Turkey itself is a major
target for destabilization, upheaval, and finally balkanization through its
participation in the US-led siege against Syria. Ankara has burned its bridges
in Syria for the sake of its failing neo-Ottoman regional policy. The Turkish
government has actively pursued regime change, spied on Syria for NATO and
Israel, violated Syrian sovereignty, supported acts of terrorism and
lawlessness, and provided logistical support for the insurgency inside Syria.
Any chances of seeing some form of Turkish regional leadership under
neo-Ottomanism have faded. Turkey’s southern borders have been transformed into
intelligence and logistical hubs for the CIA and the Mossad in the process,
complete with an intelligence “nerve centre” in the Turkish city of Adana. Despite
Turkey’s denials, reports about Adana are undeniable and Turkish officers have
also been apprehended in covert military operations against the Syrian Arab
Republic. The Turkish Labour Party has even demanded that the US General Consul
in Adana be deported for “masterminding and leading the activities of Syrian
terrorists.” Mehmet Ali Ediboglu and Mevlut Dudu, two Turkish MPs, have also
testified that foreign fighters have been renting homes on Turkey’s border with Syria and that Turkish ambulances have been helping smuggle weapons for
the insurgents inside Syria.
Turkish
Regional Isolation
If the Syrian state collapses, neighbouring Turkey will be the biggest
loser. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government are
foolishly aligning Turkey for disaster. Aside from Ankara’s historically bad
relations with Armenia, Erdogan has managed to singlehandedly alienate Russia
and three of Turkey’s most important neighbours. This has damaged the Turkish
economy and disrupted the flow of Turkish goods. There have been clamp downs on
activists too in connection with Turkey’s policy against Damascus. The freedom
of the Turkish media has been affected as well; Erdogan has moved forward with
legislation to restrict media freedoms. Prime Minister Erdogan and Turkish
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have even both attacked “reporters who quoted
President Assad’s statements in Cumhuriyet, accusing them of treason,
because they had questioned the official Turkish account
of the Turkish jet shot down by in [sic.] Syria [for
spying].”
To Turkey’s eastern flank tensions are building between it and both Iraq
and Iran. Baghdad is reviewing its diplomatic ties with the Turkish government,
because Ankara is encouraging the Kurdistan Regional Government in Northern
Iraq to act independently of Iraq’s federal government. Erdogan’s government
has done this partially as a result of Baghdad’s steadfast opposition to regime
change in Syria and in part because of Iraq’s strengthening alliance with Iran.
Tehran on the other hand has halted the visa-free entry of Turkish citizens into
Iran and warned the Turkish government that it is stoking the flames of a
regional fire in Syria that will eventually burn Turkey too.
Growing
Internal Divisions in Turkey
Despite all the patriotic speeches being made by the Turkish government
to rally the Turkish people against Syria, Turkey is a much divided nation over
Erdogan’s hostilities with Damascus. A significant portion of the Grand
National Assembly of Turkey or Turkish Meclis and Turkey’s opposition parties
have all condemned Erdogan for misleading the Turkish people and stirring their
country towards disaster. There is also growing resentment amongst the citizens
of Turkey about Erdogan’s cooperation with the US, NATO, Israel, and the Arab
dictatorships – like Qatar and Saudi Arabia – against the Syrians and others.
The majority of Turkish citizens oppose Turkish ties to Israel, the hosting of
NATO facilities in Turkey, the missile shield project, and cooperation with the
US in the Middle East.
The Republican People’s Party, Turkey’s second largest political party
and its main opposition party, has condemned the government in Ankara over
Syria. Their leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has openly accused Prime Minister
Erdogan of interfering in the internal affairs of Syria. Kilicdaroglu has been
joined by Turkey’s other political parties in the condemnations of Erdogan and
his ruling Justice and Development Party. Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the
Nationalist Movement Party, has warned the Turkish government not to drag their
country into a war with Syria through intervention. “Some Western countries
have put pressure on Turkey for an intervention in Syria. Turkey should not fall
into this trap,” Bahceli, who leads the third largest Turkish political party,
has warned Erdogan according to the Turkish press. The Peace and Democracy
Party, which is the fourth largest Turkish political party, has also clarified
that it is against war with Syria. The politician Selahattin Demirtas, who
is one of the leaders of the Peace and Democracy Party, has warned that any
military intervention by Ankara in Syria would drag Turkey into a broader regional war. Hasan Basri Ozbey, the
deputy leader of the Turkish Labour Party, has announced that his political
party will file a complaint against Turkish President Abdullah Gul with the
Turkish Meclis and the Turkish Higher Court to prosecute Gul, because the
Labour Party “has clear evidence that [Gul] incited terrorism and war on Syria
and signed a secret agreement with the United States, which alone is grounds for trial.” Mustafa Kamalak, the
leader of the Felicity Party, has even led a Turkish
delegation to visit Bashar Al-Assad to
show their support for Syria and opposition to Erdogan’s policies.
The
mobilization of the Turkish military on the Syrian border as a show of force
is a psychological tactic to scare the Syrian regime. Any large-scale military
operations against the Syrians would be very dangerous for Turkey and could
fragment the Turkish Armed Forces. Segments of the Turkish military are at odds
with the Turkish government and the military itself is divided over Turkish
foreign policy. Erdogan does not even trust half of Turkey’s own military
leaders and has arrested forty of them for planning to overthrow him. How
can he send such a force to even attack neighbouring Syria or think that he can
control it during a broader war?
The
Dangers of “Blowback” from Syria
While Turkey is trumpeting that it will not allow Kurdish militias to
establish bases in northern Syria, the Turkish government is actually
facilitating this itself. There is a real risk of “blowback” from Syria
for Turkey. Like Syria, Turkey is a kaleidoscope of various peoples and faiths.
The people of Turkey are held together by the primacy of the Turkish language
and a shared citizenship. Turkey’s minorities constitute at the very minimum
one-third of the country. A significant proportion of Turkey’s minority
communities have ties to Syria, Iraq, or Iran.
The Kurds and other similar Iranic peoples alone form about 25% of
Turkey’s population, which means one out of four Turkish citizens are of
Kurdish and Iranic stock. Other ethnic minorities include Arabs, Armenians,
Assyrians, Azerbaijanis, Bulgarians, and Greeks. No exact figures have ever been
available about Turkey’s Shiite Muslims, because of the historical persecution
and restrictions on Shia Muslims in Turkey from Ottoman times. Anywhere from
20% to 30% or more of the Turkish population may be categorized as Shiite
Muslims, which includes Alevis, Alawites, and Twelvers. Turkey also has a small
Christian minority, some of which have historic or organizational ties to Syria
like Turkey’s Alawites and ethnic Arabs. Turkey will be consumed too, one way
or another, should a broader sectarian conflict spread from Syria and should
the Syrians be violently divided along sectarian fault lines.
The
Self-Destructive Nature of Turkish Involvement in Syria
All the factors discussed above are a recipt for disaster. Civil war in
Turkey is a real possibility in an increasingly polarized Turkish state. Should
Syria burn, Turkey will ultimately burn too. This is why a whole spectrum of
Turkish leaders have been warning their country and people that the
consequences for the fire that Erdogan, Davutoglu, and Gul are stroking in
Syria will have disastrous consequences for Turkey and all the countries
bordering Syria.
Erdogan’s government has managed to alienate Turkey from its most
important neighbours, hurt the Turkish economy, and destabilize their country’s
own borders. This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg compared to the
damages they could unleash on Turkey. The Turks have been walking into a trap,
where they are slated for a self-destructive kamikaze operation against Syria.
The US-led siege on Syria intends to create chaos across the entire Middle East
and ignite multiple regional conflicts. Violence and conflict from Syria is
intended to consume Lebanon and Iraq too. Within this mêlée, Turkey has been
slated to be weakened and divided – just as the US, NATO, and Israel have
envisaged in their project to create a “new Middle East.”
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