August 12, 2015
The four separate armed
attacks Monday against Turkish security forces and the U.S. Consulate
in Istanbul are all repeat performances of similar attacks in recent years, so
we can easily see this as simply another rough day for Turkey but not a pivotal
moment of any sort. The situation deserves a closer look, I would argue,
because the events Monday transcend domestic Turkish issues. In fact,
they reflect the convergence of at least five important new trends in the
Middle East that touch on Turkey, the Kurds, Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the Mideast policies of the United States and
other foreign and regional powers. This convergence of multiple interests and
actions on the ground in Turkey-Syria is replicated in different forms
elsewhere; it is likely to keep shaping developments across the Middle East for
a few years to come, until the region settles into a new and more sustainable
condition.
The attacks Monday were carried out by
the Marxist Turkish group called the Revolutionary People’s Liberation
Party-Front (RPLPF), and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), both of whom have
been battling the Turkish government and security forces for years. The new
development that deserves our attention and resonates regionally is the
convergence of this internal Turkish-Kurdish battle with the five new factors
that shape developments in the region: the fragmentation and partial collapse
of existing states like Iraq and Syria, the emergence of a de facto Kurdish
state in northern Iraq and Syria, the persistence of the new “Islamic State’
that ISIS has created in northern Syria and Iraq, the muscular regional
militarism of local powers like Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the
continued incoherence of American foreign policy in the region.
Each one of these factors emerges from its own
historical context, but together they create a dynamic and often contradictory
situation that defies easy analysis. The most confusing element is about who
are friends and enemies in this situation, because the allies and foes of the
United States, Turkey, Syrian rebel groups, the Syrian government, and ISIS do
not always line up neatly. So while the United States and Turkey both classify
the PKK as a terrorist group, the PKK’s Kurdish ally in northern Syria, the
People’s Protection Units (YPG) with its 30,000 or more fighters, is the most
effective fighting force on the ground against ISIS. The YPG forces have worked
closely with the United States and others to push back ISIS in several
strategic parts of northern Syria, including Kobani, Tel Abyad and Hassaka.
Similarly, the United States opposes
Iranian-linked militias in Iraq, but those militias are among the most effective
ground forces in the fight against ISIS in central Iraq. The United States and
Hezbollah are deeply antagonistic to each other, but in their common fight
against ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra forces in western Syria, they line up on the
same side.
The common denominator among these different
dynamics is the testing and reconfiguration of a few existing states in the
region, and the assertion of identities by groups of people who are not
satisfied with the existing sovereign order that has defined the Middle East
for the past century or so. Syria and Iraq are the most glaring examples of
states that are fragmenting, opening the way for the two most important
immediate developments: the birth of ISIS’ “Islamic State” and the expansion of
Kurdish-controlled lands that have become a proto-state. The “Islamic State”
will not last, and a de jure Kurdish sovereign state will probably come into
being in the decades ahead.
When a big regional power like Turkey starts
throwing around its military muscle, a big global power like the United
States continues to use its military might as a routine policy tool in the
region, and governments like the one in Syria viciously attack their own
civilians, we should not be surprised that existing state orders start to shake
and collapse. This creates openings for new local powers and even novel state
authorities to take root, as in the Kurdish and ISIS situations. This is
further complicated by the fact that we do not have a clear idea of who would
assume power if and when the Assad government falls in Damascus, which brings
into play the interests and active military involvement of the Iranian
government and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Given the weak performance of most Arab states
in the past century, we should expect to see more such situations where
fragmenting states, assertive regional powers, and militarized global powers
come together and take action, often in contradictory ways. This reaffirms the
old American political saying that all politics is local, since in these cases
we see local identities and interests driving the situations, and forcing
regional and global powers to react.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly in
the Daily Star. He was
founding director and now senior policy fellow of the Issam Fares Institute for
Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. On
Twitter @ramikhouri.
Copyright
©2015 Rami G. Khouri -- distributed by Agence Global