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      in World Politics

      Why Populists at the Helm Are Bad for the Economy

      by

      Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a man on a mission. The goal: to make Turkey great again. Making Turkey great again, I guess, means wiping history clean of a series of humiliations, from the ignominious decline of the Ottoman Empire, dismissed as the “sick man upon the Bosporus” in the late 1800s, to the no less ignominious Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 that forced Istanbul to cede vast parts of its territory to France, the UK, Italy and Greece. The treaty not only marked the beginning of the empire’s demise, but also the origins of Turkish nationalism, which led to the establishment of the modern Turkish republic.

      President Erdogan is but the most recent and arguably most egregious expression of Turkish nationalism that seeks to restore past glory by gathering all Turkish peoples under one roof, similar to what once was known as pan-Slavism. This explains why Erdogan has been adamant in his support for Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Ironically enough, Erdogan has been amazingly sanguine with respect to the oppression of Muslim Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province. As so often, money trumps convictions while hypocrisy runs rampant.

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      This is deplorable, but, as US President Donald Trump has put is so eloquently, albeit in a different context, “It is what it is.” In any case, the topic here isn’t Erdogan’s attempt to establish himself as the champion of pan-Turkish nationalism or his attempt to affirm his claim to champion the cause of Islam, exemplified in his recent attacks against French President Emmanuel Macron. Instead, the focus is on Erdogan as a typical exponent of contemporary authoritarian populism.

      Claim to Legitimacy

      Populists base their claim to legitimacy on the notion that they promote the interests of “ordinary citizens” against an aloof elite far removed from everyday life, an elite that could care less about people’s concerns and worries. Against that, populists maintain that if elected, they will make the concerns and wellbeing of ordinary citizens their main priority. This is how Erdogan, Trump, India’s Narendra Modi and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro swept into office. This is what has been their claim to legitimacy.

      Unfortunately, hard reality is a far cry from lofty promises. Decades of experience with populist regimes shows that populists in power have a disastrous economic track record. To make things worse, populists appear to be particularly resistant to taking advice from those who have studied populist economics or learning from the glaring mistakes made by populist regimes in the past.

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      There is, by now, a substantial record of serious analysis of populist economics, largely based on the experience of Latin American populism. Take, for instance, Jeffrey Sachs, who certainly is above any suspicion of harboring right-wing proclivities. In a paper from 1989, he analyzed what he called the “populist policy cycle”: Overly “expansionary macroeconomic policies,” he observed, “lead to high inflation and severe balance of payments crises.”

      In a similar vein, Rüdiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards noted in 1991, “Again and again, and in country after country, policymakers have embraced economic programs that rely heavily on the use of expansive fiscal and credit policies and overvalued currency to accelerate growth and redistribute income.” After a short-lived economic boom, problems emerge, engendering “unsustainable macroeconomic pressures that, at the end, result in the plummeting of real wages and severe balance of payment difficulties. The final outcome of these experiments has generally been galloping inflation, crisis, and the collapse of the economic system.” Ultimately, those supposed to benefit most from populist economic policies, i.e., the poor, end up worse off than they had been before the populists came to power.

      Recent developments in Turkey suggest that Erdogan’s regime might be heading in the same direction. Take, for instance, the evolution of the country’s currency, the lira. Over the past nine months, the lira has lost almost 25% of its value compared the US dollar and the euro. This reflects investor worries about rising inflation, depleting currency reserves and the fact that Turks appear to be fleeing into foreign currencies.

      Same Direction

      The concerns are hardly unfounded. In late September, the Turkish central bank raised interest rates by 200 basis points, from 8.25% to 10.25%, in an attempt to counter rising inflation. This marked a drastic reversal of previous policy. Starting in December 2019, it had successively slashed the interest rate, which at the time stood at 14%. The move was not entirely of the bank’s own making. In July, Erdogan, unhappy about the bank’s slow pace in cutting interest rates, dismissed its chief for not having “follow[ed] instruction.” His replacement dutifully embarked on a course of monetary easing, based on official projections that the inflation rate would fall to around 8% by the end of 2020.

      Monetary easing provoked a massive “credit binge” by both businesses and households, which, in turn, stoked the flames of inflation, far surpassing the projected 8% mark. In reality, inflation rose to around 12% in 2020. In response to monetary easing, private debt increased substantially, with often disastrous consequences. A prominent case in point is Turkey’s professional football clubs. The four most prominent ones — Besiktas, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Trabzonspor — have accumulated around €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) worth of debt.

      The reason? In line with Erdogan’s goal to turn Turkey into a major global power, the country’s top football clubs endeavored to move into the Gotha of European football, on par with the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern München and Manchester City. In order to reach this goal, they borrowed heavily in euros and dollars in order to be able to attract international star players. The partial collapse of the Turkish lira, together with the drying up of revenues in the wake of COVID-19, has pushed all four clubs to the abyss of financial ruin.

      It would be going too far to suggest that this might be a preview of things to come for Turkey as a whole. In fact, the regime’s economic track record has been relatively successful in performing a balancing act between sane economic policy and populist inclinations. This has been due, to a significant extent, to the central bank’s relative independence, even if this has noticeably eroded over the past several years, constantly under pressure from the president to support the regime’s economic program. The recent rate hike might suggest, or so one might hope, that realism has once again gained the upper hand.

      This would certainly be a departure from business as usual as far as populist regimes are concerned. A recent extensive study by economists from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the University of Bonn in Germany provides an extensive and detailed account of the profound incompetence populist regimes have demonstrated when it comes to the basics of economics. Silvio Berlusconi’s tenure, for instance, did little to advance the life chances of ordinary Italians.

      Embed from Getty Images

      On the contrary, the upsurge in voter discontent and disenchantment that, for a short period of time, propelled the Five Star Movement to the top of Italian politics, reflects the opportunities wasted during Berlusconi’s reign. This has been particularly pronounced in Latin America, but not only there. In the medium and long run, as the study’s authors conclude, “virtually all countries governed by populists witness subpar economic outcomes evidenced by a substantial decline in real GDP and consumption.” It would be easy to dismiss these outcomes as the result of misguided policies, informed by good intentions but with disastrous consequences. My guess is, however, that this is only part of the story, and the less important one at that. Not for nothing those who have studied populism have emphasized the importance of the “common sense of common people” as a central trope in populist rhetoric, targeting expert “elites.”

      Unfortunately, more often than not, the common sense of the common people is completely wrong. Even more unfortunately, ignoring expert advice more often than not has disastrous consequences — in economics, as well as with regard to the coronavirus pandemic.

      Once again, Erdogan is a prominent example. Despite an upsurge in COVID-19 infections, the president has been more than reluctant to follow advice to impose stringent measures to contain the virus. At the same time, his political allies have accused Turkish medical experts of “treason,” reminiscent of similar slanders in the United States. To make matters worse, Erdogan’s shameful attack on President Macron in the wake of Islamicist-inspired terrorist attacks in France is hardly conducive to improving Turkey’s economic relations with Western Europe, a vital market for Turkish exports. So much for common sense.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Macron Claims Islam Is in “Crisis.” Erdogan Disagrees

      by

      In France, Samuel Paty was beheaded on October 16 near Paris. He was a history teacher who had shown caricatures of Prophet Muhammad to his students in a lesson on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.

      Paty’s killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, is an 18-year-old of Chechen origin. He arrived in France at the age of 6 as a refugee and was granted asylum. In an audio message in Russian, Anzorov claimed to have “avenged the prophet” whom Paty had portrayed “in an insulting way.” Before he was murdered, Paty was the victim of an online hate campaign orchestrated by the father of a student who reportedly might not even have been in the class.

      As Agnès Poirier wrote in The Guardian, since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015, the French seem to be “living [their] lives between terrorist assaults.” Since then, she writes, “Islamists in France have targeted and murdered journalists, cartoonists, policemen and women, soldiers, Jews, young people at a concert, football fans, families at a Bastille Day fireworks show, an 86-year-old priest celebrating mass in his little Normandy church, tourists at a Christmas market… the list goes on.”

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      Yet Paty’s killing has touched a chord. Arguably, no country venerates its history teachers more than France. After defeat against Prince Otto von Bismarck’s Prussia in 1870, the Third Republic emerged. In the 1880s, it took away education from the Catholic Church, making it free, mandatory and secular. Poirier observes that the “peaceful infantry of teachers” has since “been the bedrock of the French republic.”

      She poignantly points out that the first generations of teachers were nicknamed “the Black Hussars of the Republic” because they had to battle the local priest for influence. Thanks to these teachers, as per Poirier, “religion was eventually relegated to the spiritual realm.” More than others, history teachers are the keepers of the revolutionary and republican flame, exposing young minds to Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot et al and emancipating their thinking.

      French President Emmanuel Macron called the brutal beheading an “Islamist terrorist attack.” At a ceremony at Sorbonne University, he conferred the Légion d’honneur on Paty. Macron awarded France’s highest honor posthumously to the late history teacher because he died for trying to explain freedom of speech.

      Macron has since defended the right of French citizens to publish anything, howsoever offensive others might find that to be. Earlier this month, he claimed, “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country.” His comments enraged many Muslims inside and outside France.

      Paty’s killing has shaken France to the core. After more than a century, religion is back to the forefront in the country. This time, it is not Catholicism but Islam.

      A History of Blood and Gore

      At the heart of the matter is a simple question: Does Islam lead to violence and terrorism? Many Islamic scholars and political analysts argue in the negative. After all, the Catholic Church burned Giordano Bruno and launched the Inquisition. Jews fled Spain to find refuge in Ottoman lands. These authors take the contrarian view that Islam can only be a religion of peace after it conquers the world and establishes a supremacy of sharia.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Writing about Islam’s links to violence and terrorism is sensitive and controversial. There are nuances to be sure. However, most scholars know fully well that Islam has a just war theory. It rests on the assumption that justice would not be served unless the will of Allah is established all over the world. As per this theory, non-believers in Islam have three choices.

      First, they can convert to Islam and become part of the umma, the global community of Muslims who recognize there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his final messenger. Second, they can refuse to submit to Allah, but they must then flee their homes or face the sword. Third, they can surrender to Muslims and pay jizya, a poll tox for non-Muslims in a state run according to Islamic principles.

      Both Sunnis and Shias prize jihad, which denotes both personal struggle and just war. Both Sunnis and Shias believe that jihad is the duty of an Islamic state, should certain conditions arise. There is little daylight between Sunnis and Shias on their ideas of jihad against non-believers. Many Muslim jurists considered the non-acceptance of Islam by non-Muslims an act of aggression that had to be countered through jihad. Like Christianity, Islam lays claim to universality and jihad is its version of a crusade.

      Arguably, the most interesting reform of Islamic law occurred when Arabs conquered Sindh in the eighth century. For the first time, Islam encountered Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. A puritanical Abrahamic faith encountered much older spiritual traditions of the Indus and Gangetic river basins. These pagan polytheists were not covered by the Quran. Its verses recognized Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and the imprecisely defined Sabians. These religions are based on divine revelations and came to be known as Ahl al-Kitab, the People of the Book.

      The Indo-Gangetic spiritual traditions were clearly not the People of the Book. When Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh, he approached the then-caliph in Damascus for how to deal with Indian polytheists. The fuqaha (Islamic jurists) and the ulema (clergy) in Damascus ruled that these new religions ultimately believed in the very same god as Muslims and the People of the Book. Therefore, through the exercise of qiyas — analogical reasoning as applied to the deduction of Islamic juridical principles — these non-Muslim Sindhis were to be treated as protected minorities if they paid the jizya.

      As waves of Muslim invaders came to the Indian subcontinent, conversion took place both through peaceful and violent means. Lower-caste Hindus turned to Islam because it offered a greater sense of community, charity for the poor and egalitarianism. Yet violence was par for the course too. Idols were smashed, temples desecrated and local communities slaughtered.

      Muslims who claim that theirs is a religion of peace could do well to remember that even the golden age of Islam is full of blood. The first three caliphs were assassinated. Ali ibn Abi Talib and Khalid ibn al-Walid were brave generals who led aggressive armies and did not hesitate to spill blood.

      The Battle of Karbala exemplifies the violence that has accompanied Islam from its early days. In 680, Umayyad Caliph Yazid I’s troops massacred the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and son of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph. For Shias, it remains an annual holy day of public mourning. This was a bloodthirsty struggle for succession and has led to a Shia-Sunni divide that runs deep to this day.

      The Umayyad Empire’s extravagance and decadence led to a successful Abbasid rebellion in 750. The victors invited over 80 Umayyad family members to a grand feast on the pretext of reconciliation. In reality, this feat was the infamous Banquet of Blood in which the Umayyads were killed in cold blood. Abd al-Rahman I was the only Umayyad who escaped, and he fled all the way to Spain to set up the kingdom of al-Andalus.

      Violence in Modern Times

      Over time, Arab rule became benign. There is a strong argument to be made that Muslim rule was more tolerant than Christian rule in many matters. Minorities who paid jizya carried on with their business and way of life. The Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals governed multi-ethnic empires even as Europe imploded into religious wars.

      Once Europe took to technological, industrial and military innovation, the rest of the world fell under its sway. Tottering Muslim empires were no exception. This defeat still rankles among many Muslims. Many have turned inward and hark back to a glory period of Islamic dominance. They dream of the days when Muslim armies swept all before them, including Jerusalem in 1187 or Constantinople in 1453.

      After World War II, European colonial rule has been replaced by American economic domination. Oil was discovered in key parts of the Muslim world, including Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, it was Western companies that took much of the profits. Till today, the price of oil is denominated in dollars. The formation and domination of Israel in the Middle East added to this Muslim angst. In 1979, a millenarian revolution succeeded in Iran. In the same year, militants seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca, and it took two weeks of pitched battles for Saudi forces to regain control. The militants might have lost, but Saudi Arabia emulated Iran in hardening sharia and giving more power to the ulema.

      In Iran, the new regime killed thousands who did not agree with it. They included liberals and leftists. Led by hardline clerics, the Iranian regime liquidated the minority Bahai sect in Iran. It set out to export its Islamic revolution. In response, the Saudis began to export their own puritanical Wahhabi Islam. Saudi money poured all the way from Indonesia and India to Bosnia and Chechnya.

      This took place at the height of the Cold War. This was a time when the West in general and Washington in particular were terrified of the Soviet Union. The fear of communism led Americans to intervene in Iran, Vietnam and elsewhere. They made a Faustian pact with militant Islam. The CIA worked with god-fearing Islamists to fight godless communists. These Islamists went on to become a trusty sword arm for the US against the communist menace of the Soviet Union. Nowhere was this best exemplified than the jihad Americans funded in Afghanistan against the Soviets. As is hilariously captured in Charlie Wilson’s War, the Saudis matched the Americans dollar for dollar.

      Eventually, the Soviet Union fell and the West won. As nationalism, socialism and pan-Arabism stood discredited, the battle-hardened jihadis stood ready to take their place. Conservative, fundamentalist, extreme and radical Islamists soon found their spot in the sun. The Molotov cocktail of violence and terrorism spread throughout Muslim societies. Disgruntled young Muslim men in the West found this cocktail particularly irresistible. In the post-9/11 world, there is a mountain of literature that chronicles all this and more.

      Embed from Getty Images

      American action after the attacks on September 11, 2001, have strengthened rather than weakened this culture of violence and terrorism. George W. Bush’s war on terror has proved an unmitigated disaster. In 2003, the Americans unleashed chaos in Iraq by dismantling the Baathist regime and leaving nothing in its place. A Shia-Sunni civil war followed. Iran became a touch too powerful in Iraq. Sunnis who had been dominant during the Baathist era under Saddam Hussein were left leaderless and felt marginalized. In the aftermath, the Islamic State emerged in the vacuum. Syria imploded as well and the Sykes-Picot construct collapsed. The Islamic State’s messianic message of violence and terrorism not only garnered local support, but it also drew in recruits from Europe, South Asia and elsewhere.

      Eventually, Syria, Iran and Russia allied together even as the UK and the US collaborated quietly to crush the Islamic State. They were able to destroy it militarily, but radical Islamist ideology lives on. It is the same ideology that powered the Iranian Revolution, the Afghan jihad and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. Now, it is inspiring Anzorovs to behead Patys.

      A Clash of Cultures

      In the aftermath of Paty’s beheading, France and Turkey have fallen out. Macron has championed freedom of expression, which includes the liberty of publishing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. Like many of his countrymen, Macron sees freedom of expression as an essential part of France’s secular values. Laïcité, the French version of secularism, is enshrined in the very first article of the constitution. It declares, “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic.” Macron has pledged to “to defend secular values and fight radical Islam.”

      Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes objection to Macron’s position. He believes that there must be limits to freedom of expression. With millions of Muslims in France and over a billion around the world, the French should desist from insulting Prophet Muhammad. Erdogan sees Macron as having a problem with Islam and Muslims. In a speech, the Turkish leader declared, “Macron needs treatment on a mental level.” In response, France has said Erdogan’s comments are unacceptable and recalled its ambassador to Turkey.

      A new kind of Islamism has now entered the scene. Unlike clerics in Iran or royals in Saudi Arabia, Erdogan is a democratically elected leader. Ironically, he rose to power in Turkey thanks to the country’s growing democratization, which in turn was fueled by its quest to join the European Union. In Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s secular Turkey, the Islamist Erdogan seized power and brought in a very different vision for the future.

      Erdogan jettisoned Ataturk’s Europeanization of Turkey. Instead, he decided to become the popular, democratic voice for Islam. He has championed causes like Palestine, Kashmir and Xinjiang that resonate with Muslims worldwide. Even as the Turkish economy stumbles, Erdogan is taking on Macron as a defender of Islam. Erdogan gains inspiration from the Ottoman Empire. Until a century ago, the Ottoman sultan was also the caliph, the spiritual leader of the Sunni world. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi’s first mass movement in 1919 demanded the restoration of the Ottoman caliphate.

      President Erdogan wants to bring back Ottoman cultural glory to Turkey. One by one, he is smashing up the symbols of secular Turkey. A few years ago, Erdogan built a 1,000-room white palace on 50 acres of Ataturk Forest Farm, breaking environmental codes and contravening court orders. On July 10, 2020, he reversed the 1934 decision to convert Hagia Sophia into a museum. Now, this architectural marvel is a mosque again.

      Embed from Getty Images

      France is a land of joie de vivre, which favors bikinis over burkinis. Laïcité emerged after a bitter struggle with the Catholic Church, is central to the republic and is an article of faith. In contrast, Turkey is rolling back Ataturk’s version of laïcité. Erdogan is striving to emerge as the popular Islamic leader who takes on the West, India and even China. He has thus thrown the gauntlet to Macron.

      Erdogan has geopolitical reasons to rile Macron. Turkey and France are on opposing sides in Libya’s civil war as well as the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. France has deployed jets and frigates to counter Turkish oil and gas exploration in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean. Now, the two countries are squaring off on religion.

      The Turkish president is not alone in criticizing Macron. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has also accused Macron of “attacking Islam.” Erdogan is urging a boycott of French goods. Many others in the Muslim world are also calling for such a boycott. Some shops in Kuwait, Jordan and Qatar have already removed French products. Protests have broken out in Libya, Syria and Gaza.

      Secularism vs. Faith

      Erdogan’s actions and the support they have garnered raise uncomfortable questions. In the Westphalian system of nation-states, what right does he have to tell Macron how to run his country? More importantly, his rhetoric raises a key question about the world. Who decides what is offensive? Can a popularly elected leader of a former imperial power speak up for co-religionists to another former imperial power or anyone else? If so, are we seeing a drift toward Samuel Huntington’s famous proposition about a clash of civilizations?

      This question assumes importance in the light of the past. When Spanish conquistadores took over Latin America, they did not just rape, torture and kill. They killed the local gods and ensured the triumph of the Christian one. In “Things Fall Apart,” the great Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe chronicles how Christianity went hand in hand with colonization in Africa. In India, Muslim invaders sacked temples. In Iran, Safavids destroyed Sunni mosques and converted them into Shia ones. In recent years, many have seen secularism as a way out of this maze of centuries-old religious conflict.

      Intellectually, secularism is the legacy of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. It involves the shrinking of religion from the public to the private sphere. After all, religious wars tore apart Europe for more than a century and a half. Today, France is thankfully not ruled according to l’ancien regime’s dictum of “un roi, une foi, une loi” (one king, one faith, one law). Unlike Huguenots, Muslims have not been subjected to St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Laïcité may not be perfect, but it is much better than the alternative.

      Unfortunately, Muslim societies have failed to embrace secularism. From Indonesia and Pakistan to Iran and Turkey, there is a disturbing intolerance afoot. Of course, the West fanned the flames, but now this conflagration inspired by religion is singeing societies, states and even the international order. Earlier this year, the Islamic State group massacred Sikhs in Kabul. By September, most of the Hindus and Sikhs had left Afghanistan. It is important to note that these communities had lived in Afghanistan for centuries and even stayed on during the heydays of the Taliban.

      After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the failure of American-style capitalism to provide prosperity or opportunity, people are turning again to religion. On October 22, a Polish court banned almost all abortions. In Eastern Europe and Russia, the influence of the church has been increasing. Even benign Buddhists have turned malign and are targeting minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Yet the scale of what is going on in the Muslim world is different. There are tectonic shifts underway from Islamabad to Istanbul that are disturbing. Minorities are fleeing Muslim countries and radical Islamists like Anzorov are taking to the sword.

      Does Macron have a point? Is Islam truly in crisis?

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      What Would a Biden Victory Spell for US-Turkish Relations?

      by

      In an interview for a new book from Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, US President Donald Trump says: “I get along very well with Erdogan, even though you’re not supposed to because everyone says, ‘What a horrible guy.’” A lot is revealed in that statement. The key lies in the phrase “you’re not supposed to.” It implies there is a moral authority vetting such preferences and that he is dismissive of that moral authority.

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      Of course, it says more about the moral fault lines at the heart of US politics than it does about US-Turkish relations. These fault lines are being given the scorched earth treatment once more as the election season draws to a close. But what does the future hold for US-Turkish relations, once so unshakable and now so fractious, despite President Trump’s personal warmth toward Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Will it make any difference if the old man at the helm is Joe Biden instead?

      Let the Old Men Talk

      As the above quote reveals, much about US-Turkish relations today is being driven by personalities. Individuals always matter in international relations, but their importance is accentuated by the rise of figures who command strong populist appeal, who are firmly embedded in positions of power and who espouse an essentially patriarchal and conservative vision of the exercise of that power. It means relations are not the smooth ride they were during the Cold War era. Today, these populist figures thrive on being bullish and awkward leaders.

      In Donald Trump, Turkey’s leader, like many others, has found a man with whom they can engage. Indeed, President Erdogan is said to have a regular hotline to the White House. The US president is openly admiring of strong and often autocratic leadership. It’s a style he clearly feels he epitomized in the business world and which he has brought to his presidency. That his tenure as the president of the United States may be briefer than that of many of the populist and autocratic leaders he admires is the one spoiler.

      It may also be a spoiler for the US more broadly. In the past few years, such world leaders have grown self-confident in the global order lead by Donald Trump. A Biden administration that chastises them for their faults on human rights, conflict resolution or democratic norms might well receive a hostile response. This poses a conundrum for the United States. A president who set out specifically to put America first may have made it far harder for a successor who wants to begin collaborating again.

      What Would Biden Do?

      The signs are that as president, Joe Biden would not have as easy a relationship with Erdogan as Trump has had. Given that getting on with Turkey has increasingly come to mean getting on with its president, this matters a great deal. Almost a year ago, Biden said in an interview with The New York Times that he regarded Erdogan as an “autocrat.” He also expressed misgivings about Turkey’s actions in Syria, confrontations in the eastern Mediterranean about energy resources, and the stationing of NATO nuclear weapons on Turkish soil.

      Though these comments went unacknowledged at the time, the Turkish government has since raised heated objections as Biden’s presidential bid has gathered steam. There will also be real concerns in Ankara about Biden’s longstanding support for Kurdish rights, including his belief that President Trump has dealt shoddily with his nation’s Kurdish allies in Syria after they helped to subdue the Islamic State group. Such a position would bring back some of the tensions of the Obama presidency.

      Clearly, upon gaining the presidency, one would expect a measure of realignment from the Biden White House. The former vice president’s strong stance against Erdogan would have to become more nuanced as occurs for all those who gain actual power. President Erdogan is not an autocrat. He may have authoritarian instincts, but autocrats do not allow elections with credible results, nor do they allow their opponents to win the mayoralty in their largest cities. 

      The complex and competing tensions of the region in which Turkey lies will necessitate the US working with Turkey to a large degree. That requires finding common ground and mutual interest. But necessity can only get you so far. To generate any real warmth to his relationship with President Erdogan, Joe Biden will have to reveal some dissatisfaction with the global status quo or at least some sympathy with those, such as the Turkish president, who are driven by this belief.  That such concern genuinely motivates Biden might be a hard sell.  

      No Smooth Rides

      Nothing about the past few years of US-Turkish relations has been smooth, from the furor over the jailing of American pastor Andrew Brunson to the simmering Turkish anger at US refusal to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the head of the movement held responsible in Turkey for the failed 2016 coup attempt. That incident, which has defined the trajectory of the country over the past five years, was a pivotal one not only internally but also externally.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick and decisive in backing Erdogan at a point when the success of the coup was still unclear. The US, on the other hand, was less wholehearted, and there was the sense that it hesitated and that US personnel might even have been complicit at the Incirlik airbase in southeastern Turkey. In moments of crisis, you learn whom you can really trust. In the personality politics of today, President Erdogan learned much from that episode. It fed into his already established worldview in which the West was inherently predatory and untrustworthy.

      None of this means that Turkey or its president are wedded to deep friendships with US opponents such as Russia, Iran or China. Indeed, Turkey’s relations with Russia over the past five years have been exceptionally turbulent. But it does mean that Turkey has, in President Erdogan, a pugnaciously nationalist leader who is unafraid of picking fights. It means he has picked several with the US itself, and yet, with President Trump at the helm, you always feel that, however unsavory things get, the Turkish president is always half-admired for his obstinate aggression.

      If there is a new president in the Oval Office come 2021, it will pose many more challenges for both sides. The relationship will not be easy, and without the bromance that occasionally surfaces between the current leaders, it could be a more dangerous one. US-Turkish strategic goals have been diverging for years. This causes systemic strain to the relationship. The Trump presidency may, inadvertently, have eased some of that strain, but it will not go away. A president less in tune with the current administration in Ankara could tear it further apart. For bilateral relations, for NATO and for the whole Middle East and Mediterranean region that could be a very destabilizing prospect.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Will Idlib Be the Final Move on Syria’s Chessboard?

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      Recent rumblings portend a grim new episode for Syria’s Idlib province. Stretching along the northwestern border with Turkey, Idlib became the last redoubt of forces that oppose President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, namely Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the National Liberation Front,  when Moscow and Ankara announced the creation of a de-escalation zone in the area two years ago. The 2018 agreement halted a Syrian government offensive that would have brought devastation to Idlib. An uneasy calm hangs over the province, but the delicate diplomatic balance that brought respite now looks close to collapse. Notably, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Syria in September prompting speculation that Moscow and Damascus are set to make a northward push against rebel forces.

      Around the same time, reports emerged of Syrian regime forces shelling opposition frontlines, while Turkey has brought military hardware across the border to bolster anti-Assad forces in the Idlib countryside. Local observers relate that both Russian and Turkish reconnaissance drones have been active over the city of Idlib and the surrounding areas. Syrian forces, backed by Russian airpower, now appear to be hitting HTS positions with more intensity.

      Entangled International Interests

      Idlib may prove to be the final chapter of the Syrian Civil War. But here, Turkey and Russia are the main players. Turkey has long propped up anti-Assad factions and has maintained a military presence in Syria’s north for several years. Meanwhile, it was the assertive intervention of Russia in 2015 that turned the war in Assad’s favor. Russian airpower has been a key factor in Syrian government forces’ advance toward Idlib and the regime’s ability to reclaim rebel-held territory.

      Is Assad Gearing Up for a Final Push in Syria?

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      In our research into the impacts of proxy actors in Middle Eastern conflicts, we interviewed a range of Syrian activists. All of them noted a tangle of relationships and alliances between a plethora of Syrian organizations and international sponsors. In particular, they highlighted the roles of Turkey and Russia, both in the conflict and in the humanitarian crisis Syria faces. One opposition figure expressed his gratitude to Turkey for accommodating Syrian refugees. Yet at the same time, he felt that Turkey’s military involvement had made a complex conflict environment more difficult to resolve. Another activist who had participated in ceasefire negotiations in 2015 noted the dominant role that Russia played in securing agreements.

      In general, Syrian figures we spoke with expressed concern at the intentions foreign powers may harbor for Syria. The prevalent feeling among our interviewees was that the challenges that Syria faces are ultimately for Syrians to solve and that foreign interventions made solutions even harder to find. Major powers jockeying for an advantage over regional rivals have clear geopolitical goals, the pursuit of which generally overrides the interests of local people.

      Local Impacts

      Even after the Russia-Turkey accord reached in 2018, Idlib has not been spared hostilities. As elsewhere in the Syrian conflict, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence. A UN report recorded “rampant human rights violations” in Idlib and western Aleppo in late 2019 and early 2020 as Assad’s forces pushed to retake the province despite the de-escalation agreement. Up to a million civilians were uprooted, the largest single displacement of people during the entire war. UN investigators detailed numerous instances where pro-regime forces bombarded schools, markets and hospitals. Investigators also accused HTS of indiscriminately targeting civilian areas.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In February, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in a Syrian airstrike spurring Turkey to undertake a spate of retaliatory attacks. In the wake of this flare-up, Ankara and Moscow reached another deal to curtail hostilities. This latest agreement demonstrates once more that the fates of Syria and its hapless people are largely in the hands of external powers. It seems that the conflict is only in abeyance while powerful actors maneuver for advantage across the chessboard that Syria has become.

      In Idlib, the interests of the key players are clear. Ankara wants to maintain a foothold in Syria. Long calling for the removal of Assad and championing anti-regime forces, it plays the role of protector to Idlib’s militias and civilians fleeing the regime’s advance. Should Idlib fall, a new wave of refugees would surge toward Turkey, something that Ankara can ill afford. Russia, meanwhile, retains access to its only Mediterranean naval base thanks to its relationship with Assad, and thus Moscow wants to ensure the Syrian president’s longevity.

      Linking Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, Idlib is a central piece of the strategic jigsaw for Assad. Retaking the province, which has been an opposition stronghold since 2015, would be highly symbolic, drastically weakening rebel groups and being another step toward the regime’s final victory.

      Machinations in Moscow and Ankara

      Domestic concerns in Turkey and Russia also come into play in what happens on the ground in Syria. Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both used international adventures to further their own agenda. Erdogan’s approval surged after authorizing forays into Syria against Kurdish-led forces in Afrin in early 2018 and in the northeast in late 2019. More recently he has intervened in Libya in support of the Government of National Accord. For his part, Putin rose to prominence at the turn of the millennium fighting Chechen insurgents and underlined his tough-guy credentials by strutting into Georgia in 2008 in a conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

      Both leaders are currently under pressure, Erdogan as Turkey’s economy falters, and Putin facing criticism after the poisoning of Russia’s prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. Creating a distraction by upping the ante in Idlib would be a convenient way of rallying domestic support. Heightened tensions between Russia and Turkey, each of which backs different sides both in Libya and in the escalating conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, further complicate matters.

      Significantly, other international interventions by Russia and Turkey have been against considerably weaker opponents. Do Eurasia’s two military heavyweights really want to directly face off in Idlib? Turkey and Russia maintain outwardly amicable relations, but they have different goals in Syria. Decisions made in Moscow and Ankara will determine whether the tenuous peace in Idlib endures. Should it fracture, it will be the long-suffering people of Syria, yet again, who will bear the greatest cost.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

      [*Dr William Gourlay and Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh are based in the Middle East Studies Forum at Deakin University, Australia. This research was facilitated by Carnegie Corporation of New York (Grant number: G-18-55949): “Assessing the impact of external actors in the Syrian and Afghan proxy wars.”] More

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      How the US Can Win Back Clout in Syria

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      The humanitarian crisis in northeastern Syria is well documented. Nonetheless, despite the devastation that has occurred and the likely peril that is soon to come, pleas from aid groups, journalists and refugees have not been enough to move policymakers to take action. One reason for this is that because the underlying causes of this crisis are political, the solution must be too. Washington could seize considerable political influence in Syria by throwing a lifeline to its strategic allies in the northeast. Unilateral action by US policymakers to open the Yarubiya border crossing between Iraq and Syria could increase American and Kurdish influence at the expense of Iran, Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State (IS) and the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

      A decade of civil war against the Syrian regime, a regional war against IS and a recent Turkish military incursion have turned half of Syria’s prewar population into refugees. More than 6 million Syrians are displaced internally, and 5.6 million are in refugee camps in neighboring countries. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria governs the seven cantons of the northeast. Its alliance of paramilitary groups, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is led by the Kurdish majority People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers a terrorist organization. Of the 3 million residents of this region, 700,000 are refugees living in numerous refugee and displaced persons camps, with 65,000 in the Al-Hol refugee camp alone. 

      Trump Is Giving Syria the “Iran Treatment”

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      Humanitarian aid shipments were all but cut off to northeastern Syria in January 2020, when the United Nations ordered the closure of the Yarubiya border crossing between Syria and Iraq. As the only port of entry with sufficient capacity to handle the requisite shipments of aid and equipment, Yarubiya was the carotid artery bringing humanitarian aid into northeastern Syria. The border between Turkey and northeastern Syria is effectively closed. The Syrian regime allows minimal, if any, aid to cross from its territory into this part of the country, and it controls the Qamishli airport. The remaining border crossing at Samalka, between northeastern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, is a river crossing over pontoon boats, which heavy rains regularly wash away; it is shut on most days.

      By closing the Yarubiya crossing, the UN was acceding to concerted pressure from Russia, officially to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State, but in reality to choke off aid to anti-Assad regime forces, primarily the SDF. To make matters worse, in August, Turkey cut off the flow of water through the Alouk pumping station, thereby weaponizing water by severing northeastern Syria’s main freshwater source. Aside from leaving hundreds of thousands without water for drinking, cooking and bathing, not to mention hampering the generation of electricity by hydroelectric plants dependent on it, this manmade political crisis has made the medical response to the region’s escalating COVID-19 crisis all the more helpless. 

      Lack of Interest and Resolve

      The squeezing of the ethnically diverse residents of northeastern Syria is the result of political jostling by Turkey, Iran and Russia to increase their respective regional influence at American and Kurdish expense. For Iran and Russia, who are working to rearm their pro-Assad proxy forces, the SDF stands in the way of the Assad regime reasserting control over the country. Although Turkey does not support Assad, it considers the YPG to be a mortal enemy and has even been supporting the Islamic State against it. 

      The Trump administration’s imposition of the Caesar Act — US sanctions targeting Bashar al-Assad’s government and its backers — may create obstacles for regime officials to transfer assets, but their benefactors will find a way to put their money where they want. Regardless, this policy will have no effect on the ongoing loss of American regional influence to Iran, Russia and Turkey. 

      Despite the recurring crises related to Syria over the last four years, it has not received consistent attention from the Trump administration, whose characteristic lack of interest and resolve to carry out complex foreign policy goals has allowed the crisis to escalate. This can be exemplified by the administration’s inconsistent messaging. For example, the official US position to justify the presence of American forces in Syria is to defeat IS, push out Iranian influence and resolve the civil conflict between the Assad regime and domestic opposition groups. However, President Donald Trump recently minimized the American presence to keeping the oil out of the hands of Iran, the IS and Russia, and to allow American companies and allies to benefit from its sale. 

      Aside from statements of support for opening the Yarubiya crossing, congressional committees have not expressed more than a nominal interest in the significant loss of American regional influence. This is despite the trillions of dollars the US has invested to build up the American position in Iraq and Syria over the past two decades. As a result, the harsh reality must be accepted that one cannot expect the US government to do anything to protect American interests or regain its squandered strategic regional influence without the executive and legislative branches being willing and able to design and implement policy to that effect.

      Unilateral Action

      Fortunately, the opening of the Yarubiya crossing is a relatively simple policy that will require minimum resolve to carry out. Nonetheless, it will bolster American regional influence at the expense of its most bitter regional rivals. Pleas to the UN by humanitarian groups and NGOs seeking to reopen the Yarubiya crossing to aid will never overcome Russian opposition. However, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Khadimi has separate authority over Yarubiya. Having spent close to $2 trillion in Iraq on military operations, hardware and training of local military, police and emergency medical staff, as well as operating the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad, the US government has more than enough leverage to instruct Khadimi to open the border crossing.

      There are other added benefits to unilateral action. For instance, sidestepping the UN will itself add leverage to both the US position and that of its ally, the SDF. Brokering a deal with its rivals for the UN to open the crossing would require the US to make considerable concessions. By design, all anticipated requests, such as allowing Turkey to purchase Russia’s S-400 air defense systems, would likely be ones the US could never accept, as the status quo benefits all parties involved except the US and the population of northeastern Syria.

      Acting unilaterally would bypass such futile negotiations. Instead, the US would gain considerable leverage that it can save for a final status agreement in the long term or, at the very least, demand concessions from other parties in exchange for limiting what would be allowed through the crossing, thereby ensuring continued and adequate aid shipments. Aside from humanitarian considerations, from an economic standpoint, the move would provide an avenue for oil in northeastern Syria to be brought to market. The windfall profits would lead to a boom of economic development in northeastern Syria as well as Iraq, through which all materials would have to be shipped, and would save the United States millions of dollars in humanitarian aid. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      This must be done soon. The Assad regime is being continually strengthened by Iran and Russia in order to reassert control over northeastern Syria, the Deir Az Zour oil fields and the profits they hold. Northeastern Syria contains 90% of the country’s oil and natural gas, but it does not have an efficient route to export these energy resources. As a result, what does get exported goes through markets controlled by Iran, and profits are also siphoned off by the Islamic State as it rebuilds its infrastructure.

      The US finally allowed the export of oil from Deir Az Zour recently, which increased the political leverage of the SDF against Assad in future settlement negotiations. Opening the Yarubiya crossing will further extend that leverage to the United States. The more oil that is exported in the meantime, and the more involved the US is in protecting it, the more leverage the US will have and the stronger its regional ally, the SDF, will become. By fortifying itself, the SDF, which controls northeastern Syria, will be better equipped to cut off Iranian land access to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In effect, the stronger northeastern Syria becomes, the more influence the US will have to counter Iranian and Russian influence in Syria. 

      To reiterate, as America’s frontline ally in the fight against the IS, the SDF has led the fight against the armed group and continues to prevent its resurgence. However, as IS is now receiving aid from Turkey as part of Ankara’s effort to wipe out the Kurds, if the SDF were to lose its fight, American soldiers may be expected to take their place protecting considerable US strategic interests. Otherwise, the oil would fall into the hands of Russia, Iran and the IS. It is therefore imperative to act quickly so as to bolster the SDF as well as to mitigate the disaster of the COVID-19 pandemic that has increased humanitarian suffering in the region.

      Challenging Russia, Turkey and Iran

      Turkey and Russia have outmaneuvered the US in Syria over the last several years. As Seth Franztman writes in The Jerusalem Post, “Moscow has become friends with all sides in Syria — except with the Americans.” As a result, all of these actors have benefitted to different extents in Syria with the exception of the United States. Russian and Turkish efforts to divide up Syria include allowing Turkey to shore up its control in Idlib province in exchange for letting Russia fortify the Assad regime and act against US regional interests. Crucially, the opportunity created by sidelining Washington has allowed and will continue to allow the Assad regime and Iran to fortify their positions.

      Russia punches far above its weight in terms of international influence. As Anna Borshchevskaya reports for The Hill, Moscow’s efforts to defend its imperiled interests around the world by sowing unrest requires considerable personnel and resources. These resources are not unlimited and are effective because of the perceived threat of retaliation by Russian President Vladimir Putin against those who act contrary to his interests.

      Moscow’s interests in Syria are among its most heavily challenged. Russia cannot afford to lose its gambit in Syria and will remain invested no matter what the foreseeable cost. Thus, there is no better way to undermine Russian influence globally than to spread it thin and weaken it by acting against its various global interests concertedly. Russia worked very hard to get the UN to close the Yarubiya crossing, thereby freeing up its resources to fight battles on other fronts. Those resources cannot simply be reassigned back to Syria without being removed from other fights.

      As Turkey asserts itself as a regional political and military power, Ankara’s and Washington’s interests do not always align vis-à-vis Syria. For example, as analysis by the RAND corporation shows, Turkish attacks against YPG forces in northeastern Syria have led to the reappropriating of SDF personnel from fighting the IS in Deir Az Zour region to address Turkish incursions along the northern border. The State Department’s inspector general has accused Turkey of working in concert with the Islamic State to undermine US-supported YPG efforts in Syria. 

      Turkey has been threatening war with Greece in the eastern Mediterranean, and its cutting off of water to northeastern Syria has considerably exacerbated an already dire humanitarian crisis in the region. Opening the Yarubiya crossing to allow in aid, supplies and water would challenge Ankara’s clout in northeastern Syria. It may cause Turkey to rethink its confrontation with Greece, making it more likely that Ankara will err on the side of diplomacy to resolve that conflict before it escalates into a military clash. It will also show Turkey that, despite its influence as a NATO ally, Ankara does not have carte blanche to act against US interests without facing consequences.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria has drained its coffers and its personnel. This has considerably frustrated the Iranian population as its resources are sent abroad rather than used to rebuild the struggling economy at home. Applying pressure by opening up the Yarubiya crossing will further drain Iranian resources as it will require even more money, personnel and influence to fight Iran’s battles in Syria and Iraq, which will in turn further inflame domestic opposition to the IRGC. 

      Opening the Yarubiya crossing will aid the Kurds in northeastern Syria to fortify their positions and take a big step toward economic stability in the territory. Historically, the Kurds have been reliable US allies in the region and will undoubtedly continue to be strategic allies in the near future. Leaving them in the lurch by allowing Turkey to attack them in October 2019 shattered American credibility with the YPG, and left them with little recourse other than to put their hope in Russia for protection from Turkey. However, opening the Yarubiya crossing will considerably improve American credibility with the Kurds and work toward improving relations with a critical strategic ally, which will be imperative for American regional influence in the future.

      Opening the Yarubiya crossing between Iraq and northeastern Syria is a singular action that will simultaneously put pressure on Putin, Iran, the Islamic State and the Assad regime. It will also reassert American leadership in NATO, rebuild credibility with regional strategic allies and safeguard US energy interests. Finally, and perhaps most critically, will improve humanitarian conditions on the ground, which will go a long way to win hearts and minds by saving lives.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.] More

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      What Turkey Stands to Gain From Its Natural Gas Discovery

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      Turkey’s first natural gas discovery was undoubtedly breaking news. As the world focused its attention on the escalation between Ankara and Athens in the eastern Mediterranean over natural resources and maritime borders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the announcement on August 21 that marked the end of Turkey’s unsuccessful quest for indigenous oil and gas. If confirmed, the discovery of a 320-billion-cubic-meter natural gas deposit off Turkey’s Black Sea coast will enhance the country’s energy security and could help shape Ankara’s foreign policy trajectory.

      For years, Turkey has been tirelessly looking for oil and gas. To do so, Ankara mainly relied on the expertise of foreign companies. Encouraged by the recent discoveries of significant gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, Ankara stepped up its efforts in the region as well as the Black Sea. This time, however, the state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) decided to explore opportunities on its own. As a result, TPAO purchased three drilling ships — Fatih, Yavuz and Kanuni, all named after Ottoman sultans — between 2017 and 2020, and deployed them in both the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The plan worked: Fatih was instrumental in making the August discovery.

      Discovery of Natural Gas Exposes Turkey’s Political Rifts

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      The finding could alleviate Turkey’s energy import options and equip Ankara with a powerful bargaining chip in negotiations with traditional suppliers. It could also help to transform TPAO into a significant player in the industry. The petroleum company has already made strides in this regard. During the last several years, the TPAO has intensified its efforts in oil and gas exploration and production.

      The company has also taken advantage of rapprochement between Ankara and the UN-recognized Libyan government in Tripoli in order to resume projects halted in 2014. Back then, the TPAO announced the successful completion of wells in Sirte and Sebha. In April, partnered with Russian Zarubezhneft, TPAO signed preliminary deals to participate in its upstream sector and has made strides in Algeria by signing up to an onshore project together with Sonatrach and Zarubezhneft. Furthermore, Turkish authorities have been vocal about their intentions to invest in Somalia’s and Ethiopia’s oil and gas sectors.

      Given the complexity of deep-water drilling, TPAO’s inexperience when it comes to offshore projects and the costliness of such endeavors, the development of the Black Sea fields may require partnerships with more experienced companies. Turkish authorities have already mulled over a potential collaboration with Russian and Iranian companies, but it seems less likely given the state of Ankara’s relations with both countries. Ankara has diverging interests with Tehran and Moscow in Syria and is also trying to reduce dependence on both Russian and Iranian gas supplies. Therefore, Turkey will likely be reluctant to add another dimension to this complex web of relations by inviting a Russian or Iranian company to the project. It is more likely for Turkish companies to partner with companies from friendly states with experience developing such complex and costly projects.

      TPAO has already partnered with the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) in upstream projects in the Caspian Sea. Given the fraternal relations between the two countries, which have only solidified in light of the recent fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, SOCAR’s engagement in the project is not excluded. Ankara’s unequivocal support for Baku in the conflict with Armenia and Azerbaijan’s increasingly growing share in natural gas supplies to Turkey could be easily translated into cooperation in the oil and gas sector as well.  

      TPAO may also partner with Qatar Petroleum, which has extensive experience in managing such complex deep-water projects. Turkish authorities have already suggested such a possibility. In March, Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that Ankara is considering a partnership with Malaysian, British and Qatari companies in the eastern Mediterranean. Qatar Petroleum has decades of experience in operating the North Dome, the largest natural gas field in the world. Turkey and Qatar may use the opportunity to capitalize on their political relations and channel the geopolitical alignment into cooperation in the business sector.

      If the findings are confirmed, aside from providing a strategic advantage in the energy sector, the deposits will be a crucial element in bolstering Turkey’s foreign policy efforts, such as the Blue Homeland strategy and the pivot to the Maghreb and the Sahel. TPAO’s recent expansion abroad, especially in Africa, indicates the prerogatives of Ankara’s foreign policy goals. Turkey already faces strong opposition from almost all eastern Mediterranean littoral states that have collectively aligned to resist Ankara’s endeavors. To cope with these challenges, Turkey will need to build geopolitical alliances and economic partnerships of its own.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      As Europe Weakens, Turkey Is on the Rise

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      The horrific experience of World War II compelled European leaders to establish a supranational organization that is now the European Union, which, if successful, would create among its members, especially between Germany and France, an unbreakable bond, preventing the otherwise “savage continent” from destroying itself once again as it did many times before 1945. While the adoption of the common currency, the euro, after 1999 is cited as the epitome of European financial unity, when it comes to foreign policy, the EU itself is far from united.

      Discovery of Natural Gas Exposes Turkey’s Political Rifts

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      The spat between EU candidate Turkey and EU member Greece over the boundaries of their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in the eastern Mediterranean has exposed this intra-EU discord. Greece’s repeated calls to Brussels for solidarity have mostly been ignored, and France’s relentless efforts to create a solid anti-Turkish bloc have yielded nothing but some rhetorical support for Greece. France sees the growing Turkish influence in Libya as a grave threat to its economic interests in West Africa and the Sahel. Due to this perceived Turkish threat, Paris has been doing everything in its power to sabotage it, including throwing unconditional support behind Greece.

      Europe’s Locomotive

      The Greek frustration with the EU peaked at an all-time high at the Foreign Affairs Council on August 14, when member states Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria and Malta vetoed the request by Athens to sanction Ankara. In retaliation, the Greek Cypriots blocked an EU joint statement on sanctions against Belarus following the violent suppression of anti-government protests by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. On September 10, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the MED7 countries — Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain — on the island of Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon, hoping to mount pressure on Turkey, only to be disappointed that the leaders of Spain, Italy, Malta and Portugal avoided inflammatory remarks and emphasized the importance of a dialogue with Ankara.

      In fact, the day after the summit, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to express Spain’s willingness to enhance bilateral relations. On the same day, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio and Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed on the phone “the matters related to Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean.” Two days after the Corsica summit, the Maltese Minister of EU Foreign Affairs Evarist Bartolo met with Cavusoglu in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort town of Antalya.

      Macron’s European partners have disappointed him before. France claimed that on June 10, Turkish warships locked their weapons systems on to a French frigate, the Courbet, which was part of NATO’s Sea Guardian monitoring mission. As a knee-jerk reaction to this incident, France suspended its naval operations in the Mediterranean. France took the issue to NATO, which Macron has inconveniently called “braindead” in the past, and whose majority of members are also part of the EU. To Macron’s dismay, only eight of the 30 NATO members backed France’s claims against Turkey, which French Defense Minister Florence Parly described as “serious and unacceptable.” Later, NATO announced that the probe into the incident was “inconclusive.”  

      So why is Europe so divided when it comes to Turkey? Why have France and Greece failed to create European unanimity against Turkey? The answer lies in the fact that the changing regional political and economic realities are forcing the European states to pursue their own individual agendas just like they did in the early 20th century, heralding the demise of the ideal to create the United States of Europe. Simply put, because of their vested interest in Ankara’s handling of the refugee crisis as well as their uneasiness about an ascendant France in the Mediterranean, some EU member states choose to align with Turkey rather than defend Greece’s maritime claims, severely undermining Paris’ effort to curb Ankara’s ambitions.  

      Germany, the locomotive of the European Union, is very concerned about the continuous influx of refugees into Europe, which has already begun to disrupt the financial, social and political make-up of the continent. For Berlin, Turkey’s ability to accommodate more than 4 million refugees it currently shelters is paramount to saving the contracting EU economies further stricken by COVID-19. Also, not angering Erdogan in this gloomy atmosphere is much more important for German Chancellor Angela Merkel than to mount a battle for Greece’s declared maritime borders in the far eastern stretches of the Mediterranean.

      Merkel’s motivation to get along with Erdogan upsets Macron, who feels the need to contain Turkey in Libya, West Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Macron sees Brexit and the receding US influence as a historical opportunity to assert France’s role as the leader on the European continent, which in turn may herald Franco-German frictions. He repeatedly degraded the importance of NATO as a common defense mechanism at a time when Merkel is alarmed by US President Donald Trump’s decision to considerably cut the number of American troops in Germany. Macron has frequently criticized Merkel for allowing Germany’s much-needed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into Europe as he believes it will increase the European reliance on Russia.

      This Gaullist approach has not only irked Germany, but also raised concern with France’s Mediterranean neighbors, Italy, and Spain, who have historically viewed an ascendant France with suspicion. Hence their tacit support for Turkey, France’s current geopolitical perceived arch-rival. 

      Italy vs. France

      The Italian resentment toward France goes back to the 2011 French and NATO-led military intervention in Libya, which toppled Muammar Gaddafi. Italy sees the subsequent growing instability in Libya as a threat to national security as migrants, not only from Libya but also from sub-Saharan Africa, began to pour onto Italian shores. The Italians believed that Gaddafi’s iron-fist rule over Libya acted as a barrier between Italy and the more unstable and deprived parts of Africa.  

      The current migrant issue has severely hurt the Franco-Italian relations. Both sides have repeatedly summoned each other’s ambassadors, a serious sign of friction, criticizing the measures each refused to take. In June 2018, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned France’s ambassador to Rome after Macron harshly criticized Italy’s refusal to accept the migrant ship Aquarius carrying more than 600 people.

      In June 2019, the current Italian foreign minister and then-deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, lambasted the French immigration policy by saying that “If today people are leaving, it’s because certain European countries, chief among them France, never stopped colonizing dozens of African countries. France prints the currency, the colonial franc, in dozens of African countries, and with this currency, they finance the French debt . . . If France did not have the African colonies, she would be the world’s 15th economic power, but she’s among the first because of what she’s doing in Africa.” Di Maio even called for EU sanctions against France. The row escalated to a point where France recalled its ambassador to Italy in February 2019, a move unprecedented since the Second World War. The acrimony with France has prompted Rome to side with Ankara in this latest diplomatic spat.

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      Italy’s support for Turkey in Libya seems to have paid off. After Turkey’s successful military campaign against the French-backed General Khalifa Haftar earlier this year, a senior European diplomat told the Financial Times: “Let’s be honest, Turkey stopped the fall of Tripoli. Without their intervention, it would have been a humanitarian disaster.” The influx of those running fleeing Haftar’s retribution would have severely crippled Italy.  

      An ascendant France in the Mediterranean basin also threatens Italy’s economic interests. Italy had considerable business stakes in Libya under Gaddafi, whose removal from power severely jeopardized them. The Italian energy giant ENI first entered the oil-rich country in 1959 and had a continuous presence throughout the 1980s, even when the West snubbed the Gaddafi regime for its links to terrorism. Before the French-led military intervention, Operation Harmattan, in 2011, Libya accounted for 15% of ENI’s total global hydrocarbons output, with oil production at 108,000 barrels per day and natural gas production at 9.4 billion cubic meters.

      Today, a number of lucrative oil projects are at stake for ENI, including the Bouri oil field, the largest offshore field in the Mediterranean Sea, located immediately off the coast of Libya. This area is controlled by the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord. Considering that ENI’s biggest challenger for the Libyan oil and gas is the French oil giant Total, Rome has naturally supported Fayez al-Sarraj’s Turkey-led coalition against Khalifa Haftar’s French-backed Libyan National Army. This too explains why Rome is reluctant to join France and Greece in imposing sanctions on Turkey.  

      British Considerations

      Historically speaking, France’s growing ambitions in the Mediterranean have triggered British suspicion. For instance, it was British support for the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century that facilitated the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Turks in Egypt and Syria, which also safeguarded British regional interests. Just as it was then, today Turkey has become an important part of the UK’s geopolitical considerations, particularly in the post-Brexit era. London has manifested its support for Ankara on various occasions. For example, the UK, which has strategic Akrotiri and Dhekelia military bases on the island of Cyprus, openly rejected the Greek Cypriots’ request for cooperation against Turkey. Angered by this refusal, the Greek Cypriots turned to France.

      With regard to the Turkey-France naval incident, UK Prime minister Boris Johnson clearly sided with Turkey by publicly stating, “I do not give much credence to France’s view.” As a display of solidarity, the British frigate HMS Argyll and Turkish TCG Giresun held an exclusive naval training exercise in the disputed waters of the eastern Mediterranean the day after the French-led MED7 summit in Corsica. 

      The UK’s desire to cooperate with Turkey in the Mediterranean is also reflected on the smallest EU member, Malta, which shares a maritime border with Libya. Although it declared its independence from the UK in 1964, Malta’s foreign policy still is heavily influenced by London. In Libya, the Maltese government has openly declared its support for the Turkey-backed al-Sarraj administration. Moreover, as a blow to France’s efforts to prevent Turkey from sending weapons to Libya, Malta vetoed EU funding for Operation Irini meant to enforce an arms embargo.

      Malta’s support for Turkey in the Mediterranean partially stems from the anti-French sentiment that prevails in society. Prominent Maltese broadcaster Charles Xuereb, the author of “France in the Maltese Collective Memory: Perceptions, Perspectives, Identities After Bonaparte in British Malta,” states that “Napoleon’s slaughter of thousands of Maltese and the heavy pillaging of the island created a Maltese collective memory which blocks anything French but sees the British as their saviors.” It is only natural for Malta to throw its support behind Turkey, which has confronted France throughout the region. 

      Romantic Ideas

      Where do we go from here? The romantic idea of a united Europe where prosperity, democracy and solidarity reign supreme is becoming increasingly obsolete. The aging population, the influx of refugees and the rising populist far right, the COVID-19 pandemic and the abysmal state of eurozone economies, which is increasing the north-south divide, have all but weakened the idea of a shared future for the Europeans.

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      The weakening of Europe is happening at a time when Turkey seems to be on the rise. EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell stated earlier this month: “Europe is facing a situation in which we can say that the old Empires are coming back, at least three of them: Russia, China, and Turkey; big empires of the past who are coming back with an approach on their immediate neighborhood, globally, which represent for us a new environment. And Turkey is one of these elements that change our environment.” 

      What is happening in the Mediterranean is not only a conflict between Greece and Turkey — it is also a European problem. Turkey’s ascendancy in the region should be expected to accelerate the fracturing of Europe, where each state is increasingly preoccupied with its own problems, forming competing alliances against one another.

      The latest addition to this chessboard is the renewed fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Each side is accusing the other of causing the flare-up, but according to UN Security Council resolutions, Armenia is illegally occupying 20% of Azeri territory. In this conflict too, as in Libya, Syria and Iraq, Turkey holds the key. Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan has already led to heavy Armenian casualties. The Azeri-Armenian conflict will only strengthen Turkey’s position vis-à-vis Europe even more, disincentivizing Brussels to take measures against Ankara.  

      The dream of a united Europe is becoming more of an unattainable each day. The question now arises whether President Erdogan will be the one to deal the final blow to that idea.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Is Assad Gearing Up for a Final Push in Syria?

      by

      Ceasefires in Syria come and go, and so do the meetings between the outside players who hold it in their hands to determine if an end to the country’s 9-year civil war is in sight. The most recent meeting in Ankara between Turkish and Russian military officers was intended to discuss issues at a “technical level” in both the Syrian and Libyan theaters of war. Not much was achieved, with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reportedly calling the session “unproductive.” The minister called for the ceasefire to continue and insisted that “there must be more focus on political negotiations,” a sentiment few can disagree with but one that seems most unlikely to be realized in the near to middle future.

      Russia’s state-controlled Sputnik news agency reported that what it called a “source” had said that the Turks had declined to evacuate five observation posts in Syria’s Idlib province. According to the source, “After the Turkish side refused to withdraw the Turkish observation points and insisted on keeping them, it was decided to reduce the number of Turkish forces present in Idlib and to withdraw heavy weapons from the area.”

      A Coming Catastrophe

      Whether that is the case has yet to be confirmed. However, it was enough for the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) to issue a somber warning: “Turkey may have agreed to cede control of Southern Idlib to pro-Assad forces in a meeting with Russia September 16. If the reports of a deal are true, a pro-Assad offensive is likely imminent.”

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      The ISW buttresses its argument by noting that Turkey had already withdrawn hundreds of its forces from southern Idlib on September 8. Turkey’s claim that the withdrawal is the result of rising tensions with Greece over hydrocarbon reserves in the eastern Mediterranean were treated with skepticism by the ISW: “Turkey may have used its dispute with Greece as cover for action consistent with an impending deal with Russia in Idlib.”

      This may, indeed, be the “political negotiations” that Cavusoglu was speaking of. If so, and if an assault on what remains of Idlib in rebel hands is imminent, then it signals likely catastrophe for civilians trapped between advancing Assad forces and jihadist militias. Were the US not in the middle of a presidential race and were the incumbent in the White House not so inclined to call for the complete withdrawal of US forces from Syria (only to change his mind when presented with the outcomes of such a move), then there would be grounds for more hope for the civilian population of Idlib.

      But such is not the case. And beyond President Donald Trump’s view that, as he expressed it, “People said to me, ‘Why are you staying in Syria?’ Because I kept the oil, which frankly we should have done in Iraq,” uncertainty about just what America’s intentions in Syria are remains very much in play. It is a factor that other external players, that is the Russians, the Turks and Iran, can all exploit as they seek to advance their strategic efforts at the expense of the Syrian people.

      Old Enemies

      It is a situation that has left the 500 or so US troops still in Syria and their allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in a vulnerable and exposed place, a point the Pentagon clearly gets, even if the commander-in-chief doesn’t. Announcing a deployment of Bradley fighting vehicles to Eastern Syria on September 19, a Pentagon spokesperson stated: “These actions are a clear demonstration of US resolve to defend Coalition forces in the [Eastern Syria Security Area], and to ensure that they are able to continue their Defeat-ISIS mission without interference. The Defense Department has previously deployed Bradleys to northeast Syria pursuant to these goals.”

      That deployment reflects a growing concern that, as documented by ISW and others, the Islamic State (IS) is resurging in Syria. Its recent attacks have been aimed at tribal elders who support the SDF and at efforts to develop governance capabilities that benefit civilians by removing festering grievances that the jihadists seek to exploit.

      For their part, the Russians, playing on fears that the SDF Kurdish leadership has concerning an abrupt American withdrawal, may strive to build on pushing the Kurds to seek some sort of rapprochement with Damascus, thus hastening a US departure. In that regard, it is worth noting that the Russians were crucial to a deal in October last year that saw the Kurds cede territory to Assad forces and withdraw rather than face a Turkish offensive in northern Syria.

      Meanwhile, the ISW’s Jennifer Cafarella argues that a sudden withdrawal without a strategic endgame plays straight into the hands of not just Russia and Iran; it emboldens a rising IS and empowers the jihadist ideology it shares with America’s oldest enemy in its war on terror, al- Qaeda.

      Al-Qaeda has played a long game, happy for IS to take the brunt of the West’s military response. Cafarella says that while a global coalition led by America came together to defeat the caliphate (and force ISI into a guerrilla insurgency), the same cannot be said for al-Qaeda. “We have not been able to reach the same level of understanding with our allies and partners and that is in part because Al Qaeda is playing this much more sophisticated political game that in the long run, I do very much worry, could outflank us.”

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More