Following ISIS’ defeat in the Iraqi city of Mosul and as its defeat nears in the Syrian city of Raqqah, regional powers involved in the region’s crises, particularly Turkey, look forward to how they can participate in establishing the political, security and economic scene in both countries. This aspiration is met with a series of intertwining and complicated challenges especially that the new reality in the region did not match the vision of Ankara, which bet on toppling the Syrian regime to push its regional project forward.
Regional challenges
Liberating Mosul from ISIS put Turkey before a difficult formula in Iraq after it almost engaged in a direct confrontation with the government in Baghdad as the Iraqi government refused Ankara’s participation in the battle of liberating the city.
After launching the offensive to liberate Tal Afar, which is a Turkmen-majority town, it seems Ankara will lose whatever is left of its political credibility. This occurred after Ankara repeatedly announced that it would not allow the Popular Mobilization forces to enter the town and presented itself as a protector of the Turkmen in Iraq.
Therefore, one can say that the most important challenges which Ankara faces after liberating Mosul is dealing with the new reality in Iraq. Perhaps what makes this more difficult is that Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, said that the Kurdistan referendum would definitely take place on September 25. Turkey has repeatedly called on him to back down and not hold the referendum because it will mark a fateful step that will not only affect the region’s future but also the future of the Kurdish cause which is strongly raised in Turkey, Syria and Iran.
The referendum may push Kurds in these countries to raise the ceiling of their national aspirations. Consequently, this will direct attention to Turkey and its domestic scene, which historically suffers from the complex of the Kurdish cause.
In contrast to the current Iraqi landscape, the scene in Syria is very vague and open to all scenarios, putting Turkey in front of three major challenges:
1. The Russian American agreement. This has manifested in three major points that violate the provisions of Turkey’s policy towards the Syrian crisis. The first point is President Donald Trump’s agreement with President Vladimir Putin to a ceasefire in southwestern Syria along with Israel’s unannounced participation. The second one is the two parties’ agreement on the priority to fight ISIS and other extremist and terrorist organizations and their rejection to link this to the fate of the Syrian regime. The last point is the two parties’ support of the Syrian-Kurdish component and understanding its nationalistic demands and its participation in Syria’s future within the framework of a decentralized system.
2. The Kurdish rise in northeast Syria. Turkey thinks this rise threatens its national security. What makes this difficult is Erdogan’s failure to convince the Trump administration of suspending its support of the Kurds. Ankara fears the Kurds’ control over Raqqah after liberating it from ISIS and worries of proposing a federal option when discussing a political solution for the Syrian crisis. Ankara also fears that the Kurds’ military weight may connect Afrin in the west with areas, which the Kurds control in east and north Syria. This practically means that Turkey’s southern borders with Syria will completely be under the control of the emerging Kurdish entity.
All this poses an existential threat to Ankara considering that Kurdish areas near the borders between Turkey and Syria are mainly under the control of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party which escalated its military operations inside Turkey after Erdogan gave up on the peace process which PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan launched in 2013.
3. Iranian influence. The sectarian and political conflict between Iran and Turkey is one of the most important critical conflicts that resulted from the Syrian crisis. Tehran did not settle with allying with the Syrian regime and militarily supporting it but mobilized all sectarian powers and militias to fight in Syria. Meanwhile, Ankara adopted the same policy. Accordingly, the crisis escalated due to the conflicting ideology that motivated the warring factions and groups.
Now that Turkey lost the Aleppo war, and the Syrian regime and its allies restored several of the areas -which were under the control of armed groups- it seems that Ankara is challenged by Iran’s increased influence that is deeply present on all levels and fronts in the Syrian state.
Turkish options
There is a controversy regarding the options pertaining to the Syrian scene amid the restrictions drawn by American-Russian agreements. Ever since Ankara’s relations with Russia improved and it became involved in the Astana meetings, Turkey’s priority towards the Syrian crisis shifted from toppling the Syrian regime to focusing on how to confront the Kurdish rise on its southern borders. In order to do so there are several options to maintain its role in Syria where the scene is being drawn based on the agreements between Trump and Putin. The most important options are:
1. Increasing cooperation with Russia considering it is the controlling power of the strategic options in the Syrian crisis. Turkey wants this cooperation to lead to agreements with Moscow to arrange the field situations in Syria particularly in the north and eventually reach a political settlement.
2. Seeking to increase its role in the Astana agreements concerning de-escalation in hot spots. Turkey’s significance in this regards lies in its influence on armed groups in north Syria and its possible role in finalizing the battle in Edleb with its geographical proximity.
3. Maintaining dialogue and coordination with the American administration to put an end to the Kurdish rise and to American military support of the Kurds by supplying them with arms. This is in addition to Turkey’s attempt to decrease Kurdish influence and limit it to how it was before the battle of Raqqah.
4. Maintaining threads of cooperation with Iran within the framework of both countries’ rejection to the establishment of a Kurdish entity in the region considering its repercussions on both countries.
5. Benefiting from previous options while establishing a Turkish vision that can be imposed as part of a political settlement based on maintaining the Syrian regime for a transitional phase and easing the way towards the Syrian opposition, particularly the national coalition parties, to participate in Syria’s political future. This means abandoning Ankara’s slogan of getting rid of Bashar al-Assad.
In conclusion, Turkey’s policy in the phase following ISIS collapse is based on limiting political and diplomatic losses by betting on the importance of its geographic and political location in hopes that this will grant it a status when formulating the region’s future. However, what’s fixed is that this bet is met with a series of international, regional and local challenges as its relations with European countries suffer from several disturbances. This is in addition to tensions and conflicting priorities with the US. On the regional level, there is the challenge of the Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria.
All this interacts with Turkey’s domestic affairs where there are divisions, as some are demanding that Erdogan reviews his regional and international policies and adopts an isolationist policy while others are calling for maintaining this regional role amid the severity of internal challenges and crises in neighboring countries.
