WHY THE WORLD IS TAKING NOTE OF TURKEY
>From theTrumpet.com
September 12, 2007
Turkish voters have elected a former Islamist as president. Here’s why
many nations are asking: just how significant is this? By Joel Hilliker
When Turkish voters elected a former Islamist as president August 28,
it highlighted the complex geopolitical riddle unfolding in modern
Turkey.
Turkey is a nation with a split identity. The nation’s population is
almost wholly Muslim, but its constitution is staunchly secular. It
is a democracy and a constitutional republic, yet since 1960 its
military leaders have overthrown four duly elected governments for
being too religious. It is anchored to the Middle East as a member
of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, yet welded to the
West within the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. On top of that,
a pillar in Turkey’s foreign policy for a generation has been its
bid for membership in the European Union.
The new president, Abdullah Gul, is right at the center of this
puzzle. He was a cabinet member in one of the ousted Islamic
governments in the 1990s-yet he has been a leading supporter of
his nation’s EU membership application. His devotion to Europe
certainly placates the nation’s generals and military commanders,
but his religion still chafes against their fierce loyalty to the
secularist ideals institutionalized in 1923 by the nation’s founder,
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The stickiness of Gul’s ascension to the presidency showed in two
conspicuous absences at his swearing-in ceremony: Gul’s Muslim wife
(who would have been breaking Turkish law by entering a public building
wearing her Islamic headscarf) and Turkey’s military leaders (who
are probably still wrestling over whether to expel the new president).
Outside these domestic tensions, nations across the globe are
contemplating the implications of an Islamic Turkish presidency. That
is because for all its contradictions, Turkey is shaping up to be an
extremely significant global player.
After decades of relative insular quiet since the Ottoman Empire
collapsed at the end of World War i, the nation is enjoying an
impressive geopolitical surge. As the globe increasingly fractures
into regional blocs-the United States, the Middle East, Europe,
Asia-Turkey remains a distinct entity whose value to all of these
powers is rapidly rising.
Let’s examine three reasons Turkey is warranting so much global
interest.
First, its economy is on fire-it is one of the fastest-growing on
Earth. Since 2002, under the leadership of the Justice and Development
Party, to which Gul belongs, the economy has transformed. It is now
the largest Muslim economy, and the largest in the region. Turkey is a
member of the G-20, a gathering of the world’s 20 largest economies. In
addition, it is playing its cards wisely, reducing restrictions on
trade with Muslim states while cultivating relationships with European
and other nations at the same time.
As Dr. George Friedman put it, "The ability of Greece, Armenia, Syria,
Iraq and Iran to remain hostile to Turkey decreases as the Turkish
economy grows.
Ideology and history are very real things, but so is the economic
power of a dynamic economy" (Stratfor, July 31).
Of course, a large Turkish economy means a large Turkish
military. Already it is nato’s second-largest armed force after
the U.S., with over 1 million uniformed personnel. This fact has
several ramifications regarding the balance of power in the Middle
East and elsewhere.
Second, Turkey is comfortably stepping into a ready-made role as a
vital energy hub linking Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.
This is one of the most geographically strategic nations in the
world-a literal bridge between continents. On its west, Turkey
borders Greece and Bulgaria-EU nations; on its south, Syria, Iraq
and Iran-Middle Eastern Muslim states; and on its east, Armenia,
Georgia and Azerbaijan-former Soviet republics. It connects to the
Mediterranean, Black and Aegean seas, and encompasses the vital
Bosporus and Dardanelles sea gates, linking Central Asia to the
Mediterranean. In a world increasingly driven by energy politics,
its unique location translates into valuable energy transit routes
for more and more nations.
With Russia aggressively taking over global oil and natural gas
markets, uncomfortable customers, particularly Europe, are actively
seeking energy from other sources. Turkey is in the right place at
the right time, with major oil pipelines being built across its soil,
circumventing Russian territory altogether. Turkey is proving itself
a worthy middleman for energy from not only former Soviet republics
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, but also Iraq and Iran. In addition, Turkey,
in conjunction with foreign investors and companies, is building new
oil refineries, which will increase its worth even more.
Analysts say the nation’s refining capacity should double within only
a few years.
This reality seems tailor-made to suit Turkey’s foreign-policy
interests, because the entity hungriest for non-Russian energy
happens to be the very one Turkey has been working so hard to pretty
itself up for: Europe. To this point, Ankara’s designs on becoming
European-in the works since 1959-have been repeatedly rebuffed and
postponed. Turkey hopes that becoming an energy bridge to the Continent
will finally convince the EU to return the love.
Naturally, the whole situation also deeply concerns Russia,
whose monopolistic energy tendencies are undercut by Turkey’s
activities. (Moscow is also irked by any shift toward Islamism around
Central Asia, which, it could be argued, the Turkish election was.
Russia is robustly fighting a strong Islamist incursion on its
southwestern border, particularly against Muslim separatists in
Chechnya. It has proof that Turkey financially supported and trained
Chechen terrorists in their struggle for independence. So Turkey is
already on Russia’s bad side.)
A third reason for Turkey’s growing significance is its role in
the unfolding drama surrounding the future of Iraq. The two primary
external players-the U.S. and Iran-both need Turkey’s cooperation in
order to resolve the crisis in a manner suited to their own national
interests. This gives Ankara heavy leverage with both.
The Iraq war has created problems for Turkey. Since the late 1970s,
it has struggled with a restive Kurdish population in its southeast
region, driven by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (pkk). This terrorist
group seeks to carve an independent Kurdish state out of territory in
southeast Turkey, as well as parts of Syria, Iraq and Iran. Whatever
differences these four nations have, they are united in their
determination to stop Kurdistan from materializing.
The fact that the U.S. emboldened the Iraqi Kurds by eliminating
Saddam Hussein rocked the alliance between Turkey and the U.S.-and
simultaneously strengthened the historically wary relationship between
Ankara and Tehran.
The U.S. is in a tight spot. The Kurds have been the friendliest of
any faction in Iraq, and the U.S. doesn’t want to turn its back on
them. But in practical terms, as it contemplates reducing its presence
in Iraq, Washington’s primary concern is to try to prevent Iran from
simply taking over-not just Iraq but virtually the entire Middle
East. In Turkey, it sees the closest thing it has to a regional
counterbalance to Iran. So we can expect to see the U.S. looking
for ways to demonstrate solidarity with Turkey as it contemplates
troop withdrawals.
At the same time, Iran will surely seek to cement its new rapport with
the one power that could check its own regional ambitions. And you can
be sure that any move in that direction will make Israel nervous, with
whom Turkey has enjoyed an enormously important strategic partnership
for some years.
So, how might Abdullah Gul’s election-and even more, the new reality
that "for the first time since the founding of the Turkish republic
more than 80 years ago, a political force rooted in Islamism
essentially controls all of the key civilian institutions of the
state," in the words of Stratfor (August 29)-affect these various
situations?
This is the question on the minds of several national
leaders-including, quite notably, those in the U.S., the European
Union, Central Asia, Russia, Iraq, Iran and Israel. It is certainly
worthy of contemplation, and has serious global ramifications. The
Trumpet will take up the question in a future article.