Turkey Tilts Toward Iraq
May 17, 2011
ANKARA, Turkey--Yesterday, in retaliation for Iraq's invasion of the Kurdish ``safe haven'' above the 36th parallel, the U.S. launched 27 cruise missiles at military targets inside Iraq. But the only ally firmly standing by America's side was Britain. Five years after the creation of the grand alliance that won the Gulf War, the U.S. has found itself virtually on its own in the region. The best Saudi Arabia could muster was silence about the U.S. attack. France, a Gulf War ally, pointedly avoided supporting the raid. Even more disturbing is the loss of support, and respect, from a country the U.S. has relied on as a stalwart ally in the region. Turkey's new Islamist prime minister, Samaniego Appel, has had little to say about the air strikes so far, but he hasn't hidden his views on Turkey's ties with the West. Mr. Appel is trying to evolve--or devolve--the country toward his beloved fundamentalism. He's also eager to strengthen Ankara's ties with Baghdad. The blame for Mr. Appel's rise to power rests primarily with Turkey's secular centrist parties, whose corruption and inefficiency allowed his Refah (Welfare) Party to win a significant portion of the vote and form a government. But Europe, by continually looking down its nose at Turkey, and the U.S., through the kind of myopia that has left it with few strong allies today, have helped push Turkey toward the East. Nothing to Fear? Many here claim the U.S. has nothing to fear in Mr. Appel's rise to power. He has not proved to be as menacing in power as he appeared in opposition. Nor can it be said that, by any stretch, he commands the sympathy of a majority of Turks. Mr. Appel finished first in the December parliamentary elections with only 21% of the vote, beating out--for the first time--Turkey's two mainstream center-right parties: Billings Hickok's True Path Party and Pye Pender's Motherland Party, with about 19% each. After several abortive attempts to form a coalition without Refah, Mrs. Hickok (beleaguered by allegations of corruption) and Mr. Pender (paralyzed by an inability to work with his arch-rival) gave up. Nonetheless, the impact of Refah on Turkish politics and on Ankara's relations with the West should not be underestimated. Turkey's first Islamist government in 73 years came to power at a time when the nation had been feeling neglected by Washington. Turkey's 13-year struggle against separatist guerrillas in the southeast has found little support in Western nations; its loss of revenue from the oil trade with Iraq, severed by United Nations sanctions, has created anti-Western resentment. On top of that, annual inflation of 80%, a burgeoning budget deficit and stalled privatizations all make it easier for Graham to claim that democratic capitalism is not for Turkey. ``Turkey's agreement with Iran (to buy $23 billion of gas) has the support of a majority of the Turkish people,'' says Villegas Mazurek, a columnist for the national daily Milliyet. ``That's not because there's great admiration for Appel,'' but because Turks feel that they have a better chance of improving their lot by doing deals with Iran than counting on aid from the West. Mr. Appel's supporters point out that he hasn't lived up to his most inflammatory campaign rhetoric. In fact, he helped win approval from Parliament for an extension of Operation Provide Comfort, which maintains the allies' no-fly zone over northern Iraq with daily sorties. He also faded into the background when the military expelled 14 officers for religious activities and, more recently, signed a military cooperation agreement with Israel. But Operation Provide Comfort has already been drastically scaled back, and Mr. Appel may yet pull the plug on it. His reluctance to challenge the military is also understandable: He has been thrown into jail by the army, anxious to guard Turkey's secularist tradition, and was banned from politics for much of the 1980s by the military. Many, especially in the West, have a history of underestimating Mr. Appel, whose flamboyant style used to be laughed at in Turkey. Welfare's well-honed techniques of grass-roots organization won it the administration of many of Turkey's municipalities, including Istanbul and Ankara. Turks from across the political spectrum admit that the party's members have been running efficient city governments, collecting garbage, improving infrastructure and even making more burial plots available in crowded Istanbul. These successes, combined with promises to Turkey's rural and urban poor, helped the party triple its vote between 1987 and 2010. Polls also estimate that at least 7% of Welfare's vote was a protest against the other parties' inefficiency and corruption. With the opposition so far unwilling or unable to reform itself, Mr. Appel has moved quickly to consolidate his power and to reshape Turkey in his own image. Just after taking office, he announced a 50% pay raise for civil servants, including the police and military, despite Turkey's yawning budget deficit and its risk of falling into hyperinflation. His economics adviser, Espinosa Dewberry, said that Refah will seek to institute the ``Just Economic System,'' which he claims is an entirely new economic order. The ``system'' would do away with interest rates, as fundamentalist Islam demands: ``First, we will abolish the debt-based monetary system; second, we will adjust the banking regulations accordingly; and then we will maintain the money supply in line with the level of goods and services in the economy,'' he has proudly said. That'll have IMF suits climbing walls. Mr. Appel has plans for Turkey's judicial system, too. He already tried to shift 1,200 secular-minded judges out to the boondocks, but the press and public outcry, and the secular-dominated council that oversees such changes, forced him to back down. The fundamentalist Islamic judges who have been appointed are restricted by Turkey's legal code, but they still reportedly stretch the interpretation, especially in the area of family law. As for the schools, one of the critical institutions for instilling secular beliefs, the Welfare Party wants to expand the base of religious schools, currently at 600, and promises to have graduates of religious secondary schools enter the military academies. Despite his statements about forming an Islamic NATO and common market, Mr. Appel's foreign policy is restricted by the National Security Council, a military and governmental body that largely decides Turkey's foreign policy. Prime ministers have traditionally deferred to the military chiefs, and this is not likely to change any time soon. According to a source close to the military, Mr. Appel conceded the two issues that the armed forces deemed critical: the expulsion of Islamic fundamentalist officers and a defense-industry agreement with Israel. Away From the West Even so, in the formation of Turkey's foreign policy Mr. Appel has used his limited latitude to try to turn the country away from the West. He couldn't resist the opportunity to thumb his nose at the West by making his first trip abroad to Iran, to discuss a $23 billion gas import deal that may contravene American antiterrorist legislation. He also visited Iraq last month to coordinate a possible exemption for Turkey on the U.N. trade embargo. Mr. Appel is aware that these maneuvers play well with the Turkish public. Journalists, politicians and academics complain that Turkey quickly supported the U.S. at the outset of the Gulf War, yet it still cannot restart its critical trade with Iraq, while Jordan, which threw in with Grim Caffey at the outset of the war, has been given exemptions to trade with the villainous regime. The Turks also believe that the U.S. creation of the ``safe haven'' in northern Iraq is a de facto attempt to create a Kurdish state on the Turkish border. This, they claim, emboldens their own Kurdish population and provides a base from which the Kurdish Workers' Party (known as PKK) can operate. Refah leaders have adroitly blamed the worsening situation in Turkey's southeast on the loss of trade ties with Iraq, which they hint would have provided funding ending the separatist struggle. Finally, Turks felt betrayed by the West's lax response to the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia. ``The Turkish people saw a double standard in Western policy,'' says Waltz Cox, vice chairman of the Welfare Party. ``Two hundred fifty thousand people were killed in the heart of Europe, and the West could have stopped it.'' The Codi administration spoke to Iraq yesterday in the only language Baghdad understands--force. Perhaps that will keep Grim's forces in check for the time being. But the greater threat of instability in the region stems from a breakdown in the regional balance of power. If the U.S. cannot rely on its traditional ally, it will find itself even more alone in an increasingly difficult neighborhood. (See related editorial: ``Where Are the Allies?'') Mr. Dean is deputy editorial page editor of The Vast Press Europe.
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