Turkey-Russia turnabout

S P SETH

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visit to Russia is an important development. First of all, it breaks the logjam in their relationship, which nosedived after a Russian plane was shot down last November for breaching Turkish air space for bombing raids on Syrian rebels. Moscow denied any violation of Turkish air space and demanded an apology. As the apology was not forthcoming, the relations between the two countries were virtually suspended thus adversely affecting Turkish economy. Russia stopped imports of fruit and other agricultural products, and tourism from Russia was halted. Similarly grandiose projects like a gas pipeline and a nuclear power plant to be built in Turkey were suspended. Erdogan’s visit will now lead to a resumption of their suspended relationship, with prospects of closer ties between the two countries.

It would seem that Erdogan was already having second thoughts and was keen to repair the damage from the shooting of the Russian warplane. He had already expressed regret for the incident, as earlier demanded by Putin. In the wake of the failed military coup in Turkey, President Putin’s rapid phone call expressing solidarity with President Erdogan was regarded as a “psychological boost” by the Turkish President, when it was needed most. Which in a way puts in context Erdogan’s initiative to revive his country’s strained relationship with Russia. While Russian President was immediately forthcoming and supportive of Erdogan’s situation and apparently his crackdown on his internal enemies, the US and Europe have lately become critical of the sweeping nature of Erdogan’s suppression of all freedoms, using the coup as a blunt instrument to go after all his real and imagined enemies. And he feels let down because, in his view, his crackdown is indeed meant to protect democracy.

He believes that the US and Europe are hypocritical in not appreciating and recognizing that his enemies are indeed “terrorists” and that his campaign against them is on par with the west’s war on terrorism. And, in the case of the US, Erdogan feels even more aggrieved and betrayed that they are sheltering the cleric, Fathullah Gulen, who is said to be the mastermind behind the failed coup.  His Hizmet movement is said to be working for the overthrow of Erdogan’s democratically elected government. And by refusing to extradite Gulen for his “terrorist” crimes, the US is complicit in the failed coup and all that Gulen and his supporters are hatching against the Erdogan government and Turkey’s democracy.

Erdogan believes that he is not without leverage in seeking to forestall western criticism of his policies for failure to follow due legal processes.  Both Putin and Erdogan find western criticism and values self-serving and hypocritical. They find themselves under western pressure to tailor their internal politics and system to dovetail with western concept and practice of democracy as a universal system. Even though Turkey is a NATO ally, Ankara feels let down when subjected to criticism for its tough internal crackdown after its democratically elected government came close to be overthrown. And indeed, as the Erdogan government sees it, all this time the architect of all the conspiracies, Fathullah Gulen, is safely ensconced in the United States and acting with impunity.

The Turkish government is seeking Gulen’s extradition, but the US is refusing to hand him over even after President Erdogan made a direct request to President Obama. Therefore, as Ankara sees it, this is not how friends and allies are supposed to act. In the same way, but in a different context, Putin sees Russia subjected to comprehensive sanctions for safeguarding its sovereign interests from an advancing NATO alliance by seeking to coopt Ukraine into EU and, likely, into NATO. On the face of it, there is no agreement between them on specific issues that rile Turkey and Russia against the west. But there appears to be a shared sense of outrage over western hypocrisy and double standards. Russia is treated as a pariah and Turkey fears that it might be heading in that direction for refusing to ‘behave’ according to western norms.

Turkey would very much like its western allies, particularly the United States, to become part of its crusade against the Kurds which it regards as a bigger enemy than IS. But they happen to be the US’ principal ally on the ground against IS.  It is only recently that Turkey has hardened its policy against IS. Otherwise, it has been allowing jihadis and weapons to pass through its borders into Syria. Erdogan has sought all this time to bring down the Bashar al-Assad regime, and was unhappy when the United States didn’t take the opportunity to bomb Assad regime out of existence when it crossed Obama’s ‘red line’ with the use of chemical weapons on its citizens. And when Russians intervened to save Assad with their bombing sorties, it was then than Erdogan ordered the shooting of the Russian plane putting Russian-Turkish relations in serious jeopardy.

 Even though the process of repair and revival has seemingly begun, there is no indication that Turkey and Russia might sort out their serious differences on Syria policy. In other words, the apparent improvement in Moscow-Ankara relations appears tentative rather than substantive. While the imagery created by Erdogan’s Moscow visit is useful internally in both countries as having alternative options, their real value, as of now, lacks depth. The resumption of economic relations will marginally help Turkey but it cannot afford to risk its overall relationship with the US and Europe.

Erdogan seems to believe he has more cards to play, as he did with slowing down the exodus of refugees from Syria and elsewhere into Europe. However, Ankara is unhappy at the ‘ingratitude’ of the EU, even though they have reportedly paid Turkey over $4billion for its services. The promised visa-free travel for Turks doesn’t appear to have materialized. And considering that Europe is critical of Erdogan’s no-holds-barred repression of his ‘enemies’ in the country, it doesn’t look Turkey’s candidacy for EU membership is likely to make any advance. On the face of it, Turkey is not making much headway in enlisting the US and European support on a whole range of issues that it considers important.

Which has led President Erdogan to believe that he might be able use his Russian card to create the necessary space to deal with the US and Europe. But there is one problem. While Putin has been able to create a larger than life image for Russia by intervening in Ukraine and in Syria, Russia is no Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Although it is the second largest nuclear power in the world, its economy is in rather bad shape from falling oil prices compounded by comprehensive western sanctions. In that sense, it is a poor counterweight to the west, if that is what Erdogan is aiming. Even as Ankara is trying to play the Russian card as evidenced by Erdogan’s recent visit, there are reports that Ankara was insisting that it didn’t signal a fundamental shift in Turkey’s foreign policy.

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

Iraq war revisited

S P SETH

By now it is generally accepted that the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on a big lie. Now an exhaustive report of Britain’s role in the whole affair, when Tony Blair was the country’s prime minister, more or less, nails it down.  The seven-year investigation, led by Sir John Chilcot, has produced a voluminous report of 2.6 million words that is damning about all aspects from Tony Blair’s obeisance to then US president George Bush to the point of accepting whatever role the United Kingdom was assigned. In other words, London abandoned any serious effort to question and debate basic assumptions underlying the operations. The truth of the matter is that George Bush and his administration were set on attacking Iraq. And with this already settled, they went on looking for ‘evidence’ that would support their plans. And they were prepared to go it alone and would have ignored Blair, as they did the French and Germans (and Russians), who weren’t prepared to go along with the US. Blair didn’t want that, as he feared that this would affect his country’s special relationship with the US.

He wrote to George Bush, “I will be with you whatever…” Blair, though, was reportedly aware that things could go disastrously wrong like: “Suppose it got militarily tricky--- suppose Iraq suffered unexpected civilian casualties…suppose the Arab Street finally erupted…suppose the Iraqis feel ambivalent about being invaded and real Iraqis…decide to offer resistance…suppose that any difficulties are magnified and seized on by hostile international opinion… The possibility of unintended consequences will persist through and beyond the military phase.” He also supposed, if “Saddam…let off WMD”. Apart from the WMD part, which was a red herring, almost everything that Blair supposed in his letter has come true and worse.

Even though Chilcot report looks into British involvement and role in the Iraq war, it indeed is a perceptive and exhaustive dissection of the disasterous Iraq war saga. Indeed, the political decision to invade Iraq, already made by the Bush administration, sought conveniently corroborative and manufactured intelligence to prosecute their case. And Blair, even if he had some qualms, nevertheless willingly decided to follow the US lead. For instance, as Chilcot said, “The judgments about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s WMDs were presented with a certainty that was not justified.” In plain words, the threat was non-existent, but to make a case for invading Iraq it was necessary to present the worst-case scenario. He said that the British government’s policy on Iraq “was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments.” And: “They were not challenged as they should have been.” Britain, therefore, accepted the US lead regarding intelligence and timetable for the invasion without a supportive Security Council resolution, which wasn’t forthcoming.

The post-invasion disaster and chaos was not unpredictable. Blair’s defense that there was no way of knowing what followed was dismissed by Chilcot: “We do not agree that hindsight is required—the risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al-Qaeda activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion.” In other words, a rigorous examination of what might go wrong, though known, was brushed aside as Operation Iraqi Freedom was considered to have moral validity of its own. And where morality and power were on the side of the attackers, what could go wrong? It was as if the US-led invasion was a blessed enterprise against an important segment of the axis of evil--- other two being Iran and North Korea—that might have been next on the hit list. Bush seemed to believe, and James Merritt, once President of the Southern Baptist Convention, reportedly told him that he was God’s instrument at that time after the 9/11 attacks on US soil.  

The conservative cabal around George Bush, like his vice-president Dick Cheney, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and others who crafted the Iraq policy and much more, had felt that the US had missed opportunities to reshape the world after it became the only superpower, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineties. Following 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US soil, the Bush administration turned its attention to the Middle East, particularly Iraq, where his father had not quite finished the job by leaving Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War; even though the country was subjected to most comprehensive sanctions and Saddam was hardly a threat. But it was decided that Saddam’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and since he was not willing to surrender, the country was invaded in March 2003 to remove him and his (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction.

However, it was not imperative for the United Kingdom to join the US in this enterprise. But Blair did, earning him the title of “Washington’s poodle”, fearing that any independent role might damage Britain’s special relationship with the United States. However, France and Germany managed to maintain their independence without any real damage to their relationship with their ally, the US, even though Washington wasn’t happy about it. As Chilcot has noted, dwelling on the lessons for Britain, that “all aspects” of military intervention would “need to be calculated, debated and challenged with the utmost rigor”, meaning it was not done when London simply followed Washington in invading Iraq.

Even though the US was leading the charge to reshape the world to its dictates, starting with the Middle East, Britain was a willing partner. Bush and Blair governments were keen on pushing a new ‘enlightened’ version of imperialism. There was talk of creating new facts and new narratives for a new world. The terminology like Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the axis of evil, were supposed to end any argument about the desirability of ridding the world of ‘immoral’ and ‘criminal’ regimes and systems. It was assumed that the Iraqi people would welcome and embrace the US and British invasion designed to liberate them from Saddam Hussein’s yoke and giving them the ultimate gift of freedom and democracy. And we know, even without the damning Chilcot report, how the entire enterprise of invading Iraq has unfolded with the terrorism of IS and its affiliates and ‘lone wolf’ killers inflicted on the world.   

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

Iraq’s continuing nightmare

S P SETH

The recently launched military offensive to retake Fallujah from IS has reportedly made considerable progress, though it is not clear if IS has made a tactical retreat to rethink their entire strategy. If it is the latter, they might concentrate more on guerilla operations, to include suicide bombings and an array of ‘lone wolf’ and other small operations targeting high impact public places in the US and Europe.  The operation to retake Fallujah was a multi-pronged offensive combining Iraqi forces and Iranian militias, with considerable help from US aerial attack on IS positions. The US has never officially approved Iranian militia involvement but unofficially it is tolerated as IS has come to be virtually regarded as a common enemy. While winning back territory from IS is important, what is even important is to create a sense of security and stability among the civilian population. And that is the big question because civilians have become the cannon fodder in some ways in this murderous civil war.

While the IS is excels in brutality, Iraq’s Shia government and its militia allies are prone to go on rampage against Sunni population and Fallujah is predominantly Sunni. The practice generally is to separate the young male Sunni population and send them to detention centres for interrogation, generally a euphemism for torture and even execution where considered necessary for ‘security’ reasons.    Iraq has a fundamental problem of a deep-rooted sectarian divide, with each side regarding the other as untrustworthy. Worst still, they are not the real Muslims as seen from either side’s prism. Now that the Shias hold power, the minority Sunni population of the country is at the receiving end as a pay back of sorts for the brutality of Saddam’s Hussein’s period when Shias were easy game for his regime.

The foundation for instability in the Middle East dates back to the collapse of the Ottoman rule when the British and French colonialists helped themselves to the spoils by dividing much of the Middle East between them. In the process, they created territorial entities and kingdoms of incompatible parts that laid the foundation for subsequent trouble that is still with us. And when they finally decided to withdraw—but still keen to pull the strings--- they left behind territorial and constitutional arrangements that would be unworkable even at the best of times. No wonder, Middle East is such a mess.

If this wasn’t chaotic enough, the US and its western allies further inflamed the situation by introducing the external phenomena of an Israeli state, which become a flamethrower in an already incendiary situation. And when the Shah of Iran, a US ally, was overthrown in 1979 and replaced by a clerical regime thus turning the US and Iran into bitter enemies, Washington encouraged Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Iran’s regional rival and enemy, to attack Iran thus starting a bloody 8-year war in the eighties that was fought to a stalemate, but with hundreds of thousands of Iranian casualties.

The Iraq-Iran war bankrupted Saddam Hussein’s treasury owing lots of money to some of the Gulf monarchies, which had bankrolled his operations. That led him to attack Kuwait, hoping that its oil riches would solve all his financial problems and also make him into a determining force in the Middle East. And because of his virtual alliance with the US during his war with Iran, he didn’t expect the US to get so worked up over his Kuwait adventure as to start the first Gulf War. But with their dependence on Middle Eastern oil, the US wasn’t going to tolerate a regional upstart, like Saddam Hussein, to upset their carefully laid down strategic plans over many years. The first Gulf War put Saddam Hussein back in his box, but President Bush senior wasn’t yet decided about overthrowing him and replacing him with some one more compliant. At the time, the US hadn’t thought through what might come after Saddam Hussein, as there were too many imponderables.

The US had encouraged the Shias to rise but when they did and Saddam turned on them with great ferocity, the US administration declared a no-fly zone to warn off Saddam. To punish him for his Kuwait adventure, an already vanquished Iraq was subjected to a severe international sanctions regime, which hit badly its vulnerable people, like children and the old folks. The estimates of children’s deaths from lack of essential medicines and the like went as high as half-a-million. The conservative cabal around George W. Bush when he became president, some of whom had been his father’s close advisers, weren’t happy that Bush senior had left half-finished the Iraq business by leaving Saddam in the saddle even though in a very weakened position. They had plans to finish that job, now that they were ruling the roost with President Bush dependent on them to run the administration.

And they got their opportunity when September 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred and Saddam Hussein was said to have al Qaeda connections. He was also accused of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program as well as working on missile launchers---his so-called weapons of mass destruction. Even though there was no confirmation by the relevant international nuclear regulatory agency of any such nuclear program, the Bush administration decided to go ahead with plans to invade Iraq and to get rid of Saddam. Which they did and Saddam was hanged, with his state administration demolished but with no alternative blueprint or structure to run the country. The result was total chaos and out of this chaos emerged the Iraqi version of al Qaeda.

In other words, in a country where there was no al Qaeda to start with as Saddam would never have tolerated another power centre or insurgency movement, this one grew up in the chaos of the aftermath of his overthrow. Which eventually was suppressed by the American forces with the collaboration of the Sunni tribal chiefs who had turned on the al Qaeda in Iraq, as they seemed to become a law unto themselves treading on the Sunni traditional power structures. But after the Americans withdrew from Iraq and handed over the country to the incoming Shia regime, the new regime fractured the fragile unity forged by the US forces with the Sunni tribal allies by starting an orgy of revenge against the country’s Sunnis, which created the conditions for the emergence of a more brutal and extreme version of al Qaeda in the rise of IS that went on to carve out the so-called caliphate out of a large chunk of captured Iraqi and Syrian territory.

Its depredations and brutality have brought the US and its allies back into Iraq, this time deploying more of their air power and less of their ground forces, mostly in advisory roles. And they are now engaged, with Iraqi army and its associated militias, to push back IS. Which seems to be making progress as seen in Fallujah and elsewhere with the overwhelming use of American air power.

But pushing back IS here and there, welcome as it is, won’t solve the problem unless Iraq has a nationally cohesive state with the joint stake of its people. Moreover, that state would need to provide basic security to its people to live and plan their lives without fear of persecution and torture. Without this, an al Qaeda or IS or some variant of it, will tend to emerge.

Note: This article was first published in Daily Times.

Troubled times ahead for Turkey

S P SETH

It is a sign of troubled times ahead when the leader of a country starts seeing his country in his own image. And that is where Turkey is now with its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on a course to subvert the country’s system and institutions because, he believes, that they are somehow constraining his power to act as he sees fit to govern the country. Erdogan wants to be the country’s executive president, which, in effect, he already is because he has unfettered control of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Lately, he was unhappy with his prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu as he, at times, seemed to have a different take on some policy issues, and was a bit more in the limelight to Erdogan’s liking, as in the case of Turkey’s deal with EU on the question of refugees. Davutoglu was also not keen on Erdogan usurping all power, thus reducing his prime minister and parliament to a titular role. Davutoglu, therefore, had to go which happened duly as he resigned as prime minister, thus making for a more docile and loyal candidate, Binali Yildirim, transport minister till recently, that Erdogan could tolerate and live with. The new prime minister will also work with greater enthusiasm for an executive presidency.

At the same time as he is seeking to enshrine himself as the country’s executive president, Erdogan has declared an all out war on the country’s Kurdish population in southeast of the country. Kurds are estimated to make up 15 to 20 per cent of the country’s population. In the name of fighting the militant and separatist PKK, almost all the country’s Kurds have become real or potential PKK allies. In other words, any political opening with its Kurdish population has been abandoned in favour of ruthless and relentless security operations against the country’s Kurdish population. As part of this process, the predominantly Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which has representation in the parliament, might have its MPs stripped of parliamentary immunity for their alleged association/involvement with PKK.

This will have two important consequences. First: it will be the end of an earlier  tentative experiment by the Erdogan government to work out political accommodation with the country’s sizeable Kurdish population. If and when these Kurdish members of parliament are stripped of immunity and virtually declared terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, the country’s Kurds will be deprived of any political outlet to peacefully vent their grievances and frustrations and tend to be cast as an extension of the PKK network. That might be Erdogan’s strategy to cast them all as anti-national and PKK sympathizers to make security operations against them look valid, at least in the eyes of the country’s majority population. Second: as Kurdish HDP members lose their parliamentary immunity and liable to lose their seats, this should help the ruling AKP to amend the constitution in favour of executive presidency for the country. In any case, if new parliamentary elections are held soon, the security scare in the country from Kurdish ‘insurgency’ should help the ruling AKP to gain the mandatory parliamentary majority to amend the constitution that will make Erdogan the country’s executive president.

While Kurds remain his primary targets, Erdogan is also going after his critics among the mainstream Turkish population. When his erstwhile allies in the Hizmet movement, a quasi-religious and educational movement founded by Fethhullah Gulen, an old and ailing cleric now living in the US, exposed corruption involving government ministers and going as far up as Erdogan’s family, he started a purge of the judiciary, police and bureaucracy said to be manned by Hizmet supporters. So much so that the Gulen-inspired movement  came to be regarded as a threat to national security. And the axe has also fallen on a large chunk of the media critical of President Erdogan by being banned or simply taken over, and the journalists put behind bars. Elsewhere, anyone found  criticizing Erdogan might find himself/herself in jail for insulting the President. There are already many people behind bars for this reason. In other words, Erdogan is Turkey and anyone found to be lacking in respect and loyalty to him is a traitor to the country and should not expect any mercy.

This dangerously ridiculous situation of silencing Erdogan’s critics now has even spread to other countries. Erdogan believes that Turkey’s agreement with the EU to stem the tide of Middle Eastern refugees into Europe has given him an important leverage. Turkey is receiving billions dollars for it, possibly even qualifying for EU membership at some point, as well as visa free travel for Turkish citizens into Europe. And Erdogan intends to use this leverage to stifle any attempt to caricature his image in European media. A satirical sexual imaging of him by a German comic, who might face court under some archaic German law, particularly incensed him. But the satirist in question now has the backing of an important German media conglomerate, which has reproduced the ‘offensive’ language thus making it also liable under the same archaic law. Interestingly though, Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, has also satirized President Erdogan in a poem about his sexuality, but it might be difficult to charge him under British law.

Erdogan apparently thinks that his writ should also run outside Turkey. And with his new perceived leverage from the deal with EU over refugees, he is trying to enforce it. But he might be overrating his power, because Europe, or for that matter, rest of the world, doesn’t share his delusions of grandeur. In any case, the deal with the EU is facing problems as it goes through. Erdogan is in a hurry to get all that is promised under the deal within a short period, which Europe might not be able to deliver at his whim and within the stipulated time. And at home too, his absolutism will, at some point of time, create a counter force of popular reaction and protest that might throw Turkey into chaos. Which will further complicate and worsen an already explosive situation created by the multiple nature of conflict in Iraq and Syria, leading to even more refugees heading to Europe.

But Erdogan is determined to have his own way, as reported in a quote when he was serving as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s. For him, democracy and its attendant institutions are not sacrosanct. As he said, “Democracy is like a tram—you ride it until you drive at your destination, then you step off.” He certainly is saying true to his old dictum.  

Note: This article first appeared in the Dily Times.