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Syria becomes a wedge between U.S. and Turkey
Soner Cagaptay is director of the Turkish Research Program and a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also contributes to CNN’s Global Public Square blog.
Turkey announced Thursday that it has authorized military operations in Syria following Syrian shelling of Turkish areas this week. As the crisis in Syria has deepened, the White House has appeared willing to wait for the demise of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. For Ankara, the crisis has become an emergency.
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The Obama administration is hesitant toward Syria for several reasons, including reticence to act before the November elections and war-weariness among Americans. Erdogan appears to view such concerns as cover for general indifference to Turkey’s Syria problem. A sign of such sentiment emerged Sept. 5, when Erdogan chided Obama on CNN for lacking initiative on Syria — a rare rebuke from an otherwise steadfast friend.
This statement could be a harbinger. Erdogan has a penchant for treating foreign leaders as friends — and losing his temper when he thinks his friends have not stood by him. The more Washington looks the other way on Syria, the more upset Erdogan is likely to get over what he sees as Obama’s unwillingness to support his policy.
To the White House, the Syrian crisis has appeared manageable. As the conflict grinds on, some have grown concerned that Syria will radicalize as Bosnia did in the 1990s: When the world did not act to end the slaughter of Muslims in the Balkan country, jihadists moved in to join the fight, and they succeeded in convincing the otherwise staunchly secular-minded Bosnian Muslims that the world had abandoned them and that they were better off with jihadists.
U.S. policy holds that a gradual soft landing could be possible in Syria. The hope is that the opposition groups will coalesce and take down the Assad regime, eliminating the need for hasty foreign intervention — an option that Washington fears could cause chaos.
Ankara, however, wants an accelerated soft landing. Particularly with this week’s strikes, Turkey feels the heat of the crisis next door — Erdogan has reason to believe that time is not on his side.
The Syrian conflict’s sectarian nature is percolating into Turkey. More than 100,000 mostly Sunni Arab Syrians have taken refuge there, fleeing persecution by Assad and his Alawite militias. Alawite Arabs in southern Turkey resent the Sunni refugees, mirroring Syria’s Alawite-Sunni split. Angry Alawites in Turkey’s southern Hatay province oppose their country’s policy toward the Assad regime, and since the summer they have been holding regular pro-Damascus and anti-Ankara demonstrations. This is Ankara’s problem, and it might get ugly if Syria descends into full-blown sectarian warfare.
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Syria becomes a wedge between US and Turkey
In the end there is publicly what is said by nations and there is privately what is said between nations. Turkey going into Syria makes complete sense from a NATO or UNITED NATIONS point of view (in private). If some nation (including Turkey) doesn't take over in Syria chaos will engulf the whole region now that the Syrian government is collapsing from within. There is no unified Syrian Rebel Army to take over because the Alawite Shia majority will all fight to the death because they know all their families will be massacred in retribution for all the Sunni families they have murdered so far. So, likely the only way for this to turn into anything that ANY middle east nation or world nation would want is for Turkey to be responsible (along with a United Nations peacekeeping force) to change things on the ground to make more sense. Even if Turkey temporarily incorporates Syria into Turkey most Sunni nations ( and some Shias) would accept this bringing order out of complete chaos and unlimited deaths. With Iran's economy collapsing under the weight of sanctions maybe this will force Iran to withdraw their troops out of Syria that have been massacring Sunni families there. Maybe Turkey out of it's own survival can bring order to Syria when no one else seems to be able to?
Syria becomes a wedge between US and Turkey
In the end there is publicly what is said by nations and there is privately what is said between nations. Turkey going into Syria makes complete sense from a NATO or UNITED NATIONS point of view (in private). If some nation (including Turkey) doesn't take over in Syria chaos will engulf the whole region now that the Syrian government is collapsing from within. There is no unified Syrian Rebel Army to take over because the Alawite Shia majority will all fight to the death because they know all their families will be massacred in retribution for all the Sunni families they have murdered so far. So, likely the only way for this to turn into anything that ANY middle east nation or world nation would want is for Turkey to be responsible (along with a United Nations peacekeeping force) to change things on the ground to make more sense. Even if Turkey temporarily incorporates Syria into Turkey most Sunni nations ( and some Shias) would accept this bringing order out of complete chaos and unlimited deaths. With Iran's economy collapsing under the weight of sanctions maybe this will force Iran to withdraw their troops out of Syria that have been massacring Sunni families there. Maybe Turkey out of it's own survival can bring order to Syria when no one else seems to be able to?
