Foreign Policy Magazine
HENRI J. BARKEY
- Just a few short years ago, Turkey was heralded as one of the region’s rising powers. What happened?
It wasn’t long ago that Turkish foreign policy was the talk of the town. Defined by the catchy phrase of “zero problems with the neighbors,” Turkey aimed to both improve relations with its neighborhood and slowly emerge as the dominant regional power. It was a classic case of enhancing soft power through democratization and economic reforms at home, coupled with shrewd diplomacy aimed at establishing Ankara as a mediator in the region’s conflicts.
This policy lies in ruins today. It is the victim of the unpredictable turnabout in the Arab Spring, especially in Syria; hubris; and miscalculations in domestic and foreign policy. With the exception of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, Turkey’s relations with almost all of its neighbors have soured. At the same time, tensions with the United States, European Union, and Russia have all dramatically increased. If Ankara has any sway today, it is mostly because of its geography — which gives it proximity to Syria and the refugee calamity — and its willingness to use strong-arm tactics in diplomatic transactions. So how did Turkey’s international ambitions fall apart? It’s a question with multiple answers. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grandiose ideas of his role in the world, his desire to transform Turkey into a strong presidential system, and the collapse of the Kurdish peace process, itself a casualty of the Syrian crisis, all have contributed to damaging Ankara’s once-promising foreign policy.
Turkey and the Arab Spring
Even before the Arab Spring, there were signs that Turkish foreign policy was faltering. In 2009, after almost seven years of conservative rule, Turkey’s accomplishments were noteworthy: rapid economic growth, the transformation of Istanbul into an international hub, democratization at home, and the domestication of the powerful military establishment. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) went from electoral victory to electoral victory, as ordinary citizens were seduced by his accomplishments and turned off by a hapless opposition. Having consolidated his position at home, especially after the 2007 elections, Erdogan became more of a risk-taker. He initiated a calculated public showdown with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the 2009 World Economic Forum, in which he angrily castigated Israel’s policy in Gaza, which threw relations between the two countries into a tailspin. However, it also paid off tremendous dividends in the Arab world, as Erdogan and Turkey’s popularity skyrocketed, and Arabs flocked to Turkey for tourism and in search of investment opportunities. This was followed by a pro-AKP Turkish NGO’s decision to charter a boat and sail to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the disastrous Israeli response, which ended with the deaths of nine Turks and saw relations with Israel collapse further.
The advent of the Arab Spring also pushed the United States and Turkey to work together closely. They appeared to synchronize their public statements on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in an effort to push him out and later worked together on supplying arms and supplies to the Free Syrian Army. Turkey once again emerged as a regional model country that had successfully married Islam and democracy in the person of Erdogan and his AKP. As early as 2010, Obama declared Turkey to be a “great Muslim democracy” and “a critically important model for other Muslim countries in the region”; in 2012, he even named Erdogan among the top five leaders with whom he had forged a close relationship.
Turkey, however, wanted to be more than a model. The rise in Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria of the Muslim Brotherhood, with which the AKP leadership had had close relations, opened the possibility of an active role for Ankara as the movement’s most powerful regional ally. The Arab Spring in effect allowed for the Turkish leadership to imagine itself as the region’s leading power: As then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu put it, Turkey “will lead the winds of change in the Middle East … not just as a friend but as a country which is seen as one articulating the ideas of change and of the new order.” Turkey’s moment had arrived. But it wouldn’t last long: Davutoglu’s hoped-for “new order” was dealt a setback when Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government was overthrown by a combination of public protests and the army, and Erdogan’s relations with the new military-led regime disintegrated rapidly. But it was in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s regime stubbornly persisted in the face of an insurgency that Turkey helped support, where Turkish foreign-policy objectives were ultimately upended.
How Syria changed everything
Before the 2011 uprising, Syria had been the ultimate successful example of Turkey’s “zero problems” foreign policy. Soon after the AKP’s rise to power, Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and Erdogan established a close working and even personal relationship. This was a remarkable turnabout, considering that in 1998, Turkey threatened Syria militarily due to its support of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which was then waging an insurgency against the Turkish state. Erdogan helped launch indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria, and went on to support the Baathist regime against a U.N. effort, led by the United States and France, to pressure Syrian troops to leave Lebanon. When the peaceful protests started in Syria, Erdogan at first maneuvered to prevent Assad from succumbing to the same fate as the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders. He counseled Assad to introduce reforms — in fact, he reportedly suggested that these did not have to be very profound — but to no avail. As Assad gave a free rein to his military to crush the protests, Erdogan turned on his former ally and friend.
A number of factors contributed to Erdogan’s decision: anger that Assad would not heed his counsel, the common perception that Assad would not survive anyway, the belief that he could shape the new Syria, and finally the dramatic escalation of violence during the holy month of Ramadan in 2011 on what Erdogan saw as Sunni protestors. He called for Assad’s removal and publicly proclaimed that the Syrian dictator had only months left in power. Soon, he said in September 2012, “we will be going to Damascus and pray freely with our brothers at the Ummayad Mosque.” Assad, however, would not fall so easily. The divergence between Erdogan’s wishes to see Assad replaced by a friendly Sunni-based alliance and the reality of the Syrian dictator’s stubborn hold on power frustrated the Turkish leader and pushed him toward a go-it-alone policy. Deep splits started to emerge with the United States, as Erdogan expressed disappointment in Obama’s unwillingness to enter the fray despite massive civilian casualties at the hand of regime forces. Erdogan’s break with Assad also heralded the beginning of a sectarian Sunni policy that became more pronounced as the Syrian regime endured. Turkey’s policy of encouraging foreign fighters to flow across its border into northern Syria has also helped radicalize the opposition and has raised tensions with Ankara’s U.S. and European partners. The Turkish government knew that many of these foreign fighters would join jihadi militias, such as the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, but allowed them to do so because the homegrown “moderate” rebels had proved unsuccessful in bringing about the demise of the Assad regime. Jihadi fighters, some of whom were battle-hardened and more willing to die for the cause, would presumably complete the task that other Syrian rebels could not.