Last week, Turkish authorities arrested a man working at the US consulate in Istanbul on charges of links to exiled Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen, who is now living in Pennsylvania and allegedly behind the wing that launched the failed putsch last summer.
This led to a severe diplomatic rift that marks the most precarious point in the degradation of the crucial Turkish-American alliance, with the embassies of both sides suspending visa applications indefinitely. Turkish President Erdogan has recently remarked that he no longer recognizes US ambassador John Bass as the representative of the United States.
A leading recent point of conflict is the heavy weapons deal that the US made with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in order to further fuel the fight against ISIS. This came much to the justified outrage of Turkey due to well-documented links between the People’s Protection Units (YPG, a Kurdish militant group and major component of the SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and the US. Turkey’s key concern was, according to Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, that these weapons would end up in the hands of terrorists.
The problem with the growing anti-American sentiment among the Turkish people is that President Erdogan has no real choice but to take advantage of this in order to empower his electorate, as he has already done. His popularity has been waning–despite his unprecedented approval ratings after last summer’s failed coup–due to the poorly and divisively timed constitutional referendum in April of this year. Much to the surprise of the usually astute Erdogan, Istanbul voted against these reforms. If he does not capitalize on suspicions of America, Erdogan risks losing his Presidency. The anti-American attitude pushed by Erdogan and others will inevitably, much to detriment of the delicate geopolitical situation in the Middle East, engrain the fragmentation of NATO in an emotional and battle-hardened Turkish electorate.
Turkey and the US have long been crucial military allies, a relationship that dates to 1952, the point at which Turkey fully realized its matured Westernness and decided to sign on to the critical North Atlantic Treaty. They took a grave risk - some might have argued that Turkey must join Russia due to the hazards that come with the proximity to the Soviets. Turkey comprises the second largest army within NATO, and its military contributions have been crucial for the spread of democracy within Europe by providing a protective umbrella and deterrent against Russian expansion. Russian expansionism threatens to become rampant after the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and the continuing weakening of NATO’s integrity and perceived willingness to carry out the mandate of Article V, “an attack on one is an attack on all.”
The fight against rapacious despot Bashar al-Assad and the fight against ISIS both depend on cooperation and the solidification of a front of common interests. As the US gave confidence to Kurds who want independence in the run-up to the recent referendum, Turkey has been forced to prioritize its interests and work with Iran on ensuring against the prospect of Kurdish autonomy for fear that a Kurdish state could fall into the hands of the YPG or other PKK-aligned militias. This has the potential to greatly undermine the front against Assad
because of Iran-Syria Shia alliance, as well as forcing Turkey to come within just a single degree of separation from Hezbollah.
This also jeopardizes Turkey’s reconciliation process with Israel after the Gaza flotilla crisis in 2010, when Israeli Special Forces raided an aid flotilla, the ‘Mavi Marmara,’ on its way to the Gaza Strip and both countries subsequently removed their embassies. Only a year ago were ambassadors re-appointed, and the Turkish-American split could risk shifting Turkey back to the side of Hamas, creating another bloody conflict as seen in Operation Protective Edge in summer of 2014.
This is also reflected in the wider geopolitical scene. Not only did Turkey stand behind Hamas-aligned Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi in the 2013 Egyptian coup, but an opposition between President Sisi and Erdogan was aggravated after the Qatar blockade of this past summer, making it conceivable that Turkey may readily increase its support for a group like Hamas that once claimed its “struggle” is “against the Jews.” So much, then, for liberal Muslim democracy.
Both sides must come together. In the eyes of the US, it is unacceptable that a NATO ally would purchase missiles from Russia. On the other hand, Turkey sees it as an egregious insult to the 249 lives he murdered that the US would house an espoused enemy of the Turkish state.
Moreover, there is no capacity within Turkey to understand why the US refuses to extradite Gulen on charges of orchestrating last summer’s failed coup; and what’s more, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even jumped to conclusions, claiming that the US was actually behind the coup. Rational US leadership could not possibly hand Gulen over because, true or false, he would sing like a canary about US government-backing in order to save his own skin after hints that he would be executed if returned to Turkish hands. Both grievances are valid, and the only way in which the two sides can come together is to acknowledge the validity of the grievances of the other.
Erdogan’s great-man style foreign policy may indeed be rejuvenating for Turks who want greater hegemony in the Middle East, but US foreign policy needs dictate that any independent hegemon in the region is a threat. Turkey wishes to become almost too independent, only to its own detriment, perhaps eventually deeming it weaker than it began. The last regional actor to shoot for hegemony was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, triggering Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The rest is, as they say, history.
What is needed at this pivotal hour is not a long-sighted solution, but steps toward de-escalation to avoid the weighty manifestation of the aforementioned risks.
At stake is the delicate geopolitical situation in the Middle East, the lives of thousands more innocent Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds, Israelis, Palestinians and Yazidis, not to mention the NATO haven under which Western Europe maintains the greatest experiment in democratic peace and economic interdependence in history.
We must not let the days of the Korean War, Turks and Americans fighting side by side against moral bankruptcy, be forgotten. Both sides must employ perspective, as but a step toward fortifying the Turkish-American alliance once again, so that this immense sacrifice that allowed the Western world to blossom does not go in vain. Let us not allow politics to make us forget where we came from, as Turks, and as Americans.
Eren Bagis is a Trinity first-year. His column runs once monthly.
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Eren Bagis is a Trinity first-year. His column runs once monthly.