Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won Parliamentary elections June 12, which means it will remain in power for a third term.
The popular vote, divided among a number of parties, made the AKP the most
popular party by far, although nearly half of the electorate voted for other
parties, mainly the opposition and largely secularist Republican People’s Party
(CHP). More important, the AKP failed to win a super-majority, which would have given it the power to unilaterally alter
Turkey’s constitution. This was one of the major issues in the election,
with the AKP hoping for the super-majority and others trying to block it. The
failure of the AKP to achieve the super-majority leaves the status quo largely
intact. While the AKP remains the most powerful party in Turkey, able to form
governments without coalition partners, it cannot rewrite the constitution
without accommodating its rivals.
One way to look at this is that Turkey continues to operate within a stable
framework, one that has been in place for almost a decade. The AKP is the ruling
party. The opposition is fragmented along ideological lines, which gives the not
overwhelmingly popular AKP disproportionate power. The party can set policy
within the constitution but not beyond the constitution. In this sense, the
Turkish political system has produced a long-standing reality. Few other
countries can point to such continuity of leadership. Obviously, since Turkey is
a democracy, the rhetoric is usually heated and accusations often fly, ranging
from imminent military coups to attempts to impose a
religious dictatorship. There may be generals thinking of coups and there may be
members of AKP thinking of religious dictatorship, but the political process has
worked effectively to make such things hard to imagine. In Turkey, as in every
democracy, the rhetoric and the reality must be carefully distinguished.
Turkey’s Shifting Policy
That said, the AKP has clearly taken Turkey in new directions in both
domestic and foreign policy. In domestic policy, the direction is obvious. While
the CHP has tried to vigorously contain religion within the private sphere, the
AKP has sought to recognize Turkey’s Islamic culture and has sought a degree of
integration with the political structure.
This has had two results. Domestically, while the AKP has had the strength to
create a new political sensibility, it has not had the strength to create new
institutions based on Islamic principles (assuming this is one of its desired
goals). Nevertheless, the secularists, deriving their legitimacy from the
founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, have viewed his legacy and their
secular rights — one of which is the right of women not to have to wear
headscarves — as being under attack. Hence, the tenor of public discourse has
been volatile. Indeed, there is a constant sense of crisis in Turkey, as
the worst fears of the secularists collide with the ambitions of the AKP. Again,
we regard these ambitions as modest, not because we know what AKP leaders intend
in their heart, but simply because they lack the power to go further regardless
of intentions.
The rise of the AKP and its domestic agenda has more than just domestic
consequences. Since 2001, the United States has been fighting radical Islamists,
and the fear of radical Islamism goes beyond the United States to Europe and
other countries. In many ways, Turkey is both the most prosperous and most militarily powerful of any
Muslim country. The idea that the AKP agenda is radically Islamist and that
Turkey is moving toward radical Islamism generates anxieties and hostilities in
the international system.
While the thought of a radical Islamist Turkey is frightening, and many take
an odd pleasure in saying that Turkey has been “lost” to radical Islamism and
should be ostracized, the reality is more complex. First, it is hard to
ostracize a country that has the largest army in Europe as well as an economy
that grew at 8.9 percent last year and that occupies some of the most strategic real estate in the
world. If the worst case from the West’s point of view were true,
ostracizing Turkey would be tough, making war on it even tougher, and coping
with the consequences of an Islamist Turkey tougher still. If it is true that
Turkey has been taken over by radical Islamists — something I personally do not
believe — it would be a geopolitical catastrophe of the first order for the
United States and its allies in the region. And since invading Turkey is not an
option, the only choice would be accommodation. It is interesting to note that
those who are most vociferous in writing Turkey off are also most opposed to
accommodation. It is not clear what they propose, since their claim is both
extreme and generated, for the most part, for rhetorical and not geopolitical
reasons. The fear is real, and the threat may be there as well, but the
solutions are not obvious.
Turkey’s Geopolitical Position
So I think it is useful to consider Turkey in a broader geopolitical context.
It sits astride one of the most important waterways in the world, the Bosporus,
connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. That alone made Ataturk’s desire
for an inward Turkey not playing great power games difficult to attain. Given
that it is part of the Caucasus, shares a border with Iran,
borders the Arab world and is part of Europe, Turkey inevitably becomes part of
other countries’ plans. For example, in World War II both powers wanted Turkey
in the war on their side, particularly the Germans, who wanted Turkish pressure
on the Baku oil fields.
After World War II, the Cold War drove Turkey toward the United States.
Pressure in the Caucasus and the Soviet appetite for controlling the Bosporus, a
historic goal of the Russians, gave Turkey common cause with the United States.
The Americans did not want the Soviets to have free access to the Mediterranean,
and the Turks did not want to lose the Bosporus or be dominated by the
Soviets.
From the American point of view, a close U.S.-Turkish relationship came to be
considered normal. But the end of the Cold War redefined many relationships, and
in many cases, neither party was aware of the redefinition for quite some time.
The foundation of the U.S.-Turkish alliance rested on the existence of a common
enemy, the Soviets. Absent that enemy, the foundation disappeared, but in the
1990s there were no overriding pressures for either side to reconsider its
position. Thus, the alliance remained intact simply because it was easier to
maintain it than rethink it.
This was no longer the case after 2001, when the United States faced a new
enemy, radical Islamism. At this point, the Turks were faced with a fundamental
issue: the extent to which they would participate in the American war and the
extent to which they would pull away. After 2001, the alliance stopped being
without a cost.
The break point came in early 2003 with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which came
after the AKP election victory in late 2002. The United States wanted to send a
division into northern Iraq from southern Turkey, and the Turks blocked the
move. This represented a critical break in two ways. First, it was the first
time since World War II that the Turks had distanced themselves from an American
crisis — and in this case, it was one in their very neighborhood. Second, it was
a decision made by a government suspected by the United States of having
sympathies for Islamists. The Turks did not break with the United States,
eventually allowing U.S. air operations to continue from Turkey and
participating in assistance programs in Afghanistan.
But for the United States, the decision on Iraq became a defining moment,
when the United States realized that it could not take Turkish support for
granted. The Turks, on the other hand, decided that the United States was taking
actions that were not in their best interests. The relationship was not broken,
but it did become strained.
Turkey was experiencing a similar estrangement from Europe. Since medieval
times, Turkey has regarded itself as a European country, and in the contemporary
era, it has sought membership in the European Union, a policy maintained by the
AKP. At first, the European argument against Turkish membership focused on
Turkey’s underdeveloped condition. However, for the last decade, Turkey has
experienced dramatic economic growth, including after the global financial
crisis in 2008. Indeed, its economic growth has outstripped that of most
European countries. The argument of underdevelopment no longer holds.
Still, the European Union continues to block Turkish membership. The reason
is simple: immigration. There was massive Turkish immigration to Western Europe
in the 1960s and 1970s. Germany and France have significant social strains
resulting from Muslim immigration, and allowing Turkey into the European Union
would essentially open the borders. Now, a strong argument could be made that EU
membership would be disastrous for Turkey economically, but for Turkey it is
not the membership that matters nearly as much as the rejection. The European
rejection of Turkey over the immigration issue alienates Turkey from the
Europeans, making it harder for the AKP to counter allegations that it is
“turning its back on the West.”
Thus, the Turks, not wanting to participate in the Iraq war, created a split
with the United States, and the European rejection of Turkish membership in the
European Union has generated a split with Europe. From a Turkish point of view,
the American invasion of Iraq was ill conceived and the European position
ultimately racist. In this sense, they were being pushed away from the West.
Turkey and the Islamic World
But two other forces were at work. First, the Islamic world changed its
shape. From being overwhelmingly secular in political outlook, not incidentally
influenced by Ataturk, the Islamic world began to move in a more religious
direction until the main tendency was no longer secular but Islamic to varying
degrees. It was inevitable that Turkey would experience the strains and
pressures of the rest of the Muslim world. The question was not whether Turkey
would shift but to what degree.
The other force was geopolitical. The two major wars in the Muslim world
being fought by the United States were not proceeding satisfactorily, and while
the main goal had been reached — there were no further attacks on the United
States — the effort to maintain or create non-Islamic regimes in the region was
not succeeding. Now the United States is withdrawing from the region,
leaving behind instability and an increasingly powerful and self-confident
Turkey.
In the end, the economic and military strength of Turkey had to transform it
into a major regional force. By default, with the American withdrawal, Turkey
has become the major power in the region on several counts. For one, the fact
that Turkey had an AKP government and was taking a leadership position in the
region made the United States very uncomfortable. For another, and this is the
remarkable part, Turkey moved moderately on the domestic front when compared to
the rest of the region, and its growing influence was rooted in American failure
rather than Turkish design. When a Turkish aid flotilla sailed to Gaza and was intercepted
by the Israelis in 2010, the Turkish view was that it was the minimum step
Turkey could take as a leading Muslim state. The Israeli view was that Turkey
was simply supporting radical Islamists.
This is not a matter of misunderstanding. The foundation of Turkey’s
relationship with Israel, for example, had more to do with hostility toward
pro-Soviet Arab governments than anything else. Those governments are gone and
the secular foundation of Turkey has shifted. The same is true with the United
States and Europe. None of them wants Turkey to shift, but given the end of the
Cold War and the rise of Islamist forces, such a shift is inevitable, and what
has occurred thus far seems relatively mild considering where the shift has gone
in other countries. But more important, the foundation of alliances has
disappeared and neither side can find a new, firm footing. As exemplified by
Britain and the United States in the late 19th century, rising powers make older
powers uneasy. They can cooperate economically and avoid military confrontation,
but they are never comfortable with each other. The emerging power suspects that
the greater power is trying to strangle it. The greater power suspects that the
emerging power is trying to change the order of things. In fact, both of these
assumptions are usually true.
By no means has Turkey emerged as a mature power. Its handling of events in Syria and other countries —
consisting mostly of rhetoric — shows that it is has yet to assume a position to
influence, let alone manage, events on its periphery. But it is still early in
the game. We are now at a point where the old foundation has weakened and a new
one is proving difficult to construct. The election results indicate that the
process is still under way without becoming more radical and without slowing
down. The powers that had strong relationships with Turkey no longer have them
and wonder why. Turkey does not understand why it is feared and why the most
ominous assumptions are being made, domestically and in other countries, about
its government’s motives. None of this should be a surprise. History is like
that.
Turkey's Elections and Strained U.S. Relations is
republished with permission of STRATFOR