Turkey: America’s Really Bad “Faustian Bargain”
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/September 08/15
Turkey cannot fight the Islamic State (IS) and the Kurds, who are the essential ground force of any coalition campaign against IS, at the same time forever. “…America’s deal with Turkey will prove to be a Faustian bargain. Short-term operational convenience is not worth the long-term danger of destabilizing Turkey and demoralizing the Kurdish forces that have carried the bulk of the burden in fighting militants.” — Eric Edelman, former U.S. ambassador to Ankara and former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Many people believed that the Turks and their Kurdish compatriots were close to a historic handshake when, in 2013, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish separatist movement, Abdullah Ocalan, declared a farewell to arms after a three-decade-long violent campaign that had left nearly 40,000 dead — Turks and Kurds. The Turkish government would grant broader political rights to its restive Kurds, who demand regional autonomy. In return, the Kurds would conduct politics peacefully instead of seeking their rights with rifles in their hands.
Slightly more than two years later, Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast is seeing the same bloodshed it saw before the 2013 truce. On July 20, a suicide bomber belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Islamic State, or IS) murdered more than 30 pro-Kurdish activists in a small Turkish town bordering Syria. Before that, another IS operative detonated a bomb at a Kurdish political rally in Diyarbakir, the capital of Turkey’s Kurds, killing four people and injuring over 200. The scene of the suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey. An ISIS suicide bomber murdered 32 people and wounded more than 100 others in a July 20 attack on Kurdish humanitarian activists. (Image source: VOA video screenshot)
The jihadist attacks on Kurds ignited a new spiral of violence from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the notorious armed wing of the Kurdish political movement. An autonomous PKK cell killed two Turkish police officers at their home during their sleep. In retaliation, Turkey has since been pounding PKK strongholds in northern Iraq. Between June 1 and August 29 of this year, a total of 129 people (over 50 civilians) were killed in clashes, and 526 were injured. Those numbers must be higher by now, as every new day adds to the death toll of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. The number of casualties does not include the nearly 1,000 PKK militants the Turkish military claims it has killed in ongoing air strikes since late July. The combined Turkish-Kurdish death toll should now be close to 1,500. This is a very Middle Eastern war; not so easy to read for the Western eye:
Turkey is fighting the Kurds at home and in Iraq; but it also has friendly economic ties with the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, which has been trying to perform a balancing act between Turkey and their more radical brethren, the PKK.
Turkey recently joined the allied campaign against IS. So, Turkey is fighting IS and, at the same time, its regional nemesis, the Syrian Kurds.
The Kurds are fighting both Turkey and IS, Turkey’s declared enemy.
Turkey is a NATO ally and a partner of the U.S.-led war on IS, but is also fighting the Kurds.
The Kurds are the only “[proxy] U.S. boots on the ground in the fight against IS.”
Too complicated? Just Middle Eastern. And note that the “friend-and-foe” tableaux here are only a microcosm of the much more complex and broader affairs in this part of the world.
One thing, however, looks like a near certainty. Turkey cannot fight IS and Kurds, the essential ground force of any coalition campaign against IS, at the same time forever.
The Turkish campaign against the PKK sounds as if it is an air force bombing allied ground troops.
Eric Edelman, a former U.S. ambassador to Ankara and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (2005-2009), put it realistically in a recent article in the New York Times:
“…America’s deal with Turkey will prove to be a Faustian bargain. Short-term operational convenience is not worth the long-term danger of destabilizing Turkey and demoralizing the Kurdish forces that have carried the bulk of the burden in fighting militants.
“An ally racked by violence and insurgency simply can’t play the role that the United States needs a secular, democratic Turkey to play in the turbulent Middle East.
“Fortunately, America does have leverage. Turkish officials desperately crave the approval of their counterparts in Washington; the United States must not grant it.
“Instead, the Obama administration should restrict Turkey’s access to senior-level meetings, reduce intelligence cooperation and withhold American support for Turkey in international financial institutions in the likely event that Mr. Erdogan’s policies precipitate an economic crisis.
“Getting Turkish leaders to change course will be extremely difficult, but it is imperative to pressure them if Turkey is to avoid being sucked into the vortex created by a failed Syria policy and Mr. Erdogan’s dogged quest for absolute political power.”
Edelman is right. Turkish President Erdogan’s dogged quest for absolute political power is not just poisoning Turkey but also its allies and their fight against Islamist extremism.
**Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
How Dangerous is ISIS to Israel?
Efraim Inbar/BESA Center Perspectives/September 08/15
Many Arabs are concerned less by the nature of ISIS atrocities than by the fact that they aren’t committed primarily against Israelis. ISIS, a radical Islamist group, has killed thousands of people since it declared an Islamic caliphate in June 2014, with the city of Raqqa as its de facto capital. It captured tremendous international attention by swiftly conquering large swaths of land and by releasing gruesome pictures of beheadings and other means of executions. In Israel, concern is increasing as ISIS nears Israeli borders. Yet, several analyses of the threat ISIS poses to Israel seem to be unnecessarily alarmist. ISIS is primarily successful where there is a political void.
Although the offensives in Syria and Iraq showed the Islamic State’s tactical capabilities, they were directed against failed states with weakened militaries. When and where ISIS has met well organized opposition by non-state entities, such as that posed by Kurdish militias, the group’s performance has been less convincing. The attack on an Egyptian town in the Sinai Peninsula conducted by the local ISIS branch with several hundred fighters – an item well covered in the Israeli media – is not an exception to this assessment. ISIS has shown tactical ability in employing large numbers of militiamen in an area where, for several years, the Egyptian army has encountered problems in enforcing state sovereignty.
ISIS does not yet pose a serious strategic challenge to Israel.
Nevertheless, the Egyptian army eventually succeeded in repelling the attack and in killing hundreds of attackers. A determined Egyptian regime put up a good fight against the terrorists in Sinai. Despite the fact that the Egyptian army is not well-trained in scenarios posed by groups like ISIS, and despite the army’s preoccupation with the delta region (the threat in Sinai is considered peripheral), the Egyptian army is still likely to be successful in containing the ISIS challenge. The difference between a real army and the forces in Syria and Iraq that ISIS has encountered should be recognized. Generally, non-state actors are less dangerous than states. Only states can develop nuclear weapons. Non-state actors usually do not possess airplanes, heavy artillery and tanks that can cause great damage. Since they are Iranian proxies, Hizballah and Hamas are not an exception to this rule because they have been endowed with destructive capabilities, such as missiles, by a state.
Moreover, they have secured almost exclusive control over a piece of territory. Similarly, the success of ISIS is partly the result of the role played by Turkey. Ankara allows overseas volunteers to flock to ISIS training camps in Iraq. The same Turkish route is used by foreign experts that operate the oil infrastructure captured by ISIS. It is Turkish territory that is used to resupply ISIS and to treat its wounded. It is money from Gulf States that subsidizes ISIS activities.
Even the recent Turkish formal agreement to join the coalition against ISIS does not change much. Ankara’s primary targets are the Kurds and evidence shows that ISIS still receives Turkish limited support. This means that it is misplaced to view ISIS as posing an independent serious strategic challenge. It is true that ISIS has ignited immense passion among many young and frustrated Muslims all over the world and the Caliphate idea has a great appeal among the believers, but the relevant question is: What can ISIS do without outside support? ISIS on its own is capable of only limited damage. The magnitude of the threat has been greatly exaggerated, while the states that help it need to be treated adequately.
The Obama administration is using the grand threat of ISIS to legitimize Iran as a ‘responsible’ actor. The American administration has good reasons to inflate the threat from ISIS. It is using the grand threat of ISIS to legitimize Iran as a “responsible” actor (that will, supposedly, fight ISIS) in Middle East affairs. This has been part of the Obama administration’s rationale for its nuclear deal with Iran. ISIS might eventually carve an area of control along Israel’s borders, particularly on the Golan where the Syrian state is disintegrating. In a worst case analysis, Syria could yet become another “Hamastan.”
But it is important to note that Israel has been successful in containing Hamas in Gaza. In fact, Israel has refrained from a more muscular response to Hamas only because it has an interest in perpetuating the divide between the Hamas in Gaza and the PA in the West Bank. Such restraint would not apply to a future ISIS entity. Indeed, due to less global support for ISIS than for Gazans, Israel’s freedom of action against ISIS is obviously much greater. Jordan, an important buffer state and strategic partner of Israel, also has the military capability to withstand an ISIS onslaught. Its security services probably can also manage for the time being the radical Islamist threat from within. Suggestions that ISIS may constitute a bigger threat to Israel than Iran are ridiculous. The Israeli army and the ISIS militia are in different leagues. As long as ISIS behaves in a most unconventional bestial way, many in the world will be happy to see Israel doing the dirty work on their behalf, dealing ISIS blow after blow, if the opportunity and necessity arises.
**Efraim Inbar, a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, is the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
