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Turkish
Bravado versus American Bullying:
A Clash of Civilizations?
Zeyno
Baran
The
Turkish Parliament was supposed to vote "yes"
on March 1 to a resolution allowing the basing of 62,000
American troops and 320 aircraft. After all, the
Army’s 4th Infantry Division had been
waiting for several days in ships offshore for
permission to unload tanks and other equipment. The vote
was four short, and the next vote is not likely to take
place until after the war starts.
This would exclude Turkey from taking part in the
creation of the main war plans. After months of
negotiations between the so-called strategic allies, the
failure to get a yes from Turkey is a serious failure
for U.S. policy.
Throughout
the negotiations the American side did not have a hint
of the “humility in foreign policy” George W. Bush had
promised as a presidential candidate. The Turks kept
saying that they would not be able to vote yes until a
second UN resolution passed, or at least when the U.S.
made clear it would go to war, but the U.S. was too
focused on the end-game to listen and understand the
political dynamics in Turkey. The worldviews and the
motives of the two governments were so far apart that
one could talk about a "clash of
civilizations" that inevitably led to a
"dialogue of the deaf."
In
fact, the majority of Turks are proud that their
parliament stood tough against American pressure and
joined the set of countries opposing a war that few see
as necessary at this point. Senior Turkish government
representatives even believed that delaying a
"northern attack option" for Iraq would deter
President Bush from launching a war against Iraq. Many
even believed that the Bush Administration was behind
Turkey’s humiliation in the media, and were especially
insulted at a cartoon portraying Turkey as a prostitute
for bargaining hard on the economic assistance package.
The parliament may have stood up for the Turkish honor,
but it was more like “burning the whole blanket for a
flea in it,” a proverb whose American equivalent would
be “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
While
the main focus seemed to be on the size of the economic
package, the big questions remained unanswered. In the
absence of effective dialogue, the process took over.
The Turks put on a tough bargain on economic, political
and military issues to address their key concerns as
they had outlined (this was discussed in my earlier
piece in In the
National Interest, "Turkey's Difficult
Balancing Act," at http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue4/Vol2Issue4Baran.html
). The U.S.
side thought that the negotiations had ended several
weeks ago when the Turkish Foreign and Economic
Ministers met with President Bush at the White House.
For the Turks, however, all three sets of issues need
more fine-tuning due to perceived historic injustices
and mistrust towards the United States. If the Turkish
game-plan was to delay a yes vote as long as possible,
however, the Turks believed that there was no reason to
believe the talks would come to a end before the start
of the war.
The
tragedy for Turkey is that it would likely say yes to
the U.S. after the war starts, as it did in the Gulf
War, but that would be too late to receive the enormous
economic assistance package the United States was
willing to offer as a result of “full cooperation.”
The final U.S. offer to Turkey was a generous
grant of $6 billion, up from $4 billion. Turkey would be
able to turn $2 billion of that grant into U.S.-backed
loans, which could mean, in real terms, about $17
billion in aid. There would be $2 billion for military
assistance. With the establishment of a Qualified
Industrial Zone (QIZ), which would include textiles, and
with other defense related procurement, Turkey would get
at least an additional $1 billion. Turkish companies
would get post-war reconstruction contracts. Moreover,
to assuage Turkish concerns of ethnic lobby groups
trying to block the package in Congress, the Bush
Administration promised an immediate loan of over $10
billion. This money would not only help Turkey with
immediate economic impacts of the war, but also help it
roll over its huge debt, which is about 90% of its gross
national product.
Administration
officials referred to this package as an
“unprecedented mini-Marshall plan,” but it was not
enough for Turkey. Coming down from an initial request
of $92 billion, Turks wanted $10 billion in grants. They
also strongly objected to conditions that the aid be
tied to the $31 billion IMF economic reform program. The
American side rightly held tight on the IMF linkage: The
program is on hold for over four months due to
non-performance and Turkish macro economic picture has
been grim for many years. On top of that, the new
Turkish government has made populist promises, and to a
large degree had hoped to fund these promises from a
large U.S. assistance package in case of war.
If
Turkey does not say yes in time to the U.S. (for troop
basing and over-flight rights), all these negotiations
would be for nil. The U.S. would be too focused on the
war to renegotiate a smaller assistance package for
Turkey. Given the growing negative sentiments in the
Congress about Turkey, the Bush Administration would
have a much harder time, assuming it would still want to
use up political capital for Turkey. Turkish markets
have not reacted negatively so far because there is
still optimism that at the last minute there would be an
agreement. As soon as the reality sinks in, confidence
would disappear and Turkey could be on its way to become
another Argentina. Such a development would benefit the
radical Islamist elements in Turkey who would blame the
U.S. for the economic and social troubles. This then
might force the military to step in to restore order and
prevent further Islamization of politics.
Even
if there were full agreement on the economic package,
Turks would still insist on finalizing the political
negotiations, which deals mainly with an agreement on
post-Saddam Iraq. They want clear guarantees that the
Turkmen would have a fair share in any future Iraqi
government. This
is a critical issue, a point I have stressed at several
points in this publication (see my above-referenced
piece, at http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue4/Vol2Issue4Baran.html,
and at http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol1Issue14/Vol1Issue4Symposium.html).
A day before the March 1 parliamentary vote, however,
Iraqi opposition groups met in Northern Iraq and
selected six leaders, which did not include any from
among the Turkmen. What made it worse is that U.S.
Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was present at the
meeting. Turks then felt vindicated in their fear that
that their ethnic brothers and their interests in
post-Saddam Iraq would be overlooked by the Kurds and
Arabs and the U.S. would not stand up for Turkish
concerns. (This was one of the factors behind the no
vote in the parliament the next day.)
In
private discussions last week in Ankara and Istanbul,
several people mentioned their belief that the United
States, in fact, has been playing the Kurds and the
Turks against each other to get its "northern
front." Some even wondered if the burning of the
Turkish flags in Erbil, in territory controlled by the
Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) was backed by some in the
U.S. or the UK. They noted U.S. opinion pieces arguing
for "dropping" Turkey and "adopting"
the Kurds—without keeping in mind that one is a
country and supposedly a long-time strategic NATO ally
and the other an ethnic group. Calls by some Iraqi
Kurdish groups to unite against Turkey and cause
problems for Turkey in the event of war have further
touched raw nerves in Ankara.
While
Barham Salih of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)
has repeatedly said that Turkey's secular democracy is a
model for the Iraqi Kurds and that they would not seek a
separate Kurdish state, many others do not share his
vision. A majority of the Kurds want a federal state in
Iraq to pave the way for eventual Kurdish independence,
which would inevitably lead to separatist tendencies and
terrorism in Turkish territory as well. Moreover,
declared Turkish policy states that the formation of a
Kurdish state in Northern Iraq would be reason to go to
war.
In
this context, if Washington and Ankara fail to reach an
agreement, there is also a danger of U.S. and Turkish
militaries facing each other in Northern Iraq. The
Turkish government has made unequivocally clear that
with or without the U.S. they would go to Northern Iraq,
initially for humanitarian reasons, but also to keep an
eye on the Kurds. It would not be a surprise is they
also target some terrorist elements. In the heat of war,
however, it may not be so clear who is a terrorist. The
State Department's Undersecretary for Political Affairs
Marc Grossman has repeatedly warned Turkey not to take
unilateral action, as the Kurds would then definitely be
provoked into taking arms against the Turks. To avoid a
massacre, the U.S. military would have to face its
Turkish counterparts, which could not lead to anything
good.
Where
do we go from here? First, Turkey will need several days
to form the new government under Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
the leader of the governing Justice and Development
Party (AKP), who is assuming the prime ministership. (He
was banned from running in the November 2002 general
elections because of a conviction for inciting religious
hatred. Following a constitutional amendment, he won a
parliamentary seat in by-elections on March 9 and sworn
in as a member of parliament on March 11.) The vote of
confidence for the new government is not likely to take
place for about a week, and the second resolution then
cannot be brought to the parliament until March 19th
at the earliest.
Erdogan
has enormous bravado, believing he can take on the U.S.,
if need be. He made it clear in an over three hour
meeting with U.S. Ambassador Robert Pearson on March 9
and on a phone conversation with President Bush on March
10 that he would not bring the second vote to the
parliament before the UN decision on March 17, and not
before the future of Iraq and the status of the Turkmen
are finalized. According to White House leaks to the
media, Bush was rather unhappy with the call, and the
war machinery moved to the so-called “Plan B.”
Turks, however, believe the call was appropriate and the
United States would wait for the second Turkish
vote—after all, there were so many other
“deadlines” which passed without the United States
making a move. Indeed, the latest British efforts to set
up "benchmarks" for Saddam Hussein support the
Turkish view that no deadline that Washington insists
upon is truly final or binding.
Due
to a “clash of civilizations,” or at least of
political perceptions, the Turks simply will not believe
time is up until it really is, and therefore believe
that the U.S. should stop hoping for a yes vote before
the war. However, there has to be a way for Turkey to
come in after the start of the war.
Without
Turkey the U.S. could still wage a successful war in
Iraq, but it would be longer and costlier. Moreover,
Turkish cooperation would be important in maintaining
stability in Iraq following the war. Above all, losing
Muslim Turkey while the war against terrorism is still a
top priority would allow the United States to be cast
throughout the Muslim world in the mold of
“crusaders.”
For
its part, Turkey will certainly pay for its leadership's
inexperience by at least a decade of political and
economic instability. Turkey’s EU hopes would be
further shattered following the entry of Turkish
soldiers into Northern Iraq, as a German governing party
member indicated to me at a meeting last week. The AKP
party is unfortunately reverting back to its core
Islamist elements and such negative developments would
speed up this process.
As a
result of the parliamentary vote, both sides will pay a
price.
Zeyno
Baran is the Director for International Security and
Energy Programs at The Nixon Center (http://www.nixoncenter.org).
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