Turkey stumbles on the road to Damascus

Look at Turkey. A couple of years ago here was a nation with an Ottoman spring in its step. Tired of rejection by Europe, it decided to seize new opportunities in the east.
The economy was booming and Ankara had made friends of old enemies. The fall of Arab despots and waning US power promised a Middle East in charge of its own affairs. What better model than Turkey for the emerging Arab democracies?
Istanbul still bustles with the chaotic energy of an economy on the rise, even if the pace of growth has slowed markedly. The Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK party is unthreatened by serious political opposition. It has allies in the Muslim Brotherhood movements in Egypt and beyond. Mr Erdogan is plotting a personal course from the premiership to a supercharged presidency.
The Turkish leader, however, has over-reached. At home, his government is increasingly intolerant of dissent, harassing and often imprisoning critics in the media and beyond. Mr Erdogan’s abundant self-confidence has acquired a distinctly authoritarian edge. Abroad, a pitch for regional leadership has been upended by events.
Not so long ago, Ankara trumpeted a foreign policy of “no problems with neighbours”. Turkey would be everyone’s powerful and trusted partner. Now it finds itself on the brink of war with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and badly at odds with Iran, Iraq and Russia.
Syria has become the battleground for a regional sectarian conflict. A splintered opposition has the support of Sunnis in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states and the broad backing of the west. Mr Assad’s Alawite regime is supported by Shia Iran and Iraq and has a Russian guarantee of paralysis at the UN.
Lebanon has been drawn back into the sectarian maelstrom. Qatar and Saudi Arabia channel arms through Turkey to the Syrian rebels; Damascus retaliates by backing the Kurdish separatists ranged against Ankara. To complicate things further, many among Turkey’s own Shia minorities harbour sympathies for the Syrian Alawites.
Mr Erdogan cannot be blamed for this mess. After the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Turkey could scarcely have taken the side of a despot intent on violent repression. Early on, Mr Assad reneged on a promise, made face-to-face with the Turkish leader, to accept a process of democratic change. He prefers artillery barrages against Syrian civilians.
Turkey, however, miscalculated. The AK party had been slow to back the popular uprising against Libya’s Muammer Gaddafi. Mr Erdogan did not want to repeat the mistake when protesters filled the streets in Syria. So he willed a quick end to the Damascus regime without considering whether he had the means. He underestimated the resilience of the pro-Assad forces and overestimated the willingness of the US to expend blood and treasure in forcing him from office.
Turkish rhetoric is still running ahead of dispositions on the ground. Western officials estimate that the Syrian leader still commands more than 70,000 loyal troops as well as the Shabiha militias responsible for much of the worst violence against civilians. Barring a coup from within his own inner circle, or a change of heart in Moscow, there is little to say Mr Assad cannot hold on for some time yet. The opposition is divided and badly outgunned.
By official estimates, this has left Turkey sheltering more than 100,000 Syrian refugees. The real figure may be twice that. Sporadic exchanges of fire between the Turkish army and pro-Assad forces so far have been contained – not least because public opinion in Turkey is overwhelmingly against escalation. But armed stand-offs are always vulnerable to miscalculations on the ground. The two sides may be only a few stray shells away from war.
The irony of his predicament seems to have escaped Mr Erdogan. Not so long ago Turkey was welcoming America’s retreat from regional domination. Now it laments a US refusal to take a lead. The best the US has offered is logistical and intelligence support for the rebels and humanitarian aid for refugees. Ankara wants buffer zones on the ground and no-fly zones in the air.
The US response is that it does not have sufficient strategic interest to put its own forces in harm’s way. It also worries that sophisticated weapons supplied to “moderate” rebels would soon fall into the hands of the jihadis who have flocked to the cause of the Syrian opposition.
Mr Erdogan is left hoping that a re-elected Barack Obama or a newly elected Mitt Romney will be more willing to take risks. After all, they share Turkey’s basic objective: regime change in Damascus that leaves in tact as much as possible of the existing Syrian state. The longer the civil war continues the more likely Syria, like Lebanon, will fall to prolonged sectarian conflict.
Mr Erdogan, though, seems oblivious to the logic of his present difficulties. He still gives long speeches about Turkey’s new role as a Middle Eastern regional power that make barely a passing reference to its economic ties to Europe or the security relationship with the US. It is as if Turkey has to choose between east and west. The reality is that a western anchor is a valuable lever in the east.
One of the big stories of recent years has been the realisation in the wake of the Iraq war that the US and Europeans can no longer hope to make the geopolitical weather in the Middle East. That is not to say that Turkey, or anyone else, is big enough to step into the role.
By Philip Stephens
philip.stephens@ft.com
Last updated: October 25, 2012 7:19 pm
photo : ©Ingram Pinn
source :
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54e22420-1dce-11e2-901e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2AWxObuUs
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.