TURKISH DILEMMA: CAN THE FRAYED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND TURKEY BE REPAIRED?
by Jeffrey Azarva
The Weekly Standard
lic/Articles/000/000/016/009jjztw.asp
Jan 15 2009
As I traveled across Turkey in November, optimism over Barack Obama’s
electoral victory was in the air. Several Turks told me stories of
villagers who had sacrificed 44 sheep in honor of the 44th president’s
election. They were not alone in their jubilation: Indeed, many people
I met believed President-elect Obama could restore U.S. moral clarity
and mend the troubled U.S.-Turkish alliance.
Such sanguinity does not surprise. Come inauguration day, the United
States will enjoy, at least briefly, a spike of good will in global
public opinion, if for no other reason than the fact that Obama is
not George W. Bush.
Nowhere might this bounce be more needed than in Turkey. In recent
years, relations between Washington and Ankara have frayed. From
Turkey’s March 2003 refusal to open up a second front in Operation
Iraqi Freedom to Congress’ October 2007 deliberation of an
Armenian genocide resolution, events have fed mutual distrust and
recrimination. Today, polls consistently rank Turks as the most
anti-American nation on Earth.
Conventional wisdom in Turkey lays much of the blame for this crisis
of confidence at the doorstep of the Bush White House. If only
U.S. policymakers had appreciated Turkish concerns more in the run-up
to the Iraq war and not stonewalled on providing Ankara assistance in
its fight against PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) terrorists, Turks,
the logic goes, would have far less reason to inveigh against the
United States.
It is naive, however, to think the reversal of Bush administration
policy alone will induce a sea change in Turkish public attitudes. The
burden of improved U.S-Turkish relations does not lie squarely on
Obama’s shoulders. To believe otherwise would exculpate Turkey’s
ruling Justice and Development Party–an Islamist-rooted party known
by its Turkish acronym, the AKP–and its media organs of stoking
rampant anti-Americanism.
Indeed, under the AKP’s stewardship, U.S. bashing has become something
of a national sport. One of the most egregious instances of such
incitement came in October 2003 when Yeni Å~^afak, an Islamist
daily close to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, published a lead
story accusing U.S. soldiers of raping thousands of Iraqi women. The
scurrilous allegations served as motivation for a suicide bombing
the following month that devastated HSBC’s Turkish headquarters,
killing eleven.
Yet, Islamist media outlets affiliated with the AKP have since grown
more unrestrained. Following the July 2008 attack on the U.S. consulate
in Istanbul, the pro-AKP press again flew into high dudgeon. The daily
Vakit accused U.S., British, and Israeli intelligence of orchestrating
the attack, which killed six people, including three Turkish policemen,
in order to push Ankara into Washington’s lap. The AKP’s subsequent
silence did little to disabuse Turks of this notion.
I observed the cumulative effect of such slander when I met with
college students in the city of Adana. The meeting, part of a State
Department-funded exchange program to bridge the gap in U.S-Turkish
relations, revealed distorted views of the United States in the
Turkish press. For example, none of the students knew anything of
U.S. relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami, and several Turkish papers
even blamed Washington for the natural disaster. Worse, all believed
PKK terrorists received arms from U.S. forces in Iraq.
The fact that the media peddles this latter myth is telling. Since
2007, U.S. Kurdish policy has reversed course. Resentment may
linger, but U.S. action against the PKK–whose presence in northern
Iraq Washington once tolerated–is now resolute. Today, with both
U.S. intelligence and acquiescence, Turkish warplanes regularly enter
Iraqi airspace to strike PKK targets.
Still, Turkish media continue to prevaricate. Following an October 4,
2008, PKK attack that killed 15 Turkish soldiers, the mainstream daily
Milliyet opined that the "heavy weaponry [used in the attack] cannot be
moved, deployed, and implemented without [U.S.] authorities…receiving
information about it." Milliyet may be secular, but its journalists
find themselves under increased pressure to hew an AKP line.
The AKP’s media apparatus has endorsed similar conspiracy theories,
too. But incitement is not just a sin of commission. The AKP leadership
has repeatedly failed to repudiate anti-American rhetoric elsewhere
that, left unchallenged, is often taken as fact. Though the AKP cannot
be called to account for every incendiary comment, the reality is
that anti-American sentiments have proliferated on their watch. Alas,
more Turks now appear willing to act on what they hear.
Washington can no longer countenance this situation. While Obama can
help matters–enlisting Iraqi Kurdistan’s support against the PKK
would be a good start–he alone cannot solve them. The AKP must begin
to tell it like it is and curb widespread anti-Americanism. Should it
not, the answer to "Who lost Turkey?" will end up being far different
from what the current narrative would have us believe.
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