Indispensable Even When Unreliable
| Published date | 01 March 2012 |
| Date | 01 March 2012 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070201206700105 |
| Author | Soli Ozel |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Indispensable even
when unreliable
AnanatomyofTurkish-Americanrelations
In their recently published memoirs, former Vice-President Dick Cheney
and former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice wrote the following:
Turkey had stood with us in Korea and, as a NATO member, been
an invaluable ally during the Cold War…. But by 2002 a worrisome
change was under way, and my visit with Turkish leaders, though
cordial, was far different from the one I had made in 1990, when
we were seeking allies to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait…
In November 2002 the Islamist AKP party would win a majority
in the parliament, making Recep Erdoğan, leader of the party, prime
minister the following March. The newly elected parliament would
reject our request to deploy the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division
through Turkey….
Soli Ozel is a professor in the international relations department at Kadir Has University
and is a columnist with Haber Turk daily.
| International Journal | Winter 2011-12 | 53 |
| Soli Ozel |
In general, I think we failed to understand the magnitude
of the shift that was taking place in Turkey. The significance of
an Islamist government taking power in one of America’s most
important NATO allies was in a sense obscured because of all the
other challenges we faced.
Today, Turkey appears to be in the middle of a dangerous
transition from a key NATO ally to an Islamist-governed nation
developing close ties with countries like Iran and Syria at the
expense of its relations with the United States and Israel.1
The freedom agenda as we knew would be the work of generations.
Nevertheless, in the short term, it was important to have some
concrete manifestation of the possibility of its success. Turkey was
a stable country that, in its transition, was providing evidence that
democracy and Islam could exist side by side.2
In a recent article, Şaban Kardaş argues against Ian Lesser’s stance
that Turkey’s current foreign policy represents a third wave of strategic
orientation, defined by the quest to find strategic assurance in rehabilitating
traditional ties and strategic relationships with western allies, particularly
the United States.3 According to Kardaş, uncertain of the reliability of the
United States, cognizant of Washington’s diminishing capabilities, and in
need of regional allies as the US begins its retrenchment phase, “Turkey will
not trade its strategic autonomy for reassurance and deterrence. Be prepared
to see some of the same old wine in a new bottle: policy convergence with the
West accompanied by desire for autonomous action and rhetorical criticism
of the West.”4
Here you have all the codes you need to decipher Turkish foreign policy
and particularly its relations with the United States. You have Turkey as the
ingrate Islamically oriented country that turns its back on the west; then you
1 Dick Cheney, In My Time (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011), 379.
2 Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New
York: Crown, 2011), 329.
3 Ian O. Lesser, “Turkey’s third wave and the coming quest for strategic
reassurance,” German Marshall Fund for the United States, 26 October 2011, www.
gmfus.org.
4 Şaban Kardaş, “The quest for strategic autonomy continues, or how to make sense
of Turkey’s ‘new wave’,” German Marshall Fund for the United States, 28 November
2011, www.gmfus.org.
| 54 | Winter 2011-12 | International Journal |
| Indispensable even when unreliable |
have the Turkey of great ambitions, ambitions so great that it may overreach
its capacity in this moment of enthusiasm or hubris; and finally you have a
Turkey that takes advantage of the structural shifts in international relations,
puts its own vision to work, defines its environment, and seeks to maintain
its room for maneuver.
These quotes summarize the conflicting views of many in the United
States concerning Turkey’s government and its foreign policy. The
recent downgrading of diplomatic relations with Israel, accompanied by
acrimonious language on the part of the authorities, certainly reinforced
such views. Turkey is seen by some as turning its back on the west, and
the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) is deemed to be Islamizing
Turkey’s foreign policy. Such views are propagated incessantly and disregard
the actual record. That Turkey has just agreed to host the radar for NATO’s
Iran-aimed missile shield system, and that it works closely with the Obama
administration on Iraq, Syria, and the broader Middle East, are both easily
ignored.
Outwardly, the relations between the US and Turkey appeared to be on
the rocks in the wake of the 2003 Iraq resolution to which Cheney alludes.
The US felt betrayed by its long-standing ally. Turkey, on the other hand,
felt that Washington totally disregarded the vital interests and well-founded
concerns of Ankara when it undertook its ill-fated Iraq adventure. There were
Turkish complaints because of insufficient American assistance against the
terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers’ Party headquartered in northern
Iraq. There were serious disagreements over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear
program, which culminated in a row after Turkey’s vote at the UN security
council on sanctions against Iran. That vote generated rage in the White
House and on Capitol Hill, but since then Ankara’s relations with Tehran
have changed considerably.
A final major cause for Turkish-American tension is the troubled
relationship between Turkey and Israel that reached a breaking point in
the wake of Israel’s fatal raid on an aid flotilla that took the lives of nine
individuals—eight Turks and one Turkish-American. Ankara’s estrangement
from Tel Aviv and the vitriol it aims at Israel generate problems, particularly
in the US congress, as every instance of deterioration in relations engenders
a...
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