Just a few years ago, Turkey received toasts from all across the Middle East and the West. Foreign Minister Davutoglu’s “Zero problems with neighbours” policy looked like a revolutionary sea change in Turkey’s position and role in the region. Prime Minister Erdogan basked in accolades in every Arab city he visited, from Beirut to Rabaat. As relations with Israel deteriorated, Turkish leaders warned the Jewish state that it would find itself more isolated than ever.
An activist foreign policy carries risks which are all too apparent now, however. By pronouncing its positions clearly and forcefully on every issue, from which Arab Spring dictators should fall and which should remain in power to how Israel should deal with the Gaza strip, Ankara seems to have made itself enemies even faster than it made friends. Turkish foreign policy used to be a lot more low key than this, filled with the usual cautious diplomatic platitudes and avoiding any entanglements beyond its membership in NATO. Now I suspect that career diplomats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cringe every time Mr. Erdogan lays his hands on a microphone.
In a region experiencing such fast paced changes and developments, the wisest players keep their cards close to their chests. Ever since he tamed the Turkish army and deep state, however, Prime Minister Erdogan looks more and more like a reckless, overconfident gambler. He threw his cards down and bet half the house on Egypt’s Morsi, the Syrian opposition, Palestinian Hamas and Iraqi Sunni parties. As his losses accumulate, the Turkish business and diplomatic community begins to wonder if they will be forced to cover his bets.
So far Mr. Erdogan’s only successful wagers appear to be some of those he made on the Kurds. The Kurdistan Regional Government has emerged as one of the few neighbours Turkey has zero problems with, at least for the moment. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) agreed to a roadmap to peace with Ankara, although this may still fall apart if the Turkish government fails to respond to a PKK withdrawal with democratic reforms. Even Syrian Kurds refused to be provoked by Turkish support for radical Islamist groups attacking them, insisting that they desired nothing more than cordial relations with their northern neighbour.
What then will Mr. Erdogan and his government do as their foreign policy losses, combined with increasing difficulties at home, accumulate? The prudent thing to do would be to take the gains on their Kurdish bets and nurture them carefully. The reckless thing to do would involve gambling ever more actively and throwing more good money after bad on the lost bets. Such a strategy would likely include squandering the Kurdish bets, and then blaming the West and Israel when everything at home and abroad collapses. From some of his latest speeches, including one a few days ago in which he blamed Israel for the anti-Morsi coup in Egypt, I suspect Mr. Erdogan to be leaning towards the latter strategy.
For a country once known as a pillar of stability and caution in the region, the change could not be more striking.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since August 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press).
.jpeg&w=3840&q=75)
