Qaeda and now to the Islamic State's so-called caliphate. National interest and realpolitik, by contrast, aptly explain the foreign policy of post-revolution Iran, from its attempt to end the country's diplomatic isolation to its support for the Assad regime against the Sunni Islamists and for the Zaidi Houthis against al-Qaeda in Yemen.

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Said Amir Arjomand is a distinguished service professor and director of the Institute for Global Studies at Stony Brook University.

Robert Olson's article o Turkey, Kurds and the US

Published on February 29th, 2016 | by Guest1

Turkey, Kurds, and the US

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by Robert Olson
There is no question that tensions between Turkey and the US have increased substantially as a result of differences over to what degree the US is supporting the Syrian Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed affiliate, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which are the strongest political and most effective forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) and some of its affiliated groups in Syria. The PYD/YPG are also the strongest entities among the 14 competing Kurdish nationalist organizations in Syria.
The principal issue at hand is Turkey’s stance that the US and the US-led coalition against IS are supporting the PYD/YPG forces, which recently have been mobilized under the name Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), comprising Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians and Turkmens, as well as Kurds. The inclusion of the non-Kurds is to give the SDF a sense of being “democratic” or at least pluralistic, when compared to IS, al-Qaeda and other jihadist and anti-Assad forces.
It has been known almost from the beginning of the Syrian civil war in March 2011 that Turkey has been supporting jihadist forces in order to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey supported these forces not only in order to topple the Assad regime but also in order to emasculate, sever and/or destroy the close relations between the PYD/YPG and the Kurdish nationalist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) within Turkey itself.
When Turkey and the US came to an agreement in July 2014 that allowed the US and NATO air forces to use the ?ncirlik Air Base, enabling these forces to more effectively attack IS, it seemed to patch up differences between Ankara and Washington regarding Turkey’s low-profile strategy against IS. But as it turned out, Ankara interpreted the agreement as a license to attack PKK bases in northern Iraq as well as within Turkey; subsequently, Turkey did occasionally attack some non-strategic IS sites.
Even at this stage of the war, there were mounting indications that Ankara and Washington were not on the same page regarding strategies and tactics versus the war against IS. The emerging divisions were clear: The major objective of the US (and the coalition against IS) was to constrain and degrade IS, although not to destroy it. Neither Turkey nor its partners Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) wanted IS destroyed, at least not at the time. Turkey’s main objective in the “War against Terrorism” was to use the war to destroy the PYD/YPG and by extension emasculate the PKK and the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), which Turkey — at least the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) — considered its major problem within Turkey’s domestic politics as well as its biggest foreign policy challenge because of the PYD/YPG’s close relationships with the PKK.
AKP’s Strategy
The AKP’s strategy became clear after the June 7 parliamentary election and in the snap election that followed on Nov. 1, 2015. Between these two elections and subsequently, war raged between the PKK/KCK and government forces, which led to a full-scale war in the heavily populated Kurdish provinces of southeastern Turkey, which are ongoing even as I write this article.
Tensions between Ankara and Washington had heightened in the fall of 2014 when it became clear that Washington was supplying arms and logistical help and providing advisory aid to the YPG. Turkey and the AKP characterized this as aiding terrorists. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made clear that as far as Turkey was concerned, there was no difference between the YPG and the PKK — terrorists were terrorists. How could the US state that the PKK was a terrorist organization and not the PYD/YPG when Turkey and its intelligence agencies had presented hundreds of pages of evidence documenting to the US the close ties between the YPG and the PKK?
It is the above situation that has led to the current vituperative exchanges between Turkey and the US, as a result of the Feb. 17 bomb attack aiming to strike at the national security offices of the government and armed forces headquarters right in the center of Ankara in which 28 people, most of them armed forces personnel, were killed and 60 some wounded.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu immediately charged that the Foreign Ministry had evidence that the attack was carried out by a YPD/YPG operative. It was later asserted that the attack might have been carried out by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a militant Kurdish nationalist group that at one time had ties with the PKK. The recent decentralization of the PKK leadership leaves the possibility open that there are still ties between the two organizations. Davutoglu stated on Feb. 20 that he did not rule out that if the attack was carried out by TAK, it acted as a proxy for the YPG. The leadership of the YPG denied that it had any role whatsoever in the attack. On the contrary, its leaders have said on several occasions that it wants good relations with Turkey. The attack was just too much for Erdogan, who declared on Feb. 17, the day of the attack, once again to Washington: “I told you many times: Are you with us or against us? Hey, America. Because you never recognized them as a terrorist group, the region has turned into a sea of blood.”
Two countries, both allies, agree ardently with regard to policies against supposedly mutual enemies, in this case IS and the PKK, but disagree with regard to the YPG, which Turkey considers a terror organization.
Difference in the Readouts
The differences were profoundly captured in the readouts of exchanges between Erdogan’s presidential office and the White House. The White House stated: “[US President Barack] Obama expressed concern over the advance of the Syrian regime and the YPG in northwestern Syria. He urged Turkey to show reciprocal restraint by ceasing artillery strikes in the area.” But the Turkish readout differed from that of the White House, stating, “Obama underlined Turkey’s legitimate right to self-defense, while expressing unwavering commitment to the United States to support Turkey’s national security as a NATO ally.” But the White House’ readout did not mention “Turkey’s legitimate right to self-defense.” The White House was seen to insinuate that Turkey did not have the right to self-defense with regard to PYD/YPG actions within Syria. Such a position differs markedly from the White House’s position with regard to Israel’s 2014 war against Gaza on the basis that Hamas first fired rockets into Israel.
The exchanges between Turkey and the US with regard to the Feb. 17 attack in Ankara are extremely important for one essential reason, and that is Erdogan’s unanswered question: “Are you for us or with the terrorist organization?” The answer to that posed question is complex, and it rests on what one considers the vital national security interests of the United States vis-à-vis those of Turkey, especially regarding the “War against Terrorism,” which the US has declared as its prime national security policy since 2001. US interests are global, while Turkey’s are a national and regional. When there is a major clash between a superpower and a strong regional allied power, with some exceptions, it is the superpower’s policy that prevails. This is the dilemma of Turkey. Turkey’s concern is what it defines as terrorism or terrorists and considers as threatening its national security, as in the case of the PYD/YPG and the PKK.
The row between Ankara and Turkey is, however, indicative and maybe even symbolic of differences not just between Turkey and the US but of the role that the Middle East will play in the future national security policies of the US. The major question to be asked is: Just how important is the Middle East in the major geo-economic and geostrategic developments occurring in the world?
The policies of the Obama administration that lessened the significance of the Middle East are bound to continue with the next American administration, regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat becomes president. The election propaganda about invading and carpet-bombing IS, al-Qaeda and jihadists of all types will quickly subside or disappear after Jan. 20, 2017. The reasons are clear. The US simply is not as dependent on Sunni Arab Gulf oil and gas as formerly. The state institutions of Iraq and Syria are destroyed. Israel can take care of itself, even without US help, although US aid will, of course, continue. Iran will be brought slowly into the comity of nations over the next decade or so. The US relationship with Saudi Arabia will be modified and reduced slowly and then expedited when IS and other terrorists threats are diminished. But such threats, of course, will not go away any time soon. In addition, the global economic system will require the energy resources of Arab Gulf countries far into the future.
This is clear in the case of Turkey. Turkey is and will remain a strong ally of the US, but Turkey will be on its own as far as most of its domestic and foreign policies are concerned. Turkey is and will remain a strong ally of the US, EU and NATO for the defense of the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Turkey’s ties, like those of Israel, will remain close to the US for other reasons as well. This is easily seen just by the two countries’ close cooperation on the manufacture of the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet fighter, which is expected to be the workhorse of the next two generations of fighter jets. Turkey has been supporting and manufacturing hundreds of components for the program since 2004. Turkish companies are expected to earn some $12 billion for their production of everything, from components for the Pratt & Whitney engine, titanium integrated blade rotors and optical components for the targeting system. Turkeyis also producing 40 percent of the F-35 wiring and interconnection system. Turkish companies are also producing air frame structures and assembling the precision-guided Standoff missiles to be used in the F-35.
Other than Israel, Turkey is the only country in the Middle East that has such a role in producing the F-35. Israel has a $5 billion program to build the wings for the F-35. This is yet another reason for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which already enjoy a $5 billion trade. It seems likely that Turkey, Israel and the US will continued to cooperate closely with regard to avionics, missile construction, cyber warfare and nuclear programs.
Nevertheless, it should be clear from the above that the US will be even more tolerant in the future of Kurdish nationalist movements throughout the Middle East, not just in Iraq and Syria but also within Turkey and Iran. Ankara has had ample time to see developments in Iraqi Kurdistan over the past 13 years and the past five years in Syria. Ankara should consider these developments as it contemplates what polices to pursue vis-à-vis the Kurdish nationalist movements within Turkey itself. In this regard, it will not get much help from the US.
Photo: Kurdish YPG fighters
Robert Olson is Professor of Middle East History and Politics at the University of Kentucky. Reprinted, with permission, from Today’s Zaman.