Turkey, Idlib, Europe, and refugees

German-Turkish relations right now are providing an excellent test case for the "realist" school of foreign policy theory.

I have problems with the Realist approach on a theoretical level, for one thing because it can easily trend toward a amoral approach. And there are examples of foreign policy realists enganging in cynical and destructive behavior. Henry Kissinger is the living poster boy for that dark side of foreign policy realism.

On the other hand, people like Stephen Walt (who I quote here all the time), John Mearsheimer, and Andrew Bacevich. The late George Kennan had a more practical view of US policy toward Russia in the first years of the post-Soviet period than the triumphalist bipartisan view. Former German Minister Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer elaborates a Realist view of the rise of China in his Der Abstieg des Westens: Europa in der neuen Weltornung des 21.Jahrhunders (2018) that looks hopefully toward a peaceful development of that long and continuing process.

Dinah Deckstein et al report in "Freie Bahn für Erdoğan" Der Spiegel 37-2018 (08.Sept.2018) on Germany's currently conciliatory policy toward Turkey under Erdoğan's increasingly authoritarian regime. The article reads like it incorporates a significant amount of "trial balloon" information from the German Foreign Ministry on its current move toward better relations with Turkey. And that's fine. Using such information doesn't prevent the journalists from doing their job in the article.

This is a key element of the story:

Doch die Bundesregierung sorgt sich derzeit wohl mehr um den atemraubenden Verfall der türkischen Lira als um Menschenrechte und Meinungsfreiheit. Würde das Land in den Bankrott stürzen, müsste Europa mit einer neuen Flüchtlingswelle rechnen, die den Zustrom des Jahres 2015 leicht in den Schatten stellen konnte.

Zum anderen will Deutschland verhindern, dass sich Erdoğan vollends vom Westen abwendet. In der Sicherheitspolitik flirtet er bereits seit geraumer Zeit mit Moskau. Nun hat er sich im Streit um die lnhaftierung eines US-amerikanischen Pastors auch noch mit US-Präsident Donald Trump angelegt.

[Instead, the German government right now is much more worried about the breathtaking fall of the Turkish lira than human rights and freedom of opinion {in Turkey}. If the country were to fall into bankruptcy, Europe would have to deal with a new wave of refugees that would easily overshowdow the inflow of the year 2015.

In addition, Germany wants to prevent Erdoğan from completely turning his back on the West. In security policy, he has already been flirting for some time with Moscow. Now, with the arrest of an American pastor, he has also now landed in a conflict with US President Donald Trump.] (my emphasis)

Turkey remains the extend-and-pretend solution to the longterm refugee crisis, as it was to the acute phase of it that occurred in 2015-6. Turkey currently is holding about three million refugees, which the EU is also paying them to do. At the current EU summit in Salzburg, the heads of state and government are taling about dending the "outer borders" of the EU and about fantasy schemes like establishing "asylum centers" in Northern Africa.

But Turkey is presently the main border control for the EU when it comes to refugees. And refugees are what politicians are talking about right now when they talk about border defense or protecting the borders. Not that they are worrying about the Russian Army making a blitzkrieg strike on NATO and EU countries.

Turkey is currently playing that role effectively. Effective in holding the three million refugees and maitaining them, albeit in questionable conditions.

Erdoğan's government is also deeply involved in the Syrian civil war, opposing the establishment of an independent Kurdish state and trying to avoid having a Kurdish support base in Syria for Kurdish secessionists in Turkey itself.

Turkey is currently on generally good terms with Putin's Russia, as are the anti-immigration EU parties like Heinz-Christian Strache's FPÖ in Austria and Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party in Hungary. Russia is also supporting Bashar Hafez al-Assad's Syrian government, which is poised to take the last major jihadist rebel stronghold, the province of Idlib that neighbors Turkey. An all-out Syrian assault on Idlib could produce as many as 800,000 new refugees into Turkey. Turkey doesn't want this, and neither do the EU governments.

Raimund Löw (Die Katastrophe von Idlib und die Rolle des Westens Falter 37/18; 12.09.2018) writes of the case of a full assault on Idlib at this point, "Die Vereinten Nationen warnen vor der größten humanitären Katastrophe seit Beginn der Kämpfe." ("The United Nations is warning about the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since the beginning of the fighting.")

And he observes, "Europäer und Amerikaner appellieren an Russland, einen verheerenden Showdown zu verhindern. Putin hat die Macht, ein Veto einzulegen. Ohne russische Luftangriffe gegen Idlib würden die Regierungstruppen keine Offensive wagen." ("Europeans and Americans are appealing to Russia to prevent a new disastrous showdown. Putin has the power to exercise a veto. Without Russian air strikes against Idlib, the government troops would not be able to mount and offensive.")

Russia this past weekend came to agreement with Turkey on establishing a buffer zone around Idlib with Turkish and Russian troops. (Angriff auf Idlib vorerst abgesagt: Durchbruch bei Putin und Erdoğan TAZ 18.09.2018; Carsten Luther, In Wahrheit ist es ein Ultimatum Die Zeit 18.09.2018; Ayla Jean Yackley, Turkey, Russia agree to buffer zone in Syria’s Idlib Al-Monitor 09/17/2018) This agreement at least postpones the offensive that Assad's government and his Iranian allies want. If a peaceful resolution, i.e., a peaceful surrender of the jihadists that involves them leaving Idlib, can be negotiated, a new round of carnage can be avoided. But there don't seem to be a lot of signs that such a resolution is likely. Carsten Luther cautions that Russia is not declining to back a Syrian offensive that would involve what he calls Putin's "destruction and explusion strategy." Only to a pause to establish the buffer zone fully controlled by Russian and Turkish troops by October 15.

As Yackley reports, "Idlib is home to between 50,000 and 90,000 armed fighters, according to diplomatic sources. Of these, between 10-20% are thought to be hard-line militants, including Jabhat al-Nusra, with links to al-Qaeda and Islamic State."

The current issue of Der Spiegel (38/2018; 15.09.2018) has a report by Matthias Gebauer and Konstantin von Hammerstein has a report ("Deutsches Delta") about US pressure on Germany to threaten retaliation against Syria if Assad's forces use poison gas. Despite the American President's obvious fondness for Vladimir Putin, US policy is at the moment is against Assad and more-or-less pro-rebel, despite the embarrassing fact that one of the rebel holdout groups, Jabhat al-Nusra, is an Al Qaeda affiliate, whatever that may exactly mean these days. Yet another illustration of the Realist view that recognizes that the arch-enemy of today may be the ally of tomorrow.

Merkel's CDU seems inclined to make some kind of military commitment, while their junior coalition partner the SPD is reluctant. At least that's the public position being played out at the moment according to the Spiegel piece.

Given the fact that the democratic parties in Europe need to resolve the immigration issue that the far-right parties are currently exploiting, EU countries should think very careful about getting involved in escalating Middle East wars any further. As it stands, there is a very good chance during the last half of 2018 that a new acute phase of the immigration crisis could open for Europe.

Left parties and residents of Germany with Turkish backgrounds have concerns about the human rights and democracy deficits in Turkey, justifiably so. But pushing Turkey into deeper ties with Russia and letting the current refugee deal fall apart, or being indifferent to economic dislocations in Turkey, is not the current direction of German foreign policy. Dinah Deckstein et al report that Germany is seriously considering massive assistance to Turkey to modernize and expand their rail system. Even though, as Dinah Deckstein et al remind us, "Der Zustand der Demokratie und des Rechtsstaats in der Türkei hat sich in den vergangenen Monaten nicht verbessert." (The state of democracy and the rule of law in Turkey has not improved in recent months.")

But until the EU can work out a real solution - a comprehensive immigration reform as it was called in America not so long ago - Turkey will continue to have huge leverage on the EU. And Turkey also has the option to develop closer ties with China, which the EU has also to keep very much in mind.

Turkey's falling currency

The Turkish lira has been falling drastically. Yanis Varoufakis gives up a few bullet-points on the situation.

Why is the Turkish lira falling? 1. Capital influx necessary to refinance $ denom. corp debt + current account deficit = $215bl pa. 2. $ liquidity shrunk globally under post-QE FED & Trump tax-cut induced deficit rise. 3. Erdogan vetoes int. rate rise and/or capital controls

— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) August 11, 2018

Paul Krugman in Partying Like It’s 1998 New York Times 08/11/2018 talks about the similarities he sees between Turkey's present situation and Asian crises of the 1990s, which he has studied closely. He sees an admittedly "tricky"

How it works: stop the explosion of the debt ratio with some combination of temporary capital controls, to place a curfew on panicked capital flight, and possibly the repudiation of some foreign-currency debt. Meanwhile, get things in place for a fiscally sustainable regime once the crisis is over. If all goes well, confidence will gradually return, and you’ll eventually be able to remove the capital controls.

Malaysia did this in 1998; South Korea, with U.S. aid, effectively did something like it at the same time, by pressuring banks into maintaining their short-term credit lines. A decade later, Iceland did very well with a combination of capital controls and debt repudiation (strictly speaking, refusing to take public responsibility for the debts run up by private bankers).

He also notes, "Argentina also did quite well with heterodox policies in 2002 and for a few years after, effectively repudiating 2/3 of its debt." Which is certainly right.

Then he adds this, "But the Kirchner regime didn’t know when to stop and turn orthodox again, setting the stage for the country’s return to crisis."

I'm surprised that Krugman would blame Cristina Fernández' government for the economic disaster the current President Mauricio Macri created with his straight-up IMF/Washington Consensus/neoliberal policy recipe.

Fethullah Gülen and last year's coup in Turkey

The European Council on Foreign Relations presents an essay by journalist Sedat Ergin of Hürriyet Daily about last year's attempted coup in Turkey, No question who planned and executed the attempted coup in Turkey 10/27/2017

From the start, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan blamed the coup attempt on followers of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist leader who has livedin the US since the late 1990s but was a supporter of Erdoğan's until 2013. (I wrote about it at the time in Turkish coup, Erdoğan and Gülen 08/05/2017; Turkey and the US War for the Greater Middle East 08/05/2017)

Gülen made his way into the endless and endlessly strange series of stories about the shady foreign ties of Donald Trump's closest collaborators just recently, as Carol Lee and Julia Ainsley reported for NBC News in Mueller Probing Possible Deal Between Turks, Flynn During Presidential Transition 11/10/2017:

Four people familiar with the investigation said Mueller is looking into whether [former National Security Adviser Michael] Flynn discussed in the late December meeting orchestrating the return to Turkey of a chief rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who lives in the U.S. Additionally, three people familiar with the probe said investigators are examining whether Flynn and other participants discussed a way to free a Turkish-Iranian gold trader, Reza Zarrab, who is jailed in the U.S. Zarrab is facing federal charges that he helped Iran skirt U.S. sanctions. ...

Erdoğan has repeatedly pressed U.S. officials to extradite the cleric, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania. Turkey blames Gülen for the attempted coup in that country in July 2016. Erdoğan also has repeatedly raised Zarrab's case with U.S. officials. ...

NBC News reported Sunday that federal investigators were looking into whether Flynn tried to push for the return of Gülen to Turkey once in the White House in exchange for millions of dollars, and that Trump administration officials asked the FBI to review the Gülen case anew. Officials said the FBI denied the request because Turkey had not provided any new evidence in the case, which was reviewed by the Obama administration.

Newsweek's report was a bit sharper, saying that the investigation was about a Turkish offer to Flynn to kidnap Gülen and take him illegally back to Turkey. (Graham Lanktree, Mueller Investigating Michael Flynn for Plot to Kidnap Turkis Opposition 11/10/17)

Sedat Ergin notes that Turkish prosecutors cast a wide net and have brought charges against some soldiers who were ordered into action at the time without any actual knowledge that they were participating in a coup:

Among those tried are names known to be Gülenists in the military, as well as a considerable number of generals not thought to be pro-Gülen names. The existence of this second group of soldiers sometimes prompts questions in the West about whether the coup was primarily Gülenist enterprise.

But in fact the reason for their being on trial is that they had been selected by the Gülenists to fill certain military or bureaucratic positions after the putsch - as indicated in the assignment lists they prepared before the coup. Prosecutors linked the majority of the generals whose names appear in these lists to the coup, and subsequently arrested them even though they seem to have been unaware of their assignments. [my emphasis]

But as for the coup itself, based on the evidence and confessions so far, Ergin states confidently that there was "an extremely detailed, comprehensive coup plan that spread to all corners of Turkey, covering all branches of the military in the army, navy and the air force, as well as the gendarmerie." And:

As a journalist who witnessed the reality of Turkey’s July 15 coup attempt, and who has subsequently worked on this matter through many court files, it is quite incomprehensible that there is still debate in Western societies on the identity of the perpetrators of the coup – even calling into question the reality of the putsch itself.

The prevailing authoritarian trend in Turkey and the strict practices of the state under ongoing emergency rule likely play a role in such confusion. But the dust cloud brought about by these authoritarian practices - which require the harshest criticisms from the standpoint of democracy and the principle of the rule of law - should not be allowed to obscure the reality of the coup itself.

What we have before us is a coup attempt that was shaped over many months by civilian and military Gülenists, with the Akıncı air base in serving as the command centre in the execution phase. This can be documented with very credible evidence presented in countless ongoing lawsuits. Regardless of the events that have taken place since July 15, there can be no doubt whatsoever who planned and executed this attack on Turkish democracy.

US relations with Turkey have gotten more complicated and ambiguous in recent years, especially around the Syrian civil war and the status of the Kurds. So I've wondered since last year if the US government was involved in active monkey business of some kind around the coup.

On the other hand, even if that's the case, I wouldn't want to see Gülen kidnapped by whatever sort of goons a guy like Michael Flynn might hire to do the job and sent back to Turkey on the sly.

If there are legitimate reasons to extradite him and there is reasonable assurance he would receive a fair trial, that would be another story. And if he's been doing anything illegal here - like planning a coup in another country against the wishes of the US government - then some kind of US legal action against him is probably required.

On ending CIA assistance to those Syrian Moderates

Chris Matthews and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper makes Trump's announcement that the CIA would be cutting off support to "the moderate opposition groups" (sic; Clapper) sound like a mindless concession to the Russia. And it may actually be. James Clapper: President Donald Trump Is Making Russia Great Again 07/20/2017:

But as Trump's Secretary of Energy Rick Perry once memorably observed, even a stopped clock is right once a day.

And, as Juan Cole explains, there isn't much left of that famous Syrian Moderate Opposition in any event (Trump hands Putin gift, cancels Support for Syrian Rebels Informed Comment 07/20/2017):

"Ever since Russia intervened in Syria in fall of 2015, its Aerospace forces have given support to the Syrian Arab Army in a bid to roll back and defeat the armed opposition, especially in the northwest of the country," he writes, adding:

Still, the Syrian Arab Army is small and stretched thin. The small and not very important CIA program was enough to keep some of the rebel groups going in ways that proved an irritant to the Baath government and to Russian strategic planners. They would much prefer that the US stopped supporting the rebels in any way. For one thing, withdrawal of Washington’s backing would be a huge blow to the flagging morale of the opposition. [my emphasis]

So it's a concession to Russia and the Assad government in Syria.

But the material effect on military operations is unlikely to be substantial:

Many of these remnants of the Free Syrian Army appear to have been small and to have controlled two valleys and a hill each. The most effective fighters in the opposition continued to be extremists, whether Nusra or its forrmal ally, the Freemen of the Levant.
The Free Syrian Army and the more radical groups have in any case been decisively defeated, with Russian help. The only reason given for continued US backing of a lost cause was to maintain some leverage to force Bashar al-Assad from office. But al-Assad won’t be forced out as long as he has Iranian and Russian support, so that wasn’t going to happen. The US program was just prolonging the violence in some northern provinces.

As Cole also alludes to in that post, the moderation of these Syrian Moderates has also been hard to find all along. But maybe the same people still searching for Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" are searching for the Syrian Moderates.

But not all US aid to anti-Assad forces has been cut off:

The cancellation of the CIA program does not affect the Department of Defense effort in the northeast of Syria, which has formed the Syrian Democratic Forces, mainly leftist Kurds fighting ISIL.

Al-Akhbar (leftist, Beirut) wonders if this move will have an effect on the rivalry between US-backed rebels in the southeast near the Jordanian border where the US has a small base. That base is aimed at ISIL to its north but also at Iran and Iranian logistics for supplying Hizbullah. It could be that US troops will now be evacuated from this southeast pocket which would be a victory for Iran more than for Russia. [my emphasis]

It's always good to keep in mind that Turkey is highly suspicious of Kurdish separatists. And that the EU is relying very heavily right now on an agreement with Turkey to hold refugees headed for Europe. Richard Haass and Gareth Porter had these Twitter comments:

The twisted conflict in Syria

Murtaza Hussain and Marwan Hisham take a look at the recent complications that have developed in the incredibly messy and complicated Syrian civil war in U.S. Strategy to Fight ISIS Has Set Off a New Conflict in Syria The Intercept 08/31/2016:

Turkey’s intervention represents a significant escalation of the conflict, as well as a sign that the country is likely to take a more aggressive approach to foreign policy following July’s failed military coup and subsequent purge.

But Turkey’s intervention is also an indication that the U.S. strategy of empowering Kurdish groups to fight the Islamic State in Syria has helped trigger an entirely new conflict, this time between U.S.-backed militias and a NATO ally.

Turkey launched its recent incursion both to take territory from the Islamic State and also to halt gains by the Syrian Democratic Forces and People’s Protection Units, Kurdish-led groups backed by the United States. The government in Ankara fears these groups will set up an autonomous Kurdish zone on its border, emboldening separatists within Turkey.

Joshua Landis talks about the Turkish intervention in Turkey’s Syria Intervention Syria Comment 08/28/2016:

I doubt Turkey’s attack on the Kurds will bring Turkey, Russia and Assad closer to each other. Yes, Assad and Russia are pleased to see the Kurdish-American juggernaut stopped. Neither Syrian Arabs nor Turks want to see a contiguous Kurdish state stretching the length of Syria’s border with Turkey. All the same, Assad and Turkey remain bitter enemies. Turkey is promoting and arming rebel groups that plan to destroy Assad and conquer all of Syria. Assad hopes to drive Turkish backed groups from the country. The two will come into conflict sooner than later. Their common enmity for the Kurds is a bad foundation for understanding.

Turkey will become drawn into the Syrian quagmire. Kurdish groups and some Arab militias will begin to attack the Turkish presence in Syria. This will suck Turkey into the fighting. The Syrian gov & Russia will promote these attacks. They have an interest in bleeding Turkey. They hope it will make Ankara more amenable to compromise. Turkey has already been weakened by the burden of refugees, renewed war with the Kurds, exacerbated internal secular-religious (Sunni-Shiite) discord, the failed coup attempt, the collapse of its Zero Enemies policy, and a sinking economy. Sending Turkish forces into Syria is only likely to continue this downward spiral. Turkish direct participation in the Syria conflict is unlikely to lead to a solution. Rather it is likely to prolong Syria’s agony. If we have learned anything from the Syrian conflict it is that the more external actors are willing to provide money, arms and firepower to Syrian proxies, the longer the war will gone on and the less likely one side is to win. [my emphasis]

And he notes, " It is quite clear that the United States no longer expects the rebels to win in Syria. The Turkish government also seems to have resigned itself to the survival of the Assad government in the medium term if not indefinitely."

Gareth Porter looks at how the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wound up compounding the seriousness of the Syrian situation (A US-Fueled Syrian Sectarian Bloodbath Consortium News 08/31/2016):

The Obama administration bears responsibility for this atrocity, because it could have prevented Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia from launching their foolishly adventurous war in Syria. None of them did so out of desperate need; it was a war of choice in every case.

And each of the three states is part of the U.S. security system in the Middle East, providing military bases to NATO or to the United States and depending on US support for its security.

But instead of insisting that those three Sunni allies reconsider their options, the Obama administration gave the green light at a conference in Riyadh at the end of March 2012 for proceeding with arming those who wanted to replace the regime, leaving the United States ostensibly free to be a peacemaker.

Turkey, Europe and the war in Syria

Marc Pierini analyzes the current state of relations between the EU and Turkey in The Ankara-Brussels Problem Carnegie Europe 08/25/2016. He summarizes the currently pressing issues this way:

Between Turkey and the EU, priority issues for discussion include, as a start: Syria, counterterrorism cooperation, the implementation of the refugee assistance program in Turkey, the modernization of the customs union, and ongoing civil society cooperation (including educational and cultural programs such as the Jean Monnet Scholarships.)

He also makes this observation about the recent failed coup in Turkey:

The attempted coup was a vicious attack by Turks against Turks. It resulted in a massive destabilization of the country, its armed forces, its state institutions in general, and its international prestige. This was a self-engineered disaster and, in its aftermath, the EU and the West immediately showed their solidarity with Turkey.

Right now, Turkey is telling the world that the Gülen movement is behind the coup. This is plausible. It is important that solid evidence and a thorough enquiry show whether this was in fact the case. For the time being, Western diplomacies may recall that not too long ago, and until December 2013, AKP [the ruling party] ministers and Gülenist organizations were working hand-in-hand toward the same religious-conservative societal project. Gülenist organizations were always treated with great caution by the West because the movement was secret and its governance, membership, and financing unknown. However, Western diplomats occasionally came across Gülenists at the behest of AKP ministers, who promoted some Gülen members as the privileged interlocutors of visiting foreign dignitaries. In other words, let’s not forget that the AKP’s arch-enemy today was its closest ally yesterday.

I'll note in passing that Pierini uses "political populism" as though it should be taken as pejorative on the face of it, a common usage in the EU political vocabulary.

It's notable that Pierini lists Syria as the first item on his priority list. Turkey has recently undertaken a cross-border incursion into Syria. Nominally, the incursion is aimed at the Islamic State. But it's widely assumed that Syrian Kurdish forces are Turkey's main concern. Aljazeera reports (Erdogan: 'Syria operations will continue until the end' 08/29/2016):

On Sunday, Turkey intensified its "Euphrates Shield" military offensive in northern Syria, with Turkish warplanes and artillery pounding areas held by pro-Kurdish forces close to Jarablus, the town taken from ISIL by Ankara-backed Syrian rebels earlier this week.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 40 civilians were killed in separate Turkish strikes near the village of al-Amarneh and in Jeb al-Kussa, outside Jarablus - the first reports of significant civilian casualties since the start of Turkey's operation on Wednesday.

Birce Bora reports on the Kurdish angle (Kurds and refugees behind Turkey's Syria offensive Aljazeera 08/28/2016):

Turkey's military intervention in Syria is more about controlling Kurdish progress than combating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), Turkish analysts say.

"The Jarablus operation may be against ISIL, but its main aim is to make sure the border zone is controlled by Turkey-friendly rebels and not Kurdish forces," says Faik Demir, an expert on Turkish politics and foreign policy at Istanbul's Galatasaray University.

On Wednesday, Syrian rebels under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), backed by Turkish tanks and Special Forces, launched a military offensive titled "Operation Euphrates Shield" in northern Syria. It saw them recapture the strategic border town of Jarablus from ISIL fighters in a matter of hours.

Turkish analysts say while the operation was unprecedented - given that it is the first time a key regional power puts boots on the ground in Syria since the Syrian crisis broke out in 2011 - it was not surprising.

Robert Olson (Jarabulus: Another Escalation in the War between Turkey and the Kurds LobeLog Foreign Policy 08/29/2016) adds on the Jarabulus operation:

On August 24, Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield, an attack on the Islamic State (IS) stronghold of Jarabulus, a small town located on the Turkish-Syrian. While Turkey has had troops on the Syrian side of the border for some time, the attack on Jarabulus and on some of its surrounding territory marks an important escalation in Ankara’s participation in the U.S.-led war against IS, which Turkey first joined in July 2015 after agreeing to allow the U.S. to use Incirlik air base to strike IS targets in Syria and Iraq. This agreement also allowed Turkey to heighten its war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The escalation in Jarabulus targets the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is closely affiliated with the PKK.

Turkey’s mission in Jarabulus, in support of anti-Assad rebel forces, will likely be open-ended, much like the ongoing deployment of Turkish forces in Bashiqa in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)-controlled part of Iraq. Turkey will now likely move to establish an IS-free zone, some 70 miles long and 30 miles deep, on the Syrian side of the border. Such a project has been bruited about for some years, and has been supported by U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This zone would be used to aid in the liberation of Aleppo, much like the Turkish forces in Bashiqa would aid in the liberation of Mosul. [my emphasis]

Who knows what American foreign policy priorities will be next January? But Hillary has repeatedly stessed that she wants an expanded American participation in the Syrian civil war. And the main US allies right now are Kurdish forces that our NATO ally Turkey has been attacking.

The Russia-Turkey complication in the Syrian civil war

Despite Hillary Clinton's apparent eagerness to get the US more deeply involved in the Syrian civil war, there are lots of complications. One of the latest being a seeming momentary improvement of relations between Russia and Syria.

John Helmer argues in this interview that Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan's visit to Russian President Vladmir Putin was actually a failure for Erdoğan, Putin and Erdogan Meeting Leaves All Fronts of Policy Unresolved The Real News 08/11/2016:

Helmer argues that Russia opposed the July coup attempt because of its concerns about stability in Turkey, not because it is looking for a new strategic relationship with Turkey. He notes that Turkey is supporting Muslim extremist groups in numerous places that are inconvenient to Russia.

Dimitar Bechev writes in What's behind the Turkey-Russia reset? Aljazeera 08/09/2016:

It appears that the current rift with the West pushes Turkey closer to Russia. The US is blamed for failing to cooperate with the Turkish authorities for the extradition of Gulen - the alleged mastermind of the coup attempt.

Many in Turkey see the US as the chief culprit. The majority of Turks also berate the EU's reluctance to stand by Erdogan as he faced a life-threatening situation, and criticise Europe's exclusive focus on the clampdown that followed , ostensibly targeted against the "parallel state".

The historical record shows that any time relations with Western allies are strained, Ankara tilts to Moscow. This happened after the 2003 war in Iraq; between 1997 and 1999 when the EU refused to invite Turkey for membership talks; following the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and so forth.

But, as Helmer's discussion of the public diplomacy this week shows, it''s too early to assume that any drastic change in Turkish-Russian relations.

But Turkish relations with the US and the EU has definitely been disturbed by the July coup attempt and its aftermath. Atilla Yesilada reports (Could Turkey turn its back to the West? Aljazeera 08/08/2016):

A danger lurks around the corner. The Justice and Development Party's (AKP) effort to cleanse the society of Gulenists is causing a deterioration in relations with the United States and the European Union, which might lead to a confidence crisis among investors and creditors.

There is little doubt among Turkish citizens that the Gulenists organised and largely executed the putsch. ...

The EU is deeply concerned about the human rights violations that are occurring with increasing frequency in the process of the purge, such as the arrest of journalists and the alleged mistreatment of coup-plotting officers under custody.

The EU authorities also told Ankara in no uncertain terms that the reintroduction of capital punishment of putschists would trigger immediate suspension of accession talks.

The Gulenists are the Hizmet network composed of followers of the currently US-based Islamist leader Fethullah Gülen.

Turkey and the Syrian civil war

Another reminder of the hazards of intervening in other countries' civil wars, Syria's in this case. Robert Fisk (Erdogan’s meeting with Putin will tell us what the future holds for Syria Independent 08/09/2016):

[I]f Nato and the EU believe they can rely on their faithful ally Sultan Erdogan to pursue the destruction of the Assad regime or curb refugee flows to Europe – or tolerate US jets flying out of Incirlik airbase and other former Armenian properties in Anatolia – they can think again. ...

The first post-coup visit [the failed coup attempt of July in Turkey] of [Turkish President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to Russia –and there’s a coup of a different kind.

Here’s another line from the Tass version of Erdogan’s pre-St Petersburg declarations: "A solution to the Syrian crisis cannot be found without Russia. We can resolve the Syrian crisis only in cooperation with Russia.”

The US is heavily dependent on Turkey and that Incirlik airbase - which reportedly has something like one-sixth of NATO's nuclear arms supplies - to conduct the war against the Islamic State in Syria. The EU is relying on Turkey to hold refugees from Syria, Libya and other African countries in Turkey and not send them on to EU countries.

This is likely to get even more complicated.

Fisk also notes:

And then, above all others perhaps, those who will fear for their lives in the aftermath of this fraternal jaunt to the Tsar’s palace: the Turkish army. For what is becoming ever clearer is that – and this is called the kicker to the story – Russia and, indeed, Iran played an intelligence role in warning Erdogan of the military coup plotted against him.

The Arabs have already been told by their Russian collocutors that Putin, being the old KGB boss that he was, personally sent a message to Erdogan after learning of the coup from Turkish army communications, which were picked up and listened to by Russian technicians at their air base just outside Latakia in Syria.

The Iranians – who would be happy to see Turkey turned against their Sunni Islamist enemies in Syria – also tipped off Erdogan about the coup, so the Arabs have been told. [my emphasis]

The US, Fethullah Gülen and his Hizmet movment in Turkey

Dani Rodrik, a critic of the Islamist trends represented by both Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP (Justice and Development Party) and Fethullah Gülen's Hizmet movement, addresses recent accusations by Erdoğan against Hizmet in Is the U.S. behind Fethullah Gulen? Dani Rodrik's weblog 07/30/2016.

Formerly allies, Erdoğan made a definitive break with Gülen's and Hizmet in 2013. Erdoğan now blames Gülen's and Hizmet for the failed July coup attempt against his government.

Rodrik's argument in that post:

I don’t think Gulen is a tool of the U.S. or has received support from the U.S. for its clandestine operations. But it is possible that some elements within the U.S. national security apparatus think Gulen furthers their agenda, is worth protecting on U.S. soil, and have so far prevailed on other voices in the establishment with different views. Regardless, the U.S. needs to seriously reconsider its attitude towards Gulen and his movement.

However, on Gülen's role in the coup itself, he writes that "the Turkish government’s claim that Gulen was behind the coup ... is largely justified." The link there is to a previous post of his, "Is Fethullah Gülen behind Turkey's coup? (with update)" 07/23/2016.

Rokrik dismisses suspicions about how Gülen got permanent residence in the US and the assumption that Hizmet could not have mounted an operation like the July coup attempt without active US support.

However, he does cite this circumstantial evidence for some kind of "tacit" US support for Gülen's movement over the years since he immigrated into the US in 1999:

Judging by Wikileaks cables, U.S. diplomats in Turkey were exceptionally knowledgeable about Gulenist activities. These cables are in fact a goldmine of information on the Gulen movement. Form these we learn, among others, about the elaborate ruses used by Gulenist sympathizers to infiltrate the Turkish army, Gulen’s request for support from the Jewish Rabbinate’s during his green card application, and the attempt by sympathizers within the Turkish national police to get a “clean bill of health” for Gulen from the U.S. consulate in Istanbul. We also learn that even in the heyday of their alliance, Gulenists presciently regarded Erdogan as a liability.

Perhaps of more direct interest to the U.S., foreign service officers have long been aware that many Turks have been obtaining visas under false pretenses, with the ultimate aim of ending up as teachers in Gulen’s charter schools. Yet apparently nothing was ever done to stop this flow, nor to hold the movement to account. A ridiculous number of H-1B visas have been issued to Turkish teachers in these schools. One naturally wonders why the U.S. administration never clamped down on the Gulen movement for apparent visa fraud.

The same question arises with respect to the widespread pattern of financial improprieties that has been uncovered in Gulen’s charter schools. A whistleblower has provided evidence that Turkish teachers are required to kick back a portion of their salary to the movement. The FBI has seized documents revealing preferential awarding of contracts to Turkish-connected businesses. Such improprieties are apparently still under investigation. But the slow pace at which the government has moved does make one suspect that there is no overwhelming desire to bring Gulen to justice.

Gulen typically defends himself against such charges by saying that the schools are run by sympathizers and are not directly under his control. Yet the fact is that he took direct credit for the schools in his green card application, saying he had overseen their establishment.

Then there is the Sledgehammer case, which has the Gulen movement’s fingerprints all over it. This and the closely related Ergenekon trials did untold damage to the military of U.S.’ Nato ally. The jailing of hundreds of officers, including a former chief of staff, sowed a climate of fear and suspicion within the army and sapped military morale. Perhaps the U.S. was bamboozled, like many others, early on about these trials. But by now it should know that these sham trials were launched and stage managed by Gulenists. American officials have been quick to complain in public about the damage the post-coup purge has done to Turkish military capabilities. Yet there was not a peep from them during the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer witch hunts; and nor has the U.S. administration expressed any discontent about the Gulen movement’s role in them since.

And he cautions at the end:

It is very unlikely that Gulen would receive a fair trial in Turkey. So the U.S. has a legitimate ground for not extraditing him. But the U.S. foreign policy establishment would be making a very big mistake if they simply dismissed the calls from Turkey about Gulen’s complicity. It is easy for the U.S. to hide behind Erdogan’s clampdown and the ill treatment of the putschists. But the U.S. has considerable explaining to do too.

Weeks before the coup attempt, Stephanie Saul wrote about some of Gülen's activities in the US, Charter Schools Tied to Turkey Grow in Texas New York Times 06/06/2016:

[A]n examination by The New York Times of the Harmony Schools in Texas casts light on ... the way they spend public money. And it raises questions about whether, ultimately, the schools are using taxpayer dollars to benefit the Gulen movement — by giving business to Gulen followers, or through financial arrangements with local foundations that promote Gulen teachings and Turkish culture. ...

Harmony Schools officials say they scrupulously avoid teaching about religion, and they deny any official connection to the Gulen movement. The say their goal in starting charter schools — publicly financed schools that operate independently from public school districts — has been to foster educational achievement, especially in science and math, where American students so often falter. ...

... records show that virtually all recent construction and renovation work has been done by Turkish-owned contractors. Several established local companies said they had lost out even after bidding several hundred thousand dollars lower.

“It kind of boils my blood a little bit, all the money that was spent, when I know it could have been done for less,” said Deborah Jones, an owner of daj Construction, one of four lower bidders who failed to win a recent contract for a school renovation in the Austin area.

Harmony’s history underscores the vast latitude that many charter school systems have been granted to spend public funds. While the degree of oversight varies widely from state to state, the rush to approve charter schools has meant that some barely monitor charter school operations.

Does the NATO Treaty require the US to go to war?

This pair of commentaries highlight the question of whether the United States is obligated to go to war if a NATO member is somehow attacked:

• Ilya Somin, Using Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to legalize the war against ISIS Washington Post 11/15/2015
• Julian Ku, Should the U.S. Even Bother to Invoke Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty After Paris? Opinio Juris 11/16/2015

One of more reckless bipartisan foreign policy assumptions of the last quarter-century was the eastern expansion of NATO, done without much thought of the risks and potential disadvantages.

Russia has been pushing back over the last eight years in Georgia and Ukraine, the latter in significant part a response to questionable "regime change" manuevers by the US and NATO there.

So if some Trump-type government takes over in, say, Estonia, and decides to stage some military provocation against Russia, does that mean the United States is obliged to restage Napolean's march on Moscow?

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty says:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security. [my emphasis]

But Article 11 (mistakenly referred to as Article IX in the Ko column) also says, "This Treaty shall be ratified and its provisions carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes." (my emphasis)

Ko plausibly reads this as meaning that the NATO Treaty does not in any way override the US Constitutional provisions on war powers. Not that Congress has been much of a restraint on Presidential warmaking since, well, decades and decades.

But the obligation to go to war under the NATO Treaty is not automatic. Given the current contortions of NATO policy in the Middle East, Turkey's current differences with NATO members since the coup attempt of July 15, and various kinds of mischief-making around Ukraine and the Baltic states, this is probably something worth remembering.

Turkey and the US War for the Greater Middle East

The coup in Turkey and its aftermath could have large consequences for the US and Europe.

In the case of the US, the presence in America of President Tayyip Erdoğan's one-time Islamist ally, now rival, Fethullah Gülen has been an irritation to Erdogan for years already, since the political split between the two leaders in 2013.

One of the many US military bases overseas is in Turkey at Incirlik Air Base, which the linked article at Global Security describes this way (n/d but includes information on the coup attempt; accessed 08/05/2016):

The attempted coup in Turkey on 15 July 2016 resulted in unexpected national security concerns for the United States. The purportedly spontaneous uprising called into question the security of American hydrogen bombs currently stored in a Turkish airbase. Located in southeast Turkey, the Incirlik Airbase includes NATO’s largest nuclear weapons storage facility. The American embassy in Ankara issued an "Emergency Message for US Citizens,"on Saturday morning, cautioning that “local authorities are denying movements on and off of” Incirlik and that power had been cut. US Air Force planes stationed at the base were prohibited from taking off, and the airbase had to rely on backup generators for power. The threat level reached FPCON Delta, the highest alert, usually declared after a terrorist attack or if an attack is deemed imminent.

The base commander, General Bekir Ercan Van, along with nine other Turkish officers, was detained at Incirlik on Sunday for allegedly supporting the coup. American airbase flights have resumed, but power has not been restored. [US European Command reported on July 22 that power had been restored.]

Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, claims that the Turkish airbase contains about fifty B-61 hydrogen bombs, more than a quarter of all the nuclear weapons in the NATO stockpile. What separates the B-61 from other weapons is its ability to adjust nuclear yield. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, for example, had the impact of roughly fifteen kilotons of TNT. The adjustable yield of the bombs held at Incirlik can range 0.3 to 170 kilotons, making for a more versatile weapon.
[my emphasis]

This air base has been used for US operations against the Islamic State (IS), the Islamic rebel/terrorist group with whom we are not officially at war.

Turkey's interest in the Syrian civil war is primarily aimed at preventing a strengthening of Kurksih power and in overthrowing the Syrian regime. The US focus in theory is more on fighting the Islamic State (IS) than in overthrowing the Assad regime as such. Turkey has also opposed the IS. (Beat Ammann, Eine immer schwierigere Zweckbeziehung Neue Zürcher Zeitung 20.07.2016) But since the coup, Turkey appears to be trying to improve its relations with Assad ally Russia.

An section titled, "Der Neo-Sultan," in article titled „Trump, Türkei, Brexit, Terror - Warum spielt die Welt verrückt?„ Profil (print edition) 25-07-2016argues that the internal situation in Turkey also can't be understood without taking into account the Kurdish conflict.

There have been protracted efforts over years to arrange an eventual entry of Turkey into the EU, efforts which Erdogan activlelysupported until recently. That has involved closer economic relations between Turkey and the EU, the latter being Turkey's most important trading partner. It has also involved Turkey adopting the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The post-coup actions of Erdogan's government raise new questions about Turkey's longterm seriousness about their adherence to the Charter. Erdogan's current push to restore the death penalty in the wake of the coup is already a looming issue that would push Turkey even further away from prospective EU membership.

Angela Merkel's refugee policy requires cooperation from Turkey. The current arrangement involves Turkey holding immigrants in Turkey and preventing them from moving on to EU member countries.

Turkish coup, Erdoğan and Gülen

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP (Justice and Development Party) is a nominally secular and conservative party that actually has Islamist inclinations. Erdoğan came to national power as Prime Minister in 2003. He became President in 2014. During his years in power, he has become progressively less patient with the processes of liberal democracy.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 1954), President of Turkey

In the wake of the thwarted coup attempt of July 15, Erdoğan has been undertaking a drastic crackdown on followers of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist leader living in the US since the late 1990s, who was a supporter and collaborator of Erdoğan's until 2013. When he first took power, Erdoğan installed numerous Gülen followers in his administration and in justice institutions. And there seems to be good reason to think that Gülen's followers have also establish themselves within the military, as well. Gülen's mevement is called Hizmet.

Fethullah Gülen (born 1941), Islamist rival to Erdoğan

After the break, the BBC News reported (Tim Franks, Fethullah Gulen: Powerful but reclusive Turkish cleric 01/27/2014):

Mr Gulen has been almost universally depicted as being in a virtual death clinch with his erstwhile ally, Prime Minister Erdogan, in a struggle for power and vengeance in Turkey.

Whoever struck first, Mr Erdogan has recently been seeking to curb the reach of Mr Gulen's Hizmet ("Service") movement, whose followers - or "participants" as some of them prefer to call themselves - include police chiefs and prosecutors leading corruption investigations into the heart of government. Mr Erdogan has decried their work as that of "a state within a state".

Timothy Phelps reported for the Los Angeles Times (From his Pa. compound, Fethullah Gulen shakes up Turkey 01/20/2014):

Gulen preaches an unusual mix of Islamic piety and Sufi mysticism, as well as free markets, democracy and religious tolerance. His followers have built a worldwide religious, social and nationalistic movement, known as Hizmet, in his name. They control a network of schools, companies and charities around the globe, including about 120 schools and scores of nonprofit groups in the United States.

Gulen's following is especially potent back home. Inspired in part by sermons on his website, his supporters in the Turkish police and judiciary, backed by allies at the country's largest newspaper, are pushing a corruption investigation into Erdogan's inner circle that has sparked a bitter political power struggle.

The wide-ranging inquiry already has caused three Cabinet ministers to resign and led to dozens of arrests. The economy has taken a hit and the lira, the national currency, fell to a record low against the dollar in the last week.

Erdogan, who once embraced Gulen as a close political ally, has launched an escalating series of counterattacks. The government has closed Hizmet schools and fired 2,000 police officers deemed loyal to the cleric. Erdogan also has announced plans to place the appointment of judges, which Gulen allegedly influences, more under government control.

That was two and a half years ago. So Erdoğan's accusations against the Gülen movement didn't spring out of thin air in the wake of the coup.

Erdoğan is an adherent of the Islamic Milli-Görüs movement. He was a political disciple of Islamist politician Necmettin Erbakan, who served as Turkish Prime Minister 1996-7, having been elected as part of the Islamist Welfare Party.

In any case, Erdoğan blames Gülen and his followers for the coup, and accuses the Obama Administration of having connived in it. And Erdoğan is proceeding to purge accused followers from the military.

Turkey and the Islamic State

Dominique Soguel provides a description of the various diplomatic calculations at work for the Turkish government in the Non-War War in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State (IS, aka, ISIS, ISIL), Turkey shifts tone on Islamic State. Will it join US-led coalition? Christian Science Monitor 09/29/2014.

The Turkish parliament has authorized military action by Turkish forces against IS, but it it still unclear from the public record what Turkish President President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government is prepared to do militarily. (Nick Tattersall and Selin Bucak, Turkey vows support for besieged Syrian town, but no military pledge Reuters 10/03/2014)

Erdogan's (moderately) Sunni-Islamist regime is opposed to Syria's Alawite-based regime, whose most potent opposition is IS itself. Erdogan had hoped the US would take a more active role earlier in ousting Bashar al-Assad's government. Turkey has at least passively supporting IS to a limited extent by allowing them to cross the Turkish border. And since there is an IS presence in Turkey, which gives them a potential to cause trouble inside Turkey in the event of Turkish operations against IS.

And then there are the Kurds. Turkey has a large Turkish minority and has faced on-and-off attacks from the Kurdish guerrilla group PKK. The "Kurdistan" region includes significant Kurdish minorities in Iraq and Syria, and some in Iran. Robert Fisk writes in The Great War for Civilisation (2005):

In 1998, the Turkish prime minister Mesut Yilmaz launched a warning against the Syrians who were assisting the communist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas operating across the border. He chose a ceremony to mark the French handover of Alexandretta to announce that "those who have their eyes fixed on Turkish territory are suffering from blindness - not even a square centimetre of this country will be taken from it."

Uh oh! Did he say communist PKK? The PKK are defending the Syrian city of Kohane Kobane that's in the news at the moment for being under immediate military threat from IS. So I guess we have communist allies in the Non-War War, as well.

Kurds in Iraq, who are mostly Sunni, have had something of an autonomous political existence within the country for the last couple of decades, especially since the US invasion in 2003. Although official US policy has been and still is to keep Iraq unified, the US has also tolerated and even encouraged continuing Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. The no-fly zone that the US maintained in Iraq during the 1990s and up until the 2003 invasion were largely aimed at protecting the Kurdish areas. Where a lot of oil is located.

Turkey is not eager to help the PKK, or the Syrian government, or to do anything that would encourage an attempt to establish a Kurdistan state. Soquel reports:

Another wild card, and significant constraint on Ankara, is the role of the Kurds, a restive population in Turkey. Since the launch of an IS-offensive against the border town of Kobane, which sparked the mass exodus of Syrian Kurds, tensions have run high, spilling into clashes with police on repeated occasions.

In Iraq, the rise of the Islamic State was a direct threat to the ethnic group, but boosted its profile in the West, where it was seen as a relatively effective counterforce against IS. In Syria, Kurds may prove an ally against IS as well. But for Ankara, any scenario that leads to the arming of Kurdish factions who dream of autonomy, particularly the PKK, which Turkey regards as a terrorist group, is simply alarming.

Domestic politics are another constraint. Turkey will hold general elections in 2015, and US-led military action in the Middle East is viewed with great skepticism among conservative Islamists who back the ruling Justice and Development Party.

“Polls show a great distaste towards the Islamic State, but, on the other hand, an unwillingness to be involved in the international campaign,” says Mustafa Akyol, an analyst and author of “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty.” Conservatives in the Islamist camp see IS as an aberration, but they don’t want in on the so-called Crusaders Christian coalition. [my emphasis]

Crusaders Christian coalition? It does look a lot like that at the moment, I would say, with the US, France, Britain and Australia so prominently involved.

Tattersall and Bucek report:

More than 180,000 Syrian Kurds have now fled to Turkey to escape the insurgents' assault, [Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu said.

Their advance to within clear sight of Turkish military positions on the border has piled pressure on the NATO member to take a more robust stance against the Islamists.

But Ankara remains hesitant, fearing military intervention could deepen the insecurity on its border by strengthening Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and bolster Kurdish fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan said on Wednesday that peace talks between his group and the Turkish state will come to an end if Islamic State militants are allowed to carry out a massacre in Kobani. [my emphasis]

Juan Cole also discusses Turkey's concerns over the PKK, but with the twist that Turkey may also want to take some of the credit that the PKK might otherwise get for fighting against IS, which Cole calls ISIL (7 Surprising Reasons Turkey is entering war on ISIL Informed Comment 10/03/2014):

Turkey has had fruitful negotiations with separatist Kurds of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) about having the latter cease attacks in Anatolia. The leftist PKK and its Syrian branch, the YPG, is now a major guerrilla force taking on ISIL and was largely responsible for rescuing the Yazidis trapped at Sinjar. The Kurdish town of Kobane is now under siege by ISIL, and PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is warning that if Turkey lets Kobane fall, the PKK will cut off its negotiations with Turkey. (Tens of thousands of Kurds have recently fled into Turkey from Syria in fear of ISIL). Turkey doesn’t want to see the PKK and YPG strengthened, as they may be if they can claim sole credit for fighting off ISIL.

The Center for American Progress (CAP), which is a Democratic-leaning and usually Obama-loyalist group, has produced a recent study, The United States, Turkey, and the Kurdish Regions: The Peace Process in Context by Michael Werz and Max Hoffman (July 2014):

as economic standards improved after the end of the Cold War, the effort to establish cultural pluralism and acknowledge Turkey’s sometimes violent history with minority groups has gained impetus. But traditional Turkish fears of national fragmentation have not subsided. The emergence of Iraqi Kurdistan following the first Gulf War, as well as the militant PKK’s use of northern Iraq as a launching pad for attacks against the Turkish state, have contributed to these concerns. Indeed, American support for Iraqi Kurds has reinforced some Turks’ belief that the West wants to dismember Turkey, a fear that was used to justify the Turkish state’s ruthless campaign against the Kurds throughout the 1990s.

Anti-government protests in Turkey

This is an article from last month on the protests against the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Dani Rodrik, Turkey's Protests Send a Strong Message, But Will Not Bring Democracy 06/04/2013. It appeared in the Financial Times under the title, "Turkey's protesters have been let down by all sides." Rodrik notes at his blog, "I should add that neither the title of the FT piece nor the subtitle is mine. The subtitle in the print edition "A political class has turned violent to mask its weaknesses" is misleading and has little to do with the content of my piece; I have no idea why the FT found it apt." It is actually the online edition, not the print, where the subtitle appears.

He addresses a couple of important aspects of Turkish politics under Erdogan which have received positively in the West:

civilian control over the military was achieved through a series of show trials involving massive violations of due process – with rampant use of planted and fabricated evidence against accused officers. (My father-in-law is among those imprisoned.) [That parenthesis from the print edition does not appear in his blog version.] Rather than close the book on the military, Erdoğan’s tactics have opened up new wounds that will continue to fester.

Finally, the Kurdish opening has more to do with Erdoğan’s efforts to amend the constitution and ascend to (a more powerful) presidency, than with any genuine desire for reconciliation. As his previous flip flops on the Kurdish conflict shows, he would quickly change tack if short-term political calculations required otherwise.

He notes:

The main beneficiary of Erdoğan’s weakness may well be the Gülen movement, the powerful network led by the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen. Erdoğan and the Gülenists made common cause until recently to defeat their common enemy, the military and the secularist old guard. But with that task accomplished, they have been increasingly at odds. The Gülen movement does not want Erdoğan to become too powerful, while Erdoğan is wary of Gülenist machinations within the police and judiciary. The movement likes to promote President Abdullah Gül, who is much closer to it, as a tolerant, more democratic alternative to Erdoğan.

That the Gülen movement watches Erdoğan take the rap for the protests carries more than a hint of paradox, as Gülenists are known to be particularly well represented in the police. Supposedly moderate, the movement has been closely linked to some of the worst police and judicial abuses under Erdoğan.

Tags: turkey

In how good shape is Turkey?

Marc Pierini in Urban Transformation in Turkey Carnegie Europe 06/20/2013 writes:

... the Turkish government is implementing urban transformation through sudden, top-down decisions that do not sufficiently account for environmental protection or consultations with citizens. In the process, the population’s leanings are largely ignored, making it impossible to nurture civic consensus on the pace and nature of economic development.

In addition, there is no systematic monitoring of urban transformation practices and abuses. Few national and international NGOs are allocating time to the subject, and most of the evidence of abuses comes not from academic or other dispassionate sources but from stakeholders in the process and commentators. Moreover, projects such as nuclear plants and a new canal will affect other countries in the region and may be challenged on that ground.

He suggests that the now-famous protest over Taksim Square are an expression of broader discontent that very much includes issues in recent urban development. As he puts it:

The issue of urban transformation has morphed into a nationwide political problem in Turkey. It is now the symbol of the country’s disputed style of democratic management. ...

A micromanagement issue—the government’s refusal to consult the Taksim Platform, a local citizens’ initiative—has become the epicenter of a lasting political storm, the full political fallout of which is still to be measured. Subsequently, the excessively forceful handling of the protest created an outrage resulting in a degraded image of the government, both domestically and internationally.

The issue here is not the legitimacy of the Turkish government—it was elected democratically in 2002, 2007, and 2011, with up to 50 percent of the vote—but the way in which the opinions, beliefs, and lifestyles of the other half of the population are disregarded, when not suppressed.

But that urban development is also part of what the Turkish government has persuaded many news outlets to report, which is the supposedly exemplary economic development of the country over the past decade or so. As Pierini observes:

After winning Turkey’s 2002 general election, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government continued the efficient economic policies that were introduced by its predecessor after a major financial crisis. Thanks to that and to a fifteen-year-old customs union with the EU and EU accession negotiations that were opened in 2005, there has been a major influx of European direct investment in Turkey. The country has emerged as an integrated production platform for European manufacturing industries.

This growth period has led to major advances in Turkey’s public services and infrastructure, including airports, roads and highways, high-speed railroads, utilities, hospitals, universities, and museums. In parallel, a vast process of urban transformation and renewal has taken place in many Turkish cities, at times catalyzed by local conditions and events, such as when infrastructure was built and renovations made for Istanbul’s stint as European Capital of Culture in 2010.

The focus of his piece is his argument that the centralized nature of major urban development decisions is a significant course of discontent on the part of citizens frustrated at being shut out from a meaningful voice over these very consequential decisions.

Dani Rodrik looks at the relevant comparisons of Turkey's development recently in How well did the Turkish economy do over the last decade? Dani Rodrik's Weblog: "an important issue that is frequently overlooked is the conjunctural and comparative dimension. The last decade has been an exceptionally good one for developing countries as a whole. When Turkey's performance is compared to the average for emerging and developing countries, it hardly looks distinguished."

Tags: turkey

The "logic" of escalation in the Libya War

This discussion from the 03/24/2011 PBS Newshour featured retired Gen. Jack Keane, currently considered a guru of counterinsurgency, gives an idea of the conventional military and political dynamic pressing for an expanded US role in the Libyan civil war.



I don't agree with Keane's obvious advocacy of an escalating US role in the Libya War. But he does have a point. He puts it in a more propagandistic way, but the US-French-British alliance has committed itself in reality to supporting the rebel forces. And it doesn't appear that the military policy currently being applied is in line with the obvious goal of regime change. I don't want to see escalation. I would prefer to have the US only involved in actual humanitarian efforts, i.e., providing food and medical assistance and aid to refugees, not "humanitarian war."

In the context of the air-ground teams Keane is advocating, we should remember that those Special Forces teams in the early weeks of the Afghanistan War were not just coordinating air strikes but giving military direction, sometimes detailed tactical direction in battle, to the Northern Alliance forces. And despite the swift change in regime in Kabul, the Afghanistan War continues now nearly 10 years later with no end in sight.

But how many times have we heard the dreary argument that Keane makes: " American prestige is clearly on the line in terms of Gadhafi. If he stays in power, and we have some kind of a stalemate, that's a totally unsatisfactory outcome."

NATO's agreement to direct the no-fly zone is turning out to be less than the US wanted it to appear. NATO has formally committed only to enforcing the no-fly zone against actual violations of it. The NATO mission does not yet formally include attacks on the Libyan regime's ground forces. Paul Ames reports in Nato to take charge of no-fly zone – but US role is unclear The Independent 03/25/2011:

Nato reached a partial agreement late last night to take over the command of the no-fly zone over Libya, but deep divisions within the alliance mean the US will have to remain in charge of air strikes on Colonel Gaddafi's ground forces.

The decision to run parallel campaigns, with Nato's military headquarters planning missions against Gaddafi's air forces, but a separate US chain of command dealing with ground attacks, will set alarm bells ringing among military planners, given the scope for confusion and duplication it brings.

Intensive negotiations among the players is continuing. But Turkey's resistance to NATO's taking part in destroying Libyan ground forces is a major obstacle as of the latest reports I'm seeing.

Ames also reports:

... In an effort to minimise the confusion, US Admiral Samuel J Locklear is expected to play a key operational role in both command chains.

Since air operations began on Saturday, the mission has been co-ordinated by US headquarters in Germany and Italy, but from the beginning the Obama administration had made clear they wanted the Europeans to take over after the first phase of the operation.

Diplomacy lives on duplicity, I realize. But even so, I still don't quite understand why the Obama Administration is putting such heavy emphasis on the NATO role as though it were very distinct from the US role. Who is going to be fooled by this?

This report from the English-landguage Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman, Wary of France, Turkey wants NATO in charge in Libya 03/25/2011, has more information on Turkey's position:

Turkey has reiterated its skepticism of French motives in the Libya operation and insisted that NATO should have sole control over all military actions in the North African country, dismissing French calls for an international committee led by France and Britain to be politically in charge. ...

In a swipe at France, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the same people who were reluctant to let Turkey into the European Union now spoke in terms of “crusades” regarding Libya, chiding the West for its attitude towards nations to the South and East. “I wish that those who only see oil, gold mines and underground treasures when they look in that direction would see the region through glasses of conscience from now on,” he told a conference in İstanbul. ...

Meanwhile, the first diplomatic contact between Turkey and France took place on Thursday [March 24], when French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe phoned Davutoğlu. The two sides repeated their known positions, but agreed to stay in touch, officials said of the conversation. France opposes NATO control, saying that US-led NATO's involvement would undermine support for the anti-Gaddafi operation in the Arab world. Davutoğlu, during a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday rejected the French argument, putting the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister on the phone to explain that this is not how the Arabs would feel about NATO leading the operation.

Blood and Oil? German Minister Hints at Libya Mission Hypocrisy Der Spiegel International 03/25/2011 reports on the German government's cautious position, not wanting German forces to be directly involved in the Libya War.

Tags: jack keane, libya war, turkey

Fallout from the Israeli flotilla raid

Israel's raid on the flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza has further isolated Israel, probably put an to the possibility of a two-state solution with the Palestinians, and created new problems for the Obama administration's foreign policy.

Stephen Walt argues that the Gaza flotilla fiasco is another in a series of examples showing that Israel's foreign policy is strategically adrift. He puts it as the third in a series of notable setbacks, the Lebanon War of 2006 being one and the bombardment of Gaza in 2008-9 during the weeks leading up to Obama's inauguration the other. "None of these actions achieved its strategic objective; indeed, all of them are just more evidence of the steady deterioration in Israel's strategic thinking that we have witnessed since 1967." (Israel's latest brutal blunder Foreign Policy 05/31/2010)

Egypt has opened trade to Gaza through the Rafah crossing which it controls. But, as Juan Cole explains, this is almost certain to be temporary: "Were Egypt to defy Israel’s blockade for a long period of time or let in forbidden materials, the Israelis would almost certainly just bomb the entrance." (Eyewitnesses Confirm Israeli Gunplay; Egypt’s lifting of the Blockade likely Temporary Informed Comment 06/02/2010)

Craig Murray points out something that could turn out to be a serious complication of the attack, not least for the United States. Israel mounted an armed assault on a ship flying the Turkish flag in international waters. Murray writes (The Legal Position on the Israeli Attack 05/31/2010):

To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.

... In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.

So far as I've seen, Turkey is not threatening military retaliation or demanding that Israel hand over the commandos responsible for prosecution in Turkey. But it's certainly a possibility that Turkey will support another attempt to deliver goods to Gaza on a Turkish-flagged ship and provide it an armed escort while in international waters. On the conciliatory side, Turkey has also publicly indicated that they would normalize relations with Israel if Israel lifts the current Gaza blockade.

Turkey is formally an ally of the United States through the NATO Treaty. Israel is not. Even though senior American officials routinely describe the unbreakable bond between Israel and the United States, Israel has consistently refused American offers to conclude a formal defense treaty. Because a defense treaty would have to specify the borders being defended, and that would complicate Israel's annexation options.

Some Turkish politicians are suggesting there may be a link between an attack on a Turkish naval base by the Kurdish-separatist group the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Israeli assault on the Turkish flag flotilla ship. The two events fell within a couple of hours of each other. (Similarities between PKK, Israel attacks raise suspicions Today's Zaman 06/02/2010) I can't really judge how credible that is. I'm unfamiliar with Israel's history with the PKK. Given Israel's good relations with Turkey the last 20 years, it sounds unlikely on the face of it.

The United States agreed to UN Security Council language in their resolution about the flotilla incident that was harsher than most language criticizing Israel that the US has supported in the UN in recent memory. But the Obama administration's initial reaction indicates that they prefer to just sweep the incident out of sight as quickly as possible. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton elaborated on the US position:

We support, in the strongest terms, the Security Council's call for a prompt, impartial, credible, and transparent investigation.

We support an Israeli investigation that meets those criteria. We are open to different ways of assuring a credible investigation, including international participation. The situation, from our perspective, is very difficult and requires careful, thoughtful responses from all concerned. [my emphasis]

It's hard to imagine that any official investigation that the Benjamin Netanyahu/Avigdor Lieberman government would support would come to any conclusion other than one that completely exonerates the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from any meaningful wrongdoing.

Barak Ravid reports in UN Human Rights Council to probe Gaza flotilla raid Haaretz 02.06.2010:

The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva decided Wednesday to dispatch an international committee to Israel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Israel Navy's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla earlier this week.

The resolution was passed by a majority vote of 32-3 with nine absentions [sic]. The United States voted against, along with Norway and Italy, while other European Union states abstained, as did Japan.

The draft resolution, sponsored by Arab states, harshly condemns Israel and says Israel violated international law when it took over the ships in the middle of the ocean. The resolution also calls on Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza and to supply immediate humanitarian aid to Gaza, in the forms of food, gas, and medications. ...

EU countries said they had tried to insert language would would have allowed them to vote yes, but the negotiations did not bear fruit.

The Netherlands said the rights council should not go beyond the decision of the UN Security Council from earlier in the week, which condemned the "acts" that lead to the deaths in the raid and called for a "credible and transparent" investigation, without imposing the nature of the inquiry. [my emphasis]

The official position of Netanyahu government on the flotilla raid is almost a caricature of heavy-handed propaganda, absurdly portraying the highly-trained, heavily-armed Israeli commandos who staged the night raid on the ships in international waters as acting defensively in the face of a deadly menace (Barak: In the Middle East, there is no mercy for the weak Haaretz 02.06.2010):

Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited the Shayetet 13 base in Atlit on Wednesday and praised the commandos who participated in the deadly raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla on Monday for carrying out their mission, Army Radio reported.

"You carried out the mission and prevented the flotilla from reaching Gaza," Barak said. "We need to always remember that we aren't North America or Western Europe, we live in the Middle East, in a place where there is no mercy for the weak and there aren't second chances for those who don't defend themselves. You were fighting for your lives – I saw it, and I heard it from your commanders."

Yehezkel Dror argues that the Israeli national-security policymaking process itself functions in a way that tends to produce self-destructive decisions, in Our primitive policy-making Haaretz 02.06.2010.

David Rothkopf makes a related point in The Existential threat in the mirror: Regarding the Gaza flotilla debacle, the facts don't matter Foreign Policy 06/01/2010. Rothkopf defends the Gaza blockade itself and specifically the flotilla raid of early Monday. But, he argues, "Isolating Gaza may provide some security benefits to Israel but in the end, as this incident demonstrates, it has created even greater risks." And he concludes:

From the unnecessary and destructive settlements policy to its blundering into severely degraded relations with the United States and the world, Netanyahu is the face of a country that increasingly unable to show its face anywhere internationally without provoking contempt. Admittedly, he is only partially an author of the problems he faces. Circumstances and dedicated opponents who are seen by most of the world to be advancing legitimate human rights concerns are even more important co-authors. But absent one of the great about-faces in the history of recent global affairs, it is reasonable to ask whether it is only through the departure of the current prime minister that the Israelis will be able to regroup and actually positively influence their own destiny.

For Netanyahu and for Israel, this weekend's tragedy is therefore a turning point. It doesn't matter whether it is being misunderstood. It doesn't matter whether it was a set up. It doesn't matter what the facts are. Israel, born at a disadvantage and vigorously playing defense ever since, is now on its heels. The next few years will see it lose ground demographically, diplomatically and literally. Whether after all that what is left actually is secure and sustainable will depend on decisions about how it wishes to present itself during the months ahead -- decisions that must necessarily involve reversals of Netanyahu policies regarding settlements, Gaza and confusing self-destruction for self-defense. [my emphasis]

Tags: israel, turkey

You'd think they'd be embarassed (Updated)

But you must have to pass a test of being immune from feeling embarassment to work in the Cheney-Bush administration. I couldn't help doing a double-take on this one, Defense Secretary Robert Gates Tells Turkey To "Wrap Up" Iraq Incursion by Lolita Baldor Huffington Post 02/28/08. It's a news article about senior US officials, including Dear Leader Bush himself, saying that the Turkish army should leave northern Iraq soon. Since they are invading a theoretically sovereign country. Where could they have ever gotten the idea that would be okay? This part is where I did the double-take:

"It should not be long-lasting," Bush said at a White House news conference. "The Turks need to move, move quickly, achieve their objective and get out."

[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael] Mullen said the Turkish incursion "comes at a very sensitive time with respect to our engagement in Iraq, and we're very worried that it could tip the balance in the wrong direction, in terms of our engagement there, making it much more difficult. So it is a very delicate balance."

Mullen said his Turkish counterpart has assured him "that they will in fact limit" the duration of the military action but have not given the United States a specific date on which they intend to pull out. (my emphasis)

I'm sure Turkey has it's own John "100 Years War" McCains who are saying, "No, we can never surrender! If we withdraw before Victory, The Terrorists will tell the world they have defeated us. And setting a deadline to withdraw would just give The Enemy a signal of how long they need to lay low before they attack us again. Never retreat! Never surrender!" Well, at least the Turks are giving Our Leader a general idea of their plans: Turkey says military operation in Iraq might last a year (dpa) Wiredispatch.com 02/28/08.

(Update: AP is reporting that Turkey is pulling its ground troops out of Iraq, which makes the dpa report that Turkey was saying the operation might last a year even more enigmatic. Turkish troops pull out of Iraq by Burhanettin Ozbilici 02/29/08)

Tags: iraq war, mccain, turkey

The Armenian genocide resolution

Poster by Ruben Malayan on the Armenian genocide

Like Tankwoman, I'm a bit puzzled by the timing of Congress on the Armenian resolution. The Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire in 1915 is certainly an important event to understand. (I must admit I'm not current on the nuances of what counts as genocide and what not. A truly grim subject, important though it unquestionably is. But in my understanding, that event counts as one.)

Robert Fisk includes a chapter called "The First Holocaust" about the Armeniain genocide - the term Fisk uses - in his book The Great War for Civilisation (2005).

Juan Cole was also puzzled over the timing of the resolution on the Armenian genocide, since so far as I'm aware it has no practical effects in itself. Of course, "pure" symbolism can sometimes generate practical consequences, as we see in this case. Cole writes in Who Lost Turkey? 10/12/07 at his Informed Comment blog:

The ... US Congress abruptly condemned modern Kemalist Turkey for the Armenian genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire, provoking Ankara to withdraw its ambassador from Washington. I have long held that Turkey should acknowledge the genocide, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more hundreds of thousands. The Turkish government could then point out that it was committed by a tyrannical and oppressive government - the Ottoman Empire - against which the Kemalists also fought a long and determined war to establish a modern republic. I can't understand Ankara's unwillingness to distance itself from a predecessor it doesn't even think well of - the junta of Enver Pasha and the later pusillanimity of the sultan (the capital is in Ankara and not Istanbul in part for this very reason!)

But no dispassionate observer could avoid the conclusion that the Congressional vote condemning Turkey came at a most inopportune time for US-Turkish diplomacy, at a time when Turks were already raw from watching the US upset all the apple carts in their neighborhood, unleash existential threats against them, cause the rise of Salafi radicalism next door, coddle terrorists killing them, coddle the separatist KRG, and strengthen the Shiite ayatollahs on their borders.

It's worth noting, as Cole does, "The Congressional vote came despite the discomfort of elements of the Israel lobby with recognizing the mass killing of Armenians as a genocide."

Deborah Lipstadt also pointed out this wrinkle at her History on Trial blog, House Foreign Affairs Committee passes Armenian Genocide resolution 10/10/07:

So here's my question: if the "Jewish lobby" controls American foreign policy and many Jewish organizations, especially Abe Foxman and the ADL, opposed this resolution because of their fears about the welfare of the Turkish Jewish community and their appreciation of Turkey's relations with Israel... HOW COME THIS PASSED????

Lipstadt takes a far more dismissive view of the Mearsheimer-Walt criticism of the "Israel lobby" and also of Jimmy Carter's most recent book on the Israel-Palestine conflict than I do. But her point is important to note. Israel has kept its distance from formal condemnations of the Armenian genocide out of deference to their alliance with Turkey. (See The Israeli Government's Genocide Politics by Gershom Gorenberg American Prospect Online 09/06/07.)

Cole expands on the point in his post. He also gives a good summary of how the Bush administration's policies in Iraq have generally not been beneficial from Turkey's point of view.

Maybe there's no ideal time for passing a resolution like this one. But given the fact that the immediate fate of Iraq, and the American soldiers there, hangs in significant part on Turkey's forbearance in expanding this war into a regional conflict, the timing may have been particularly bad as a practical matter. I had a similar reaction to that of Tankwoman's: "Did they not read the memo about the on-going conflict between Turkey and the Kurds, do they not care about the probable escalation of the Iraq conflict? ... They've waited 98 years already, what’s a few more?" Especially since it's a non-binding resolution.

Or, as Nicholas von Hoffman puts it in Whose Genocide Counts? The Nation Online 10/11/07, "Do you think that the House Foreign Affairs Committee might, after it has righted any number of ancient wrongs, look into what the Sam Hill is going on now?"

See also:

In Turkey, taboo lifts over past treatment of Armenians by Yigal Schleifer Christian Science Monitor 03/17/05

Meeting with Turkish Parliamentarians 04/16/07 (audio), Center for Strategic and International Security (CSIS)

The Burden of Memory by Meline Toumani The Nation 09/20/04

Armenians seek place in museum by Christopher Reynolds Los Angeles Times 02/03/03

Tags: armenian genocide, first world war, turkey, world war one