Map of Ottoman Empire, circa 1790-1800. Philip de Bay/Historical Picture Archive/Corbis
September 17, 2014
The United States, supported by several European countries, is trying
to build an alliance to confront the jihadist group, the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria. The success of that alliance, and of any chance to address the chaos
unfolding in the eastern Mediterranean, rests on the cooperation of the two
powers with direct stakes in the region and the ability to influence events on
the ground: on one side, Turkey; on the other, the alliance emerging between
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt.
The Arab-Turkish relationship has been fraught for centuries, and
often the personal has blurred with the public. Now, Turkish positioning in the
region seems opposed to the alliance between these three countries. This
informal coalition is trying to preserve the regional order of the last four
decades, which they see as under attack from various forces including political
Islam. Turkey’s ruling party, the Islamist AKP, is sympathetic to the leading
forces of that trend.
Turkey’s relationship with these three influential Arab countries is likely to
remain stressed, especially with the election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as president of the republic and the elevation of
Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey’s former foreign minister and a key
architect of its regional strategy, to prime minister.
The two sides have conflicting understandings of what the Arab uprisings of the
past three years have heralded. Turkey’s leaders see the uprisings as
revolutions against corrupt, autocratic regimes; reformists spearheaded the
revolts, and therefore must be supported. The leaders of the influential Arab
countries regard the changes that these uprisings have unleashed as perils to
the social fabric, identities, and national security of their countries. They
believe that by thwarting this wave of change, they have saved their countries
from the chaos currently raging across the region.
In particular, the two sides also see political Islam differently. Turkey’s AKP
represents a type of modern Islamism that evolved within the confines of the
highly secular Kamalist Turkish state. Drawing on the experience of Turkish
Islamists, the AKP was careful to strike a balance between widening and
deepening its support in Turkey’s pious and conservative Anatolian hinterland
as well as the lower middle class neighborhoods of the country’s sprawling
cities—all while not ruffling the sensitivities of the secular middle and
upper-middle classes. The AKP’s strategy was successful in using Islam as an
overarching cultural and social frame of reference; religious orientation was
not used as a political doctrine, restriction on economic activities, or as a
social identity.
In several Arab countries, most notably Egypt, forces of political
Islam have antagonized wide segments of their societies by imposing their
version of Islamism on political, economic, and social life. And when they came
to power—such as during former President Mohammed Morsi’s year in
power—Islamists were not savvy enough to realize that enforcing an overly
religious rhetoric and worldview on their societies would trigger a tsunami of
anger, even from pious social groups.
These subtle but crucial differences between the Turkish and Arab
experiences were lost amid the tumultuous developments that took place in the
Arab world in the last two years. Turkish leaders did not appreciate the
gravity of the mistake that some Arab Islamists have committed. And influential
Arab regimes did not comprehend the prism from which Turkey saw the
developments in their countries.
Local frustrations exacerbate this tension. Turkey’s foreign policy in
the region was based on zero problems with its neighbors, economic and
cultural expansion in the Arab world, and its gradual emergence as a political
and economic role model for the Arab world. This policy was not only supposed
to compensate for Turkey’s painfully slow progress in the European Union
accession process; it was a strategic reorientation of the country’s place in
the world. But in the last three years, and with the exception of the immense
success that Turkish drama has achieved in the Arab world, all of these
objectives have failed. And there is a sense, prevalent within the AKP’s
leading circles, that Arab antipathy toward a leading Turkish role in the
region contributed to this failure. On the other side, the Arabs recognize that
they confront extremely difficult challenges—socio-economic in Egypt, demographic
in the UAE, and political and dynastic in Saudi Arabia—that pose colossal
dangers to their countries. To Arab leaders, Turkey’s support for forces that
they deem perilous and that are bent on affecting a major transformation in the
Arab world is a challenge from a large and powerful counterpart.
And then there are personal perceptions. Turkey’s AKP leaders see
themselves as experienced politicians who have built their credibility from the
bottom up through successes at local, municipal, and national elections. They
regard the Gulf’s dynastic political system, and the decisive role that the
military establishments play in different Arab countries, as the antithesis of
their experience. Whether dictated by royal palaces or national security councils,
top-down politics reminds Turkish Islamists of 1980s’ Turkey under General
Kenan Evren, a period in which the Islamists were aggressively excluded from
politics.
From the perspective of the Egyptian and Gulf leaders, the AKP’s
Turkey has been trying, for almost a decade, to build a modern version of the
Ottoman Empire, in which Istanbul has direct political, economic, and cultural
influence over North Africa, parts of the eastern Mediterranean, and gradually
the Gulf. This evokes old, entrenched, and for most Arabs, distasteful memories
of Turkish rule in the Arab world.
Misunderstanding ultimately leads to aversion. When the stakes are
high, aversion leads to conflict. There will not be a military confrontation
between Turkey and the large Arab countries. But the more the interests of both
sides diverge, the higher the likelihood that a regional cold war would
commence. This could result in several low-intensity wars, fought through
proxies. We are already witnessing confrontations, in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and
to a lesser extent Lebanon, in which fighting groups seek the favor of
different regional powers. A rise in the tension between, on one side,
Istanbul, and on the other Cairo, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi, could significantly
fuel these confrontations, and waste a lot of resources.
Aversion takes a long time to change. But geopolitics was never about
personal tastes. Emerging threats compel the Arabs and Turks to cooperate. The
eastern Mediterranean, the region that separates Turkey from North Africa and
the Gulf, is undergoing a transformation unprecedented since the end of World
War One and the Sykes-Picot agreement that created its countries. This
transformation has given rise to a state of fluidity in which disruptive forces
(such as the Islamic State), sectarian powers (such as hardliner Sunni and
Shiite groups), and political adventurers (of which there are many in the
eastern Mediterranean) are trying to carve for themselves areas of influence.
These forces are wilfully dismembering the eastern Mediterranean.
Not only will countries slowly but certainly divide along sectarian
and ethnic lines; there will increasingly be major demographic shifts. For
example, the communities that reside in the plains extending from eastern Syria
to western Iraq are gradually moving to refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and
Turkey, and to shantytowns surrounding Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, and
Tripoli. Major infrastructure projects—especially water, energy, and
transportation projects—will be acutely disrupted. The eastern Mediterranean,
as a market, will be decimated. And the rise in jihadism and sectarianism will
resonate with local fissures in Turkey, North Africa, and the Gulf.
And then there is international intervention. These perils and shifts
are already drawing in the U.S., and to a lesser extent Europe, to try to douse
these dangers and mould the region’s future. And as we have seen from previous
foreign interventions, when the going inevitably gets tough, the international
powers will withdraw, leaving the countries of the region to confront the
consequences.
Experience in the last three years, especially in Iraq, Libya, and
Syria, have made it amply clear that flaring situations could not be
controlled. Known and unknown unknowns materialize, steer events in different
directions, and disrupt carefully devised plans. Fighting groups divide, turn
against old allies, and rarely obey the directions of their foreign masters. As
such, Turkey and the influential Arab countries should avoid the temptation of
fighting proxy-wars through pawns on the ground. They should work together now,
rather than wait to live with the ghosts of the ruins that will be left from
the coming destruction.
Tarek Osman is the
author of the international bestseller Egypt on the Brink.