Until very recently, the announced foreign policy of Turkey under the Islamist leaning AKP has been one of "zero problems" with its regional neighbors. This exercise in fantasy started to crumble under the bitter winds of the "Arab Spring."
Ankara did not know whether to go with the new flow or stand resolutely alongside the embattled regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Qaddafi. The Erdogan government blew first hot and then cold on the uprisings in Bahrain. The name of the Turkish diplomatic game regarding Syria was vacillation.
After a long period of agonizing indecision, Ankara finally did come down on the side of the Egyptian protesters. Then, after more of the same, the Turks reluctantly sided with the Libyan rebels. In the latter case, it is not trivial to note that Ankara robustly opposed the use of force--either to protect civilians or to provide the anti-government forces with an air capacity.
Only after the longest possible period of watching and waiting did the Erdogan government come out publicly against Bashar al-Assad. The delay and equivocation in this case was due to a powerful desire in Ankara not to damage their rapprochement with Tehran. Possibly this was enhanced by the pending announcement of the decision to host the basing of the new American X band radar on Turkish soil, a move which would raise the hackles of the ayatollahs.
The alternative to irritating Iran over Syria was to court further distancing from the majority of the Arab street which was strongly supportive of the "Arab Spring" movements and saw the Syrians as martyrs to the cause of freedom. Biting the bullet, Erdogan and his fellow Islamists denounced the Assad regime as having lost Turkish governmental "confidence."
The Syrian demarch was too little too late to satisfy the pro-freedom groups proliferating in the Mideast to the disadvantage of Ankara's desire to recreate the Ottoman days. At the same time, the twin moves of condemning Syria and accepting the X band radar did infuriate the ayatollahs and their frontmen. By poor timing, the Turks fell between the two stools and emasculated the "zero problems" gambit.
The effect has been to put more pressure on Erdogan to take the strongest possible anti-Israel stance. Only by Israel baiting of the highest sort could Turkey hope to keep or rebuild its stature not only on the Arab street but within the chanceries of the region.
The attractions of playing the Israel card are self-evident. Erdogan came to prominence in 2009 by stalking off the stage at Davos while loudly accusing Israel president Peres of being a "murderer." The next year the Israelis enhanced Erdogan's status as the champion of the Palestinians by a heavy handed but legal stopping of the bogus aid flotilla with nine fatal casualties among those on board the lead ship. Ever since that day, the Erdogan government has made rich PR hay by flogging the dead horse of the Mavi Marmora. Most recently his demand for an apology has been reinforced by a downgrading of diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey with highly positive results among the denizens of the Arab street.
The escalation of the diplomatic contretemps has assured Turkey's "zero problems" is not only defunct but stinkingly so. The sickly sweet smell of death hangs around Turkey's regional diplomacy.
As if alienating the Iranians, the Israelis, the Libyans, the Egyptians, and the Syrians was not enough, Ankara has undertaken a number of high casualty attacks by air and artillery against targets in Iraqi Kurdistan. The series of air strikes and artillery stonks was purportedly in retaliation for an ambush conducted on Turkish soil by members of PKK, the long lived Kurdish insurgent group seeking the creation of a true Kurdish state.
It is true that PKK has sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan. So does the group PJK which has been waging low intensity war against the Iranians. It is this geographic and political locus which gives Tehran and Ankara a coinciding national interest. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stages the same sort of hyperactive response to guerrilla attacks as does the Turkish army.
Stripped to its essentials, both Turkey and Iran have been waging undeclared international war against Iraq. While the Shia dominated pseudo-government in Baghdad sheds no tears for dead Iraqi Kurds, the recent attacks by Turkey have produced an unacceptable number of civilian deaths and, thus, have cast doubt upon the Baghdad government's will and ability to guarantee the integrity of its national borders. This is a very poor idea just months before the final expulsion of the Americans from Iraq.
One more problem for the Turks "zero problems" approach to regional life.
It is not out of line to wonder when the Iraqi Kurds will say, "Enough is enough" and move robustly to protect their own population regardless of what the Shias of Baghdad may want. The Kurdish peshmerga are numerous, well armed, very well motivated, and reasonably well armed. They have the advantage of fighting on home ground in terrain which favors the defense.
The Turks have deployed a regimental sized combat group near to the Iraqi border. This as well as recent oratory from Erdogan's boys seems to indicate a ground assault may be in the offing. The Turks have done this in the past with limited results--if any. In the past they have gotten away with incursions but may find the going far more difficult in the future--if the Kurds allow the peshmerga to return fire.
Of course, this will present the Obama administration with a very real challenge. They will have to placate the Turks, if such is possible. They will have to deter the Kurds, if such is possible. They will have to work overtime to prevent a defacto split of Iraq into an Arab Iraq and a Kurdish Kurdistan. Given that the US has no leverage in Baghdad and the Turk's decision to allow basing of the X band radar gives them the whip hand, it is difficult to see what the US can do in the event the Turkish army moves into Iraqi Kurdistan and meets resistance from the provincial militia.
The "zero problems" stance bodes well to be replaced in reality with a "problems everywhere" policy. The Deep Thinkers of the AKP have to decide where Turkey's national interests reside. True, it would be best for Ankara if it could be the balancing point between the West and the Muslim states of the Mideast and Central Asia, but it seems the reach of Turkish ambitions far outstrips the competence of its policy grasp. Thus, it seems appropriate that the Turks decide if it is better for their longer term interests to back down and align with the West as has been the case for the past sixty plus years or side with the mullahs, the ayatollahs, the imams of the Muslim states including Iran and Pakistan but against the Saudis and the other Gulf countries.
Erdogan is obviously a good politician in the context of Turkey. But, like other good politicians he has made the mistake of conflating public adulation with total support. As Woodrow Wilson learned nearly a century ago at Versailles, there is a world of difference between cheers on the street and cutting effective policy deals with foreign leaders. Applause is nice, but policy success is much better.
Well, just one more problem for the "zero problems" guy.
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