Turkey's Growing Instability
Once
the eastern anchor of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (geography
has little to do with how governments title treaties), Turkey has
become a problem, and a large one, for NATO policymakers. The problem
contributes to the chaos in the Middle East.
This is all the more
remarkable because at the beginning of his administration, President
Obama regarded Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then the Turkish prime minister, as
one of his closest friends. Mr. Obama couldn't wait to get to Ankara
and Cairo to apologize to the Muslims for what he, and they, regard as
American offenses against Islam.
But last month Secretary of
Defense Ashton Carter urged Mr. Erdogan, now the president of Turkey,
"to control the border, the long border that they have with both Syria
and Iraq . It's overdue, because it's a year into the campaign [against
the Islamic State, or ISIS], but they're indicating some considerable
effort now, including allowing us to use their airfields. That's
important, but it's not enough."
Permission to use the bases
required nine months of intense negotiations, all to aid the feeble
American bombing campaign against ISIS, which is now regarded by nearly
everyone as a threat to stability in the region. ISIS is rapidly
becoming the nexus of Islamic terrorism throughout the world.
Traffic
across the Turkish-Syrian border includes volunteers for ISIS forces
and a flood of Muslim refugees crossing into Greece, and from there to
the other countries of the European Union.
Since Mr. Obama's
apology tour of the Middle East, Mr. Erdogan has broken Turkey's
long-standing military alliance with Israel. He has permitted Hamas,
recognized as a terrorist organization, to operate out of Turkey. Mr.
Erdogan himself has contributed ugly anti-Semitic remarks, picked up by
sympathetic newspapers.
Mr. Erdogan -- who once described
democracy as "a train that you get off once you reach your destination"
-- has pushed creeping Islamization, eroding the secularist heritage of
modern Turkey's founder, Kemal Attaturk. He moved to the presidency,
hoping to create an authoritarian presidential system. But in the June
elections, his Justice and Development Party [AKP] failed to get the
necessary majority to change the constitution. After refusing to
negotiate in good faith with other parties to organize a coalition
government, he has now called another election. He abandoned an effort
to reach an agreement with Turkey's huge Kurdish minority.
Public-opinion polls indicate he may fail again to win an election. A
sagging economy won't help his chances, either.
His whirling
dervish foreign policy is in tatters. He has become a major deterrent to
American goals in the region, and the most effective fighters against
ISIS have been the battle-hardened Kurds. Mr. Erdogan, like the leaders
of some other countries with a large Kurdish minority, fear that Kurdish
military successes could produce a united independent Kurdistan. The
Iraqi Kurdish regional government, pumping oil out through Turkey, some
of it to Israel, is relatively prosperous and semi-independent. Barring
increased American ground forces deployed against ISIS, the Kurds are
the only realistic hope of successfully "degrading and eventually
destroying" ISIS. Despite the optimism of the Obama administration, the
military situation is deteriorating.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
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