Turkey’s political calculus

S P SETH

Turkey’s President Recep Tayip Endogan with his Ottoman complex, which requires him to play a determining role in the old domains of the Ottoman Empire, has not quite found the role that suits his temperament. He is still testing the waters as his recent attacking role simultaneously against IS and the Kurds testifies. His earlier attempts to shape Middle Eastern politics following the Arab Spring didn’t make much headway. In Syria, for instance, he wanted Bashar al-Assad’s regime to make way for the rebels, which the Syrian leader simply ignored. He then wanted the US to get rid of the dictator when he ignored Obama’s ‘red line’ by using chemical weapons.

True, the US too wanted to get rid of the Syrian dictator but didn’t find any reliable and effective alternative among the rebels to replace the Assad regime. The situation got murky with multiplicity of rebel groups of varied hues of jihadi credentials, often at war with each other.  The US found it difficult to distinguish between the secular nationalists and downright extremists. Not surprisingly, Washington started wavering, not sure if betting on these heterogeneous groups was a good idea. Therefore, its enthusiasm regarding immediate removal of the Assad regime slackened, though he was and still is the odious dictator. Such wavering on the US’s part enraged Turkey, and Ankara reckons it led to the rise of IS to become the menace it is today.

The rise of IS and its territorial expansion across the border between Iraq and Syria has created some difficult problems for Turkey. As a US and NATO ally, it was expected to be an integral and active part of the coalition against IS. But Turkey had reservations about playing an active military role, including providing bases for US aerial attacks on IS positions in Syria, which didn’t endear it to its western allies. From Turkey’s viewpoint, the collaboration between the Kurds and the US against IS had created a virtual alliance between the two.  And this was seen to be strengthening Kurdish nationalism straddling Iraq, Turkey and Syria.

Earlier, in 2013, Turkey and Kurdistan Workers Party---commonly known by its acronym, PKK---the militant Kurdish movement for an autonomous/independent Kurdish region within Turkey--- had entered into a ceasefire, which had largely held. But when IS operatives attacked a cultural centre in a Turkish border town killing 32 people, most of them young Kurd activists keen on helping their compatriots in their reconstruction work across the Syrian border, that seemed to have settled the argument for Turkey to go after both IS and the Kurds. The reported killing of a couple of Turkish soldiers around the time was blamed on the Kurds. And Turkey unleashed a barrage of aerial strikes against PKK mountain hideouts in northern Iraq, where they had fled and established military camps across the Turkish border. At the same time, Turkey also expanded its operations against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. In other words, it was a virtual declaration of war against the Kurds, inside and outside Turkey. At the same time Turkey was also attacking IS positions, even as it allowed the US to use its bases for aerial attacks and more intensive surveillance.  

This has put the US and NATO in a tight spot. The use of Turkish bases has certainly made operations against IS more effective, and Ankara’s offensive against IS a valuable addition to the US-led coalition. The downside, though, is that by declaring a war on the Kurds, it tends to undercut an important US ally on the ground in the war against IS. In other words, while the US gains Turkey as an active ally, the Kurds will be fighting war on two fronts against Turkey as well as IS. And they happen to be the one really effective force standing up to IS on the ground. And by going after Kurds, Turkey appears to be helping IS. If so, Turkey is using this situation to finish off and/or weaken the Kurdish autonomy/independence movement by abandoning any pretense of political reconciliation with its Kurdish community for which there had been some forward movement in the last few years.

Concerned with perceived Kurdish empowerment from a virtual alliance with the US against IS, Erdogan’s Turkey was also shaken by the recent parliamentary elections in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority. The sizeable vote of over 13 per cent for the predominantly Kurdish party gave them a number of seats in the parliament, making it difficult for the AKP to form a government. Losing parliamentary majority has upset Erdogan’s plans to use parliament to change the constitution to become Turkey’s executive president. And by raising the spectre of a security threat to the country both at home and abroad from Kurds and IS, he is seeking to create a national emergency to subvert the political process in the country. For instance, there is talk of stripping Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament of their parliamentary immunity, ostensibly for security reasons. Or else, hold new parliamentary elections against the backdrop of a national security threat to rally people around the ruling party. We will soon know which way Erdogan will sway— stripping the Kurdish parliamentary members of their immunity or hold new elections. Probably, he will do both successively. 

At the same time, the US and NATO would find it difficult to criticize the Erdogan government for going after the Kurds on charges of terrorism. PKK is branded a terrorist organization in many countries. Already the US is saying that Turkey has a right to defend itself, more or less absolving it of extreme measures. It is extraordinary that up to now IS was considered the biggest threat. Turkey has now changed the calculus to its advantage by putting the focus also on the Kurds, at least when it comes to its security. Turkish’s induction as an active US partner against IS might even prove a liability by completely muddying an already murky picture.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au  

What drives Islamic State?

S P SETH

Islamic State (IS) is the stuff that nightmares are made of. We don’t know much about its working, though some recent studies and reporting is starting to throw some light on it. What is generally known about IS, though, is that it is a killing machine given to beheading, maiming and whatever else might create the maximum fear among its enemies. And as part of creating fear, it encourages its followers/sympathizers to act in any way that will terrorize people, such as a ‘lone wolf’ attack and/or blowing up Shia mosques. These and other acts are designed to make even ordinary people going about their ordinary lives imbibe a sense of terror lurking anywhere and everywhere. Saudi Arabia is a case in point, where IS activists/jihadis wrought havoc recently in a series of explosions targeting the country’s Shias and their places of worship. Saudi Arabia has reportedly arrested hundreds of suspected IS operatives.

Another recent example is the bombing of a cultural centre in a Turkish town on Syria-Turkish border targeting Kurdish activists gathered there to help their fellow Kurds across the border in reconstruction of their shattered lives and battered town. This has brought Turkey into direct conflict, surprisingly, with both the Kurds and IS. Ankara was hoping they would tear each other out, with Turkey standing aside as an observer and/or occasionally nudging one or the other in the desired direction. It has obviously not worked. And IS continues to make waves. So much so, here in Australia, the country’s prime minister is warning people that IS is coming after each and everyone.

In a similar situation when al Qaeda sprung upon the world stage with the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, they were seen as larger than life. And despite the elimination of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda brand is still around here and there. However, it is largely eclipsed by IS. And one important reason is that, unlike al Qaeda, IS a territorial entity where its writ runs while al Qaeda leadership was on the run or sheltering in Pakistan after the US invasion of Afghanistan. And by continuing not only to exist but, at times, to expand their territory and message, IS tend to perpetuate their cause and myth. And by announcing their self-styled caliphate, they have pronounced a future to revive and recreate the glory of an Islamic past.

Which resonates with many Muslims even though most Muslims would be appalled by their methodology of terrorist violence. And it resonates with many Muslims because they feel a great sense of injustice and humiliation since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the caliphate. The period following that saw the division of the remnants of the Ottoman territory of the Middle East into British and French colonial outposts, and the emergence of an independent Israel out of the Palestinian territory. The imposition of a Jewish state largely supported by the US and its allies in the midst of a Muslim world, only added to the outrage and humiliation of a people that were still wrestling with their downsizing. And this hurt continues with Israel still running riot with the Palestinian land by building more and more settlements to virtually negate the idea of a sovereign Palestinian homeland. The IS is championing the Palestinian cause too, even seeking to supplant Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The oil rich states of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners are also in IS’s sight. In other words, IS is tapping into the deeply humiliated psyche of the Muslim world.

But in the process it is also antagonizing many in the Muslim world by its wanton and ghoulish use and display of violence. And such representation of Islam certainly doesn’t strike chord with many Muslims. It is important to remember that Muslims are not an undifferentiated lot that might fit into an image created and projected by IS. While most of them follow their faith, their interpretation and practice of their religion is practical and reflect local characteristics. Besides, they have their national and sectarian divide and differences. Therefore, this fundamentalist view of a global Muslim community just pining to rally under the IS flag is overly done.

Having said this, it is also worth noting that within their territorial entity, IS is trying to run a brutal, but in its own way, efficient governing machine that works as long as those under its control follow rules and edicts couched as Islamic precepts. According to Tim Arango, reporting from Istanbul quoting one Raqqa resident (IS’s de facto capital in Syria), “You can travel from Raqqa to Mosul and no one will dare to stop you even if you carry $1millon.” It is partly because the IS functions at a certain level according to their own raw morality but, partly, because of widespread fear of draconian punishments if caught. Arango adds that, “Now there is a limited sense of order…, a low bar, perhaps, but a reality amid years of war and anarchy…” against the backdrop of more than ten years of war in Iraq and a brutal civil war in Syria for the last 4 years. This makes people feel that “[in IS] there is a functioning state.” And as long as people “avoid any dissent, they can largely go about their lives.”

According to a new book, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, by Abdel Bari Atwan (to be published in September and previewed in The New York Review of Books), the IS is a well structured entity with two deputies (formerly members of  Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party) who assist the caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with a hierarchical structure down the line. There are said to be advisory councils and several departments run by committees, with leaders of each department sitting in Baghdadi’s “cabinet”. And the most powerful of these councils is the Sharia Council, which is said to oversee draconian implementation of the penalties for “crimes against God’s limits” that include amputations and capital punishment.

According to Atwan’s account, the display of horrific atrocities put up on the Internet are part of a coherent strategy. To quote the author, “Crucifixions, beheadings, the hearts of the rape victims cut out and placed upon their chests, mass executions, homosexuals being pushed from high buildings, severed heads impaled on railings or brandished by grinning ‘jihadist’ children… these gruesome images of brutal violence are carefully packaged and distributed via Islamic State’s media department.” He adds, “As each new atrocity outdoes the last, front page headlines across the world’s media are guaranteed.” With an estimated force of anywhere between 30,000 and 100,000, IS has certainly been able to create a larger than life image through gruesome images that also strike terror and revulsion among people.

At the same time, for its followers IS is “an emotionally attractive place where people ‘belong’, where everyone is a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’…” and where the glory of ‘martyrdom’ is within easy reach. And this governing machine has its own sources of revenue through illicit sale of oil and through taxes. Its budget is said to be managed by an Economic Council. In January 2015, for instance, overall receipts were reported to be $2 billion, with a surplus of $250 million added to the war chest. Therefore, it is a well-oiled machine in all its aspects and seems to strike a chord among a section of the dispossessed and disenchanted among the Muslim youth in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. Those working for it and affiliated with it feel empowered striking terror among its hapless victims.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au