Turkey’s Metamorphosis

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28 July 2015

The EU summit held in Brussels on December 17, 2004 decided that accession negotiations with Turkey would start on October 3, 2005. The process was accordingly launched at the Luxembourg Intergovernmental Conference.
This was two years after the Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) coming to power when “democratic reform” appeared to be high on the agenda.
In early April 2009 President Obama visited Turkey. He addressed the Turkish Parliament and referred to Turkey’s strong, vibrant, secular democracy as Ataturk’s greatest legacy.
Turkey’s contribution to regional stability was highly valued.
Six years later we still have the JDP in power but another Turkey.

Okumaya devam et →

US-Russia Relations: Compartmentalization of Issues

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23 July 2015

I have tried for long to underline the need for US-Russia cooperation in finding peaceful solutions to problems which top the international agenda, in particular in the Middle East. Ever since the Ukraine conflict became a major obstacle to such cooperation, I have expressed the view that “compartmentalization” of issues could help. Now, there seems to be a glimmer of hope in this direction with the finalization of the Iran nuclear deal. Okumaya devam et →

Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before

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22 July 2015

A suicide bombing killed 32 people and wounded more than a 100 in the town of Suruç on Turkey’s border with Syria. Am I grieved? Of course I am. Am I disturbed? Of course I am. Am I surprised? No I’m not. Investigation to establish the exact identity of the perpetrators of the crime is continuing. But everybody already knows the perpetrator. The perpetrator is the misguided Syria policy of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) Government.

In the face of Arab Spring uncertainties, Turkey would have been well-advised to maintain its traditional policy of non-involvement in inter-Arab affairs, put emphasis on crisis management, diplomatic solutions and make use of whatever had remained of its soft power. Unfortunately, the JDP Government dismissed caution as a sign of weakness. It miscalculated Assad’s capacity to survive and became a party to the conflict, taking part in shifting Arab alliances. This turned our 1300 kilometer border with Iraq and Syria (400 and 900 kilometers respectively) into a war zone between ISIS, the anti-ISIL coalition, Al Nusra, the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition with a multitude of negative consequences for Turkey. With our porous borders ISIL eventually became an internal threat as well. Okumaya devam et →

Iran Deal Is Win for All

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July 18, 2015
Co-authored with Yusuf Buluc (*)

July 14 will no longer be remembered only as the French National Day commemorating the storming of the Bastille. It will also be remembered as the day of the nuclear deal with Iran or V-Day for diplomacy.
In an interview he gave in early April 2015, President Obama told Thomas Friedman of The New York Times that “engagement,” combined with meeting core strategic needs, could serve American interests vis-à-vis countries like Burma, Cuba and Iran far better than endless sanctions and isolation. Okumaya devam et →

Combating ISIL

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9 July 2015

On July 6, 2015 President Obama delivered remarks after meeting with military leaders at the Pentagon to discuss US strategy to degrade and defeat the Islamic State (ISIL). Here are key quotes from his remarks and a few comments:
“… This will not be quick. This is a long-term campaign. ISIL is opportunistic and it is nimble. In many places in Syria and Iraq, including urban areas, it’s dug in among innocent civilian populations. It will take time to root them out — and doing so must be the job of local forces on the ground, with training and air support from our coalition…”
Very true. ISIL must have done enough by now to make sure that any assault by the coalition would lead to civilian losses among Iraq’s Sunnis and galvanize them against Baghdad and its allies. Okumaya devam et →

Signs of Stress in the Anti-Assad Coalition

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3 July 2015

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently told the House Armed Services Committee that:
• Assad appears to be weakening and on the defensive,
• There are not enough “moderate” recruits for the train-and-equip program.
One may conclude therefore that the “Army of Conquest” which is a coalition of groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and a few others deserves at least part of the credit for pushing Assad on the defensive. The “moderate opposition” seems to be lost, confirming what President Obama had said in the past (*).
It is widely reported that the Army of Conquest is supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey following an agreement between Riyadh and Ankara to shelve their differences, at least temporarily, over the Muslim Brotherhood. They are sometimes referred to as the “Sunni bloc”. Okumaya devam et →

Dealing with Middle East Violence

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29 June 2015
Four years after the killing of Usame bin Laden, Al Qaida, far from being eradicated, has new footholds in the Middle East. Its offshoot IS now controls swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, extending its reach to Africa, Asia and displaying an insatiable hunger for violence. Thousands of Muslim recruits have joined its ranks from all over the world. By standing up to the Iraqi regular army, the Shiite militias and the US-led coalition air strikes for more than a year, IS has now gained an aura of invincibility. The result is an upsurge in violence as reflected in the last assault on Kobani and terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait.
The world is worried. Moslem countries should worry more than others because increasingly frequent use of the expression “Islamist/jihadist terror” serves neither their faith nor their interests. Furthermore, it is essentially their people who are bearing the brunt of the suffering. If the present trend is allowed to continue, the cultural divide which separates them from the rest of the world would become impossible to bridge and millions of Muslims living in other countries would become suspect. Okumaya devam et →

Turkey’s Failed Syria Policy

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24 June 2015
A week ago, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before the House Armed Services Committee.
According to the Associated Press, the Secretary told the Committee that the U.S. will fall way short of meeting its goal of training 24,000 Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State militants by this autumn since only enough recruits to train about 7,000 — in addition to about 2,000 counterterrorism service personnel – has been received so far.
Carter said that the train-and-equip mission in Syria also lacks enough trainees to fill existing training sites, primarily because it’s difficult to make sure the recruits are people who can be counted on and are not aligned with groups like IS. “It turns out to be very hard to identify people who meet both of those criteria…” Carter said. Okumaya devam et →

Middle East’s Vicious Circle

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19 June 2015

The following is a key paragraph from “The Modern History of Iraq” by Phebe Marr:
“Without substantial international support and lacking in understanding of Iraq or clear planning for Iraq’s future, the decision by the United States to occupy Iraq was fraught with dangers. Toppling Saddam proved easy and swift, but replacing the government and the political and social institutions that underpinned the regime was a long, difficult, and costly process – for both the United States and Iraq. The initial attack, followed by unchecked looting and the ill-advised dismantling of the political and military structures, created widespread destruction and a political and social vacuum, which foreign personnel proved unable to replace. Iraq soon began to fracture into ethnic and sectarian components.”(*) Okumaya devam et →

Turkey’s Elections and Foreign Policy

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Co-authored with Yusuf Buluç (*)

15 June 2015
On 7 June Turkey held parliamentary elections. Result: The ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) lost its parliamentary majority of twelve years. This was largely attributed to hubris, excessive government spending on luxury, allegations of corruption, growing income disparities and President Erdogan’s relentless campaign for a custom made presidential system. We dispute none of that. And, we believe that JDP’s disastrous foreign policy has also played a part.

Normally and perhaps universally, foreign policy as a factor that shapes electorate choice comes way down the list. But once foreign policy is identified as impacting negatively on national security and prosperity then its prominence gets vastly upgraded. Foreign policy pundits would examine and try to gauge what role JDP foreign policy failures have played in its significant loss of electorate favor on 7 June elections. We believe that JDP’s foreign policy both for its substance and the way it was executed has engendered lessened security and concomitant waste of national resources. This is so not just in the perception of the public; today Turkey is measurably much less secure owing to JDP’s dismal foreign policy record. We have sketched out below the salient negatives of that policy. Okumaya devam et →