Can the U.S. government accept an independent Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East?

• Author: Falk, Richard
• Position: COMMENTARY - Report

After the Cold War

The end of the Cold War marked the end of adversary patterns of alignment in the Middle East. It had been easier to interpret the geopolitics of the region when it was clear whether a particular government could be reliably classified as an ally of either the United States or the Soviet Union, and most of its specific foreign policy initiatives could be deduced from this fact alone. This overarching framework lasted for almost half a century, and its disappearance in the early 1990s created an atmosphere of uncertainty. In the Middle East, two broad endeavors emerged to fill the void created by the absence of bipolarity: the first involved an emergent American unipolarity that exerted hegemonic control over the region as a whole, and reached a climax with the unified response to the 1990 Iraqi conquest and annexation of Kuwait. The second was more exploratory, involving a series of distinct moves by several states that realized that the new regional setting offered both risks and opportunities associated with the pursuit of more independent lines of action. As early as 1991, Turgut Ozal voiced the opinion that Turkey "should leave former passive and hesitant policies and engage in an active foreign policy." (1)

The fluidity of the global situation in the 1990s created strong United States and Israeli incentives to pursue strategic interests in the Middle East, by embarking on an ambitious program of regional restructuring within the stability of this presumed 'unipolar moment.' This was interpreted to mean, above all, ridding the region of regimes perceived to be hostile to the West and establishing permanent American military bases in the heart of the Middle East. Paramount goals of such a move included: ensuring that Gulf oil stayed in friendly hands, that Israel's security was safeguarded against any future threat, and that no additional country in the region acquired nuclear weaponry. In a post-Cold War setting, these policies provoked further concerns as to whether Turkey should define its own view of the future of the Middle East and no longer defer to American grand strategy for the region.

Washington's adoption of this post-Cold War approach became apparent in the aftermath of the First Gulf War in 1991 when a coalition of countries, acting on the basis of a UN mandate, used military force to prompt Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. As a result, Baghdad agreed to surrender in a manner that continued to punish the Iraqi people indefinitely through the imposition of harsh post-war sanctions as administered by the UN. Such a military intervention signaled a new era in the region in at least two respects. During the Cold War, Saddam Hussein's regime would not have dared to attack Iraq without prior approval from Moscow, which would almost certainly not have been given due to prospects of retaliation raising dangerous escalation risks. If, despite this, the attack were to happen, Western response would have likely been cautious, limited, and even coordinated with Moscow. There would have been an overriding interest on both sides to avoid a confrontation with the Soviet Union without allowing Iraqi aggression to succeed in annexing Kuwait. In all likelihood, once Kuwait's sovereignty was restored, so would be a willingness to normalize relations with Iraq.

During the Cold War--aside from the possible exception of the Cyprus intervention in 1974--Turkey was perceived as an important and reliable ally, especially in the NATO context, and as a state that never seriously challenged measures set by Washington. Against this background, it is not surprising that Ozal's Turkey participated in the coalition that challenged Iraq in 1991, resulting in a rare moment of global and regional geopolitical unity with respect to a Middle East crisis. In the Security Council debate provoked by Iraq's conquest of Kuwait, Russia (then still the faltering Soviet Union) and even Syria supported the American-led call for 'a new world order' based on Charter principles of opposition to aggression and violations of international law. However, once UN intervention forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and relinquish related claims, architects of American foreign policy became immediately eager to renounce a Charter-based approach to international conflict that might tie Washington's hands in the future. American policymakers made it clear that future crises would be approached pragmatically on a case-by-case basis from the perspective of hard power geopolitics. Turkey neither objected to the military operation based on the UN mandate nor American reluctance to endorse such a UN response to the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait as a precedent.

The AK Party Era Begins

It was not until the AKP came to power in 2002 that Ankara began to seriously question Turkey's acquiescence in Washington's strategic unipolarity and partnership with Israel. Turkish leadership was initially cautious, given their precarious position against hostile opposition forces embedded in the government bureaucracy, as well as fears that a military coup could nullify their electoral mandate just as the 'soft coup' had done to the elected Erbakan coalition government in 1998.

The first break with this deferential past came in 2003, when the Turkish Parliament opposed the US plan to launch its attack on Iraq partly from Turkish territory, much to the distress of the Pentagon. Paul Wolfowitz, then a high official in the U.S. Department of Defense, openly chided the AKP leadership for its inability to wield enough influence to override the Turkish legislative process and ignore domestic public opinion so as to accede to Washington's appeal. At the time, the Erdogan leadership expressed its willingness to grant Washington the permission it requested, and explained that failure to allow it was the...