Foreign policies are based on interests and international relations. The Turkish foreign policy during the governance of the Justice and Development Party and under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is based on a set of specifications, dimensions and factors, which Turkey has bet on to play a role in leading the region. This was clearly seen during the wave of the Arab Spring and in how Ankara dealt with regional crises.
This raises several questions. How correct are the Turkish bets? Are they based on an accurate analysis of the reality of the region and international relations? And most importantly, how did these bets reflect on Turkish foreign policy?
Erdogan’s Beliefs
The main pillars and factors that Turkey’s foreign policy are based on during Erdogan’s era are represented by the following:
1. At the beginning, Turkey headed towards openness to Arab countries and its neighbors using the policy of “Zero problems.” It sealed a series of agreements with these countries in hopes of serving cooperation and integration purposes. It abandoned this policy in favor of the ideological dimension and began to support political Islam movements, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. Ankara sought to help this group attain power in a number of countries hoping this will help it lead the region.
2. Turkey, while seeking to achieve its aforementioned aim, began to support a number of armed organizations. This was evident in the Syrian crisis.
3. Turkey based its policies on the conviction that its membership in the NATO and its historic relations with the West, i.e. America and Europe, is tantamount to western approval of Ankara’s role in the region. Turkey thought its political model achieved the difficult formula of balancing Islam, secularism and economy and that this model is what the West wants to generalize in the region.
4. In addition to adopting political Islam movements, the Turkish project was based on a historical formula, which it named “the New Ottoman Empire." The Turkish foreign policy wanted to use this formula to benefit from the historical, cultural and social ties to build a vital geographic space or world for Turkish policies.
These Turkish bets were clearly viewed in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Palestine as Turkey hoped its policy will help it lead the Middle East based on the theories proposed to rearrange the situation in the region.
Unsuccessful Results
One can say that Turkish bets in the region were closer to fatal ambitions, and ideological and political illusions. The Turkish foreign policy towards the region’s countries ended tragically. The most dangerous aspect is that these repercussions affected Turkey’s internal situation as they posed a threat to its national security.
Therefore, an accurate look at the repercussions of Turkey’s adopted policies towards the Arab world and its surroundings in general leads to these conclusions:
1. The ideological dimension, which Turkey adopted in supporting the political Islam movements to help them reach power, revealed the lack of Turkish political awareness regarding the nature of international relations. It also showed that Turkey did not fully understand how to develop relations among countries on the basis of mutual interests and development to serve stability and democracy. This affected the Turkish foreign policy as it became difficult for Turkey to establish positive relations with the Arab world, particularly considering its hostile stance towards Egypt.
The Turkish approach towards confronting Iranian threats in the region eventually became clear. Turkey’s foreign policy. Thus, Turkey was adopting two contradicting approaches as it supported Gulf stances in Yemen and Syria, but it was also keen on establishing good relations with Iran based on its economic interests. It also cooperated with Tehran to confront the Kurdish rise in the region.
2. Turkish support for some armed groups in Syria in order to get rid of the Assad regime led to negative consequences such as militarizing “the Syrian revolution” and transforming it into an armed violent revolution. It led to the rise of terrorist groups particularly ISIS and al-Nusra Front and to more foreign interferences, which complicated the Syrian crisis and made it a regional and international crisis par excellence.
All this greatly affected Turkey’s policy towards the Syrian crisis as this policy reached a dead end. This forced Ankara to seek rapprochement with Moscow and it did so via abandoning the slogan to “topple the Syrian regime.” After losing the Aleppo battle, Turkey was no longer concerned in toppling the regime. Its priority, thus, became how to fight the Kurdish rise in Syria especially as finalizing Raqqa battle neared.
Deep within, Turkey became afraid that the Kurds’ liberation of Raqqa from ISIS will lead to the birth of a Syrian-Kurdish region on its southern border similar to the Kurdistan region in Iraq. Turkey views this as a fateful threat to its national security, especially that developments with the Kurds in Syria and Iraq will encourage Turkey’s Kurds to raise the ceiling of their national demands.
The other aspect is the transfer of terrorist organizations’ threats to inside Turkey and the heavy spread of arms. During the past phase, Turkey witnessed a series of terrorist explosions in the heart of big cities (like Istanbul, Ankara and Diyar Bakr). This pushed the Turkish opposition to hold the government of the Justice and Development Party responsible considering it ignored the threats posed by these terrorist organizations when they moved inside Turkey when the government supported them and tried to use them to change regimes in the region.
3. Facts show that Turkey’s bets that the West will adopt its previous policies towards the crises in the region were not accurate or right. Turkey, due to its membership in the NATO, bet that it will succeed in bringing the NATO to interfere in the Syrian crisis and alter the regime. However, when Turkey downed a Russian fighter and the escalation which Moscow practiced against Ankara proved that the Turkish vision was not right. Turkey was thus disappointed by the NATO to the point that it said NATO betrayed it. This is where relations between Ankara and NATO became tense. Many in the NATO even demanded suspending Turkey’s membership.
Turkish-American relations seem to be at their worst due to Washington’s rejection to respond to Turkish demands to stop military support for Syrian Kurds, keeping the latter out of the battle to liberate Raqqa and depend on Turkey instead. Similarly, Turkey’s relation with Europe seems to be very negative for several reasons. Some of these reasons are linked to problems regarding becoming a member of the EU and to European criticism of Erdogan’s approach towards the Turkish opposition.
4. Most of the Turkish political rhetoric towards the Arab world carried an “Ottoman” tone that acts like the world is the backyard of Turkey that aspires to restore the glories of the Ottoman Empire. During Erodgan’s speeches, Jerusalem, Gaza, Aleppo, Baghdad, Mosul and other Arab capitals and cities seemed like they were matters relevant to Turkey’s internal affairs. This revived the regional fears of Turkish wild ambitions, especially when Erdogan spoke about the death of the Treaty of Lausanne and insisted to participate in the Mosul battle and when some Turkish circles spoke about historical rights in Mosul and other territories in North Syria. This brought to mind Ottoman heritage amid the changes that occured inside Turkey to get rid of the foundations on which the republic was established. These changes were in favor of establishing a presidential regime that gave Erdogan almost absolute jurisdictions.
Finally, we can say that the lesson to be learnt is that the previous policy of Turkish bets revealed an inaccurate understanding of the nature of the region’s crises, causes and complications, which are linked to international and regional interests and relations. This is what led to this policy’s unsuccessful results and put it before a test with itself – a test that Ankara does not know how to overcome yet.
