THERE IS A TURKISH REMEDY FOR ANTI-AMERICANISM IN TURKEY
Soner Cagaptay
Daily Star
April 24 2009
Lebanon
President Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey could not have gone better
in terms of winning Turkish hearts and minds. Obama did all the right
things, visiting Ataturk’s mausoleum, the Blue Mosque and the Turkish
Parliament, capturing the complexity of a country that is Turkish by
birth, Muslim in culture and Western in its political identity.
Yet Washington still faces a challenge among the Turks: after a
debilitating downturn in recent years, America’s favorability rating
is at rock bottom. Obama should be concerned about this phenomenon
that, if it continues to be ignored, will eat into the foundations of
the new United States-Turkish relationship that he wants to promote
on key issues, including Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. As serious as the
problem is, though, Turkish anti-Americanism can be fixed.
Obama cannot and should not ignore anti-Americanism in Turkey, because
as a democracy, Turkish politics and politicians are ultimately
accountable to public opinion. Washington can sustain cooperation
with all sorts of authoritarian Muslim states, such as Egypt,
despite pervasive anti-Americanism in those countries, because
these authoritarian regimes do not care for public opinion. In
Turkey, however, these sentiments will sooner or later erode,
reshape and then cripple governmental cooperation with the United
States. Anti-Americanism in Turkey presents a larger, more immediate
challenge to the Obama administration than it does in other Muslim
majority societies.
Obamamania will help face this challenge. According to a recent poll
by Infacto, whereas only 9 percent of Turks thought favorably of the
US president four years ago, at the time George W. Bush, today 39
percent have a positive view of Barack Obama. However, this jolt has
not lifted America’s standing in Turkey to match political ambitions
for long-term and grand cooperation with Ankara as laid out by Obama’s
speech to the Turkish Parliament on April 6. The Infacto poll also
shows that 44 percent of Turks view the United States as the biggest
threat to Turkey.
Lately, the United States has done the right things to win Turkish
hearts and minds. First, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during her
March visit to Turkey, and then Obama gave the Turks a needed bear hug,
emphasizing that the United States likes the Turks, respects their
faith and supports their Western vocation. Washington is assisting
Turkey in its struggle against the terror attacks of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), a key security concern for many Turks. Obama has
even shied away from his campaign promise to support the "Armenian
Genocide" bill in the US Congress, which many Turks find extremely
offensive.
At this stage, there is little more that Washington can do to charm
the Turks. As I learned during a recent sabbatical in Turkey, the
Turks form their views of the world based upon what they hear from
their leadership. Turkey is a rare fence-sitting country between East
and West, in which pro-American and Western statements have the same
weight in shaping public views as do views that oppose the United
States and the West.
Since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed power
in 2002, the Turks have not heard anything positive about the West
from their leadership. In fact, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan has often lambasted the West, suggesting, for instance, that
"the West uses terrorism to sell Turkey weapons" or that "Turkey
has borrowed only immoral stuff from the West." Anti-Americanism has
become pervasive in Turkey as not just the AKP, but also even secular
and nationalist leaders now vehemently voice such views.
The United States cannot stop entrenched anti-Americanism altogether;
only the Turkish leadership can do that. Hence, the first step toward
combating anti-Americanism would be zero anti-American and anti-Western
rhetoric from opinion makers in Turkey, whether they are on the
side of the government or on the side of the opposition. By avoiding
anti-American rhetoric, the Turkish leadership could demonstrate that
it is ready to receive Obama’s extended olive branch.
The next step is targeting existing anti-Americanism, which can be
alleviated precisely because the Turks are a fence-sitting people. What
the Turks hear about the United States and the West shapes their
views. In battling anti-Americanism, the Turkish leadership needs to
highlight for the Turks the common interests of Turkey and the US,
such as a stable Iraq; shared institutions, such as NATO; and shared
values, such as democracy. Ankara should also give Washington major
credit for intelligence assistance to Turkey in its attempt to stop
the terror attacks launched by the PKK. Many Turks are not only unaware
of this fact, but also think that the United States supports the PKK,
as many news reports and government allegations have insinuated. The
situation on the PKK shows best how Turkish views of the United States
can be distorted.
Barack Obama should not despair when faced with evidence of
anti-Americanism in Turkey. This is indeed an immediate and big
problem, but it can be fixed. There is a Turkish solution to
anti-Americanism in Turkey.
Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy and the author of "Islam, Secularism and Nationalism
in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk?" This commentary first appeared at
bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter that publishes
articles on Middle Eastern and Islamic issues.