BRUCE KESLER: TURKEY AND THE FROG
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9745/pub_detail.asp
As I have twice before (here in June 2010 and here in September 2010), I asked my friend Gerald Robbins, the Turkish-speaking expert and a Senior Fellow at Philadelphia’s Foreign Policy Research Institute, to comment on this past weekend’s parliamentary elections in Turkey.
In brief recap of prior posts:
Turkey’s AKP political party and its leader Prime Minister Recep Erdogan have held parliamentary power since 2002. Their program has been a combination of several elements: successfully encouraging economic development in the interior which has also benefited the usual coastal economic centers, and pursuing a gradual turning from the secularist path set almost a century ago for modern Turkey by Kemal Attarturk. AKP’s Turkey turned to a more Islamist focus aligned with Ottoman-like pretensions of influence throughout the Middle East. Turkey’s former closeness with the West via NATO membership has become an empty promise, as shown in its refusal to allow Western forces to enter Iraq via its territory in 2003 and subsequent footsy with radical states in the Middle East and support for anti-Israel propaganda and actions. Facing strongly entrenched business, secular and military interests, like a frog in slowly warming water, these interests have had their power sapped (coopted in the case of many traditional business interests, whose social-democratic/statist linkages make them particularly susceptible to AKP blandishments and programs).
Now, for Robbins latest:
IMO this was a ho-hum election. The main issue wasn’t whether Erdogan would win, but by how much. The hoped for 2/3 parliamentary majority didn’t occur, and therefore he will have to consult with the opposition parties instead of being given carte blanche re. drafting a new constitution. Several of the initial reports I’ve seen have the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) improved performance as the reason why Erdogan didn’t get his 2/3, but it’s overblown. CHP’s minimally improved their 2007 electoral performance: the real reason Erdogan didn’t get total power is because the ultranationalist National Action Party’s (MHP) vote tally didn’t erode significantly despite a scandal (sex) which took out several of their senior officials. The media saw the scandal as a death knell for MHP, with its voters defecting to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) ranks – it didn’t occur – MHP’s 14% vote tally in the ’07 election minimally shrank to 13% this time around. As for CHP, if they had gotten 30% of the overall vote, then it would have sent a signal that they were becoming a formidable opponent for Erdogan; the final vote tally had the party which Ataturk founded at 25%.
If anything, CHP’s provincial prowess seems to have further eroded. Except for the Izmir region and European Turkey (Thrace), all of Anatolia, save for the Kurdish Southeast (where a Kurdish rights party dominated), went AKP. Recent elections reflected CHP as a coastally strong party, ‘11s electoral results show this is no longer the case. The Turkish Mediterranean, formerly a CHP stronghold, is now AKP country, even the traditionally secularist Aegean coastal provinces reflect a changing vote habit. The irony of it all is that the current bastions of secularism are what had traditionally been the most non-Turkish parts of the nation, namely the pre-WWI Greek-dominated regions of Thrace and what used to be known as “Godless” Smryna/Izmir.
Two events on the horizon are worth considering. While Turkey’s economic performance has been impressive amid present international circumstances, its current account deficit is ballooning. April’s 2011 deficit figure widened to $7.7 billion from $4.4 billion in the same month a year ago. In a nation where the median age is 28, youth unemployment is becoming an issue. Those familiar with recent Turkish history know this is a potentially dangerous brew for political instability.
Another looming cloud is the situation in neighboring Syria, which serves as the fulcrum for Erdogan’s Middle East policy. Ankara is becoming increasingly concerned with what’s occurring, since Syrians are fleeing in increasing numbers to Turkey, creating a potential refugee problem. Erdogan has also been very slow in criticizing Assad for his actions; the Turkish leader is hesitant to upset growing business and strategic ties.
This tentative attitude is the same with Libya’s Qaddafi. Abhorrent dictators notwithstanding, Turkey has become entwined in Syria and Libya’s infrastructural development. There is an assortment of turnkey projects involving Turkish construction companies within these nations (particularly Libya) and fears of default play an influential factor in Ankara’s regional outlook. Thus Turkey’s aim of becoming a “bridge” between Western and Middle Eastern societies is in a conundrum, sandwiched between authoritarian despots and the Arab Spring’s protestors.
Some useful further analysis is offered by another friend, Barry Rubin (director of the Global Research in International Affairs [GLORIA] Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs [MERIA] Journal). Rubin is concerned, “how many people in the West actually appreciate what is happening?” He lists some of these happenings:
[A]s the Islamist party gains more and more power and support–Turkey has demonstrated this–it becomes more ambitious, daring, and extreme.
This would include:
–A constitution that would take the country far down the road to a more Islamist state and society.
–A more presidential style of government empowering the mercurial (a nice word for personally unstable and frighteningly arrogant) Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to become the chief executive.
–The government can now infiltrate, take over, and transform the remaining hold out institutions, especially the armed forces and courts, along with the remainder of the media that has not yet been bought up or intimidated by the Islamists.
–A government whose policy is to align with Islamists like Iran, Syria (not Islamist but part of the Tehran-led alliance), Hamas, Hizballah, and perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood.
–A government against U.S. and Western interests.
–A government that, to put it bluntly, hates Israel and many of whose members hate Jews.
–For Israel, any dreams of restoring the alliance with Turkey, or even a friendly relationship or normal diplomatic relations are finished. This is the regime that sponsored the first Gaza flotilla and is now behind the second one. From an Israeli interests’ perspective, Turkey’s government is now on the other side, the side of its enemies.
What’s for the West to do? The European Union’s racial, religious and economic hesitancies toward including Turkey have increased over the years, and Turkey’s economic growth has made that avenue less appealing for Turkey. NATO, as demonstrated in its European members’ feeble capabilities and union in Libya, holds little attractiveness as a strong partner, in addition to a divergence of interests with Turkey. The US, withdrawing from confrontation with Islamists in the Middle East, is also less a strong player in the Middle East as the Obama administration waffles toward traditional alliances and undercutting them, Arab and Israeli. Despite the possibly troubling portents within Turkey’s economy, there is not substantial reason to believe them imminent or seriously destabilizing to AKP power within the foreseeable future.
That leaves Turkey unlikely to be amenable to Western pressures. On the other hand, although a major player at the peripheries of the Middle East, despite its pretensions (see this over-the-top victory pronouncement by Erdogan), it is not viewed by the Arab states or peoples as of the Middle East. Turkey will be an increasing trouble-maker but its influence will be largely defined by the outcomes of the increasing various antipathies between Islamist vs secular despots, and between Saudi Arabia’s new Gulf coalition vs Iran (also a non-Arab and peripheral trouble-maker).
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