AMERICAN OUTLOOK OF TURKEY’S IRAQ POLICY

 

Misjudgements and mismanagement of Washington’s Iraq policy especially in respect of where Turkey stands in all this has brought Turkish-American relations to a critical point, paradoxically more critical for the United States than for Turkey, which clearly has the tremendous advantages of location that outweigh the trump cards of a superpower. Current world balances have provided Turkey unforeseen advantages over this incident by opening up the gates of accession to the European Union because of its 1 March rebuff to President Bush’s Iraq policy based on flouting international law rules which alarmed the whole world especially the “Old Europe”. For an objective analysis of where Turkish-American relations are standing today in the aftermath of the mistakes Washington has made in its Iraq policy in regard to Turkey’s role and place, please read the article below.

The Bush Administration has begun to understand the mistakes made in its assessments of Turkey’s role in its war plans and calculations about Iraq and is appreciating more each day the grave consequences it may all yield to the United States at this critical point of its national economy. Worse still, it seems it may make further and graver mistakes in similar aggressions against Iran, Syria and other countries of the region if the present hardliner American Administration is not stopped in time. The democratic regime of the United States is certainly a good reality preventing the recurrence of such adventures by a superpower.

The disinformation chorus in the Turkish media misleads the Americans

Instrumental in Washington’s enormous mistakes in its Iraq policy, which has put it into today’s mess in Iraq, is judging Turkish policies and trends with an American outlook instead of objectively analysing the underlying reasons and realities about Turkish conduct and future policies. Naturally, Turkish media is not helping Washington. A handful of press barons in Turkey and their pencil pushers are only bothered about the green dollars they will receive from the American Disinformation Mechanism for the articles they write rather than reflecting the realities of the Turkish nation and government. Consequently this publication’s motto “Free press is the Pulse of Turkey” prove to be totally wrong. The heavy disinformation in the Turkish media does not only mislead Washington’s rivals about Turkey’s future policies, but ironically also the American policy makers. They read these Turkish articles written by a handful of greedy journalists using their talents for pushing out disinformation in chorus and come to believe these fallacies as Turkey’s realities.

Here are a few of the latest examples of these fallacies and the realities behind them.

“The AK Party Government made a mistake by believing that the United States could not possibly succeed in the military operation in Iraq without Turkey’s help from the north and sought exorbitant economic gains through horse trading for this support. With the 1 March rebuff in the Turkish Parliament, which was an outcome of this erroneous belief, it made a mess of Turkish-American strategic cooperation,” repeatedly write these disinformation mongers and American official sources repeat such arguments, demanding the discontinuation of this policy over the prospective steps the United States will take in Iran and Syria.

The whole claim is totally unfounded and consequently the policies and political moves made on that basis are also erroneous. That is the reason for the failure of the American approaches to Ankara through Paul Wolfowitz’s statements to the Turkish media about the aftermath of the 1 March rebuff with Mark Grossman’s public support.

The truth is the exact opposite of what the Disinformation Mechanism has pushed through to the public. Far from believing that the Americans could not carry out a successful military operation in Iraq without the second front from the north, the Turkish Government earnestly warned Baghdad from the first day that it stood no chance of resistance to the American air strikes and that it should never risk the war. The secret meeting of Abdullah Gul, the Prime Minister of the time, with Taha Yasin Ramadan in " Kayseri " shortly before the American military action actually centred on that point. Even though PM Gul refrained from confirming it when the secret meeting was leaked to the Turkish media by the Americans in their great curiosity about the details of this secret top level contact, he did offer Saddam Hussein safe conduct in Turkey with the end in view of avoiding the tragedies of this desperate war. He was also frank enough to tell Ramadan that Iraq was much weaker than in 1990 and the Americans were far stronger with enormous technological advances in their weaponry in the last decade.

Ankara is not sure what Washington expects of Turkey

Turkey was sure of the success of the USA’s military operation in Iraq, but was unsure of what would happen in the aftermath of the defeat of the Saddam regime and how events would unroll in Iraq under American occupation.  Today it can be seen just how justified these expectations were. Now that the battle is virtually over the American Authority in Baghdad is fighting against a much bigger enemy than Saddam – public order and security as well as the social and economic problems of Iraq. Coming to grips with these enormous problems under the hellish heat of Iraq is proving much more difficult and costly for Washington than defeating the Saddam regime in war. It is doubtful that Iraq’s oil revenue will compensate these expenses for the Americans, as operating the system productively involves much more complicated issues than a mere industrial operation of extracting and selling oil in the world.

The Disinformation Mechanism in the Turkish media and American official sources for that matter were expressly saying at the outset that Turkey had excluded itself from the fruits of the Iraqi economy by keeping out of the war with the 1 March rebuff, but time is proving that Turkey’s cooperation is a must for the United States in defeating the enormous problems facing them in that country. Turkish refined fuel products’ shipments to Iraq in exchange for Kirkuk crude oil would be the best solution to end one of the Americans’ biggest headaches in Iraq – fuel shortage, and whether or not Washington’s initial intention was to punish Ankara for the 1 March rebuff, realism brought the Americans to make such a deal with Turkey. Consequently, the Kirkuk-Iskenderun pipeline was set in motion last week only to witness that this cooperation cannot possibly be on a small scale for practical arrangements for the time being. As soon as the Kirkuk crude begun to be pumped through the pipeline to Iskenderun it burst into flames at two points. Foreign Minister Gul said it was sabotage on the Iraqi part of the pipeline but American sources expressed doubt, saying that it could be war damage to the pipeline. Probably the Saddam regime foresaw these days and made arrangements to make life miserable in the post war American Administration in Iraq by placing bombs at several parts of the pipeline as well as other oil installations of the country. If that is the case, these initial difficulties may not be overcome easily and a much more effective cooperation between Turkey and the United States may prove to be necessary.

FM Gul’s statement about having already started cooperation with the United States in Iraq is certainly over optimistic. There is still no clarity about the scope and extent of this cooperation. Judging by what the American hardliners like Wolfowitz say, Washington is persistent on President Bush’s declared policy of “You are either with me or against” and it goes as far as Turkey’s cooperation in Washington’s prospective steps on Iran and Syria without any say in policy making. Needless to say, such an expectation stands no chance of success and these words by hardliners may not be Washington’s final policy either. It is obvious that the hawks of the Pentagon and the realists of the State Department are still struggling between themselves about giving the final form to the American policy for the geography where Turkey is located. It was only last Thursday (12^th) that Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said to CNN Turk that they did not exactly know what the American policy on Iran and this region is and what it was expecting of Turkey in that regard. The Under-Secretary of the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Ugur Ziyal, will shortly go to Washington to discuss all these points and Ambassador Robert Pearson will be replaced by another American ambassador in the following few weeks, in a mutual attempt to give a spur to Turkish-American relations by reactivating the so-called “strategic cooperation”, no matter what it may mean as far as Turkey’s national interests go

Iraq is no longer an Arab state, it is multinational

The over half a century Turkish-American military cooperation has now, since 1 March, come to the lowest ebb with great American disappointments of the present Turkish Government’s rebuff. The Americans complain that after months of negotiations and playing for time Turkey let it down with Parliament’s rejection of the agreed upon points for Iraq. The military in Turkey did not play its “leadership” role in this regard, complains Wolfowitz.

Washington declares to be ready to forget about the past and look to the future provided that Ankara takes some steps in accordance with American plans, some of which do not fall at odds with Ankara’s future plans and intentions. One of these points is wavering with Turkey’s sensitivities against the Kurds in Iraq. The American plans foresee putting an end to Iraq as an Arab country and making it a multinational state including Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans, racially and Sunnis and Shiats religiously.

Ankara has come to accept the highlights of this policy and is now making readjustments in its policy and “red lines” concerning Iraq.

Will this flexibility on the part of Turkey be able to overcome the current critical stage in Turkish-American relations? It is very doubtful because the US demands go as far as making Turkey a huge American military base for this region and Eurasia and with no international supervision other than some highhanded arrangements like “the coalition” as was the case in Iraq.

Such cooperation is not only impossible from Turkey’s angle, but it also goes against past practice. In the last half a century the Americans did have thousands of soldiers and numerous military bases in Turkey, but they were all for defence and were never used for aggression.

The only case in point is the American occupation of Lebanon in July 1958 by using Incirlik base, but that was not an aggression either, because President Camille Shamoun had invited the American forces to Lebanon and King Hussein the British forces to Jordan to stop indirect aggression of Syria and Egypt. Even then the Americans were reluctant to engage in that military operation at that time. It was the Menderes Government in Ankara which insisted on the American landing in Lebanon when the Baghdad Pact fell after General Kasem toppled the Kingdom of Iraq on July 14^th, 1958. It was a totally legitimate military operation carried out under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

In other words, using the American military bases in Turkey for a military operation against Turkey’s neighbours in the last half a century is an unprecedented event and the Turkish Parliament was very right in its timely intervention in the right direction on 1 March.

A new era may start in Turkish-American relations with the forthcoming visit to Washington of the Under-Secretary, Ugur Ziyal. Meaningless terms with no substance such as “Strategic Cooperation” should not be expected from these talks, but a reasonable give-and-take may be possible. The mounting problems and difficulties in Iraq may also induce the Bush Administration to a more reasonable policy line by eliminating its hawks. uras@ada.net.tr – June 15^th, 2003