“Put simply, Erdogan is growing into a key player amid the geopolitical changes in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, as Turkey is acquiring regional superpower status,” wrote Angelos Stangos in the Greek Kathimerini newspaper referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Worse,” Stangos added, “that is all creating the impression that, in the eyes of the West — the United States and the European Union (perhaps for different reasons) — Greece belongs to the Middle East and not Europe.”

This observation underlines a remarkable weakness in the set-up of the January 19 Berlin Conference on the Libyan conflict. In a monumental error, the German government declined to invite Tunisia, which borders Libya and has a massive stake in seeing the conflict resolved, and Greece, which is a key player in the quagmire developing in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Libya’s crisis has been compounded by an agreement between Ankara and the UN-backed Government of National Accord, led by Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli, which has Erdogan’s fingerprints all over it. The international community’s inability to understand Erdogan’s intentions hangs over the gathering in Berlin, eroding hopes for a solution to the conflict.

Germany’s diplomatic move is clouded by a simple fact: By inviting the Turkish side, the European Union, in general terms, is welcoming a fait accompli signed by Ankara, by its sending jihadist mercenaries onto Libyan soil.

This has emboldened Erdogan, who raised the stakes by declaring that Turkish troops would be sent to Libya. Once this is done — and Erdogan is a man of his word — the European Union would lose more influence in Libya, with the threat of jihadism rising, and Erdogan may feel much more comfortable making new demands, gaining more political territory.

Some may argue that Erdogan’s manoeuvre will not work in Libya, that it is one step too far for the international community to tolerate. There is likely some truth to that. How Turkey will be able to send troops to a distant country across the Mediterranean is a big question. Whether or not the large-scale opposition to the move at home will bring new momentum against him is another one.

However, these questions may be hiding Erdogan’s long-term strategy: The Turkish leader calculates that, as long as his divisive policies within the European Union are successful, general confusion in Berlin, Rome and London continues, the broken chain of decision making in Washington remains unrepaired and international “legalistic” support for the Tripoli-based government persists, he will be given enough time to put a foothold in Libya, making Turkey’s military presence there permanent.

This will give him a bargaining chip in the country and, ultimately, see him emerge as the leader who forges control of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, maintaining the “balance of terror,” to use a Cold War term, in North Africa.

Stangos hits on the core of the dilemma facing the European Union — especially France, Italy and Greece in its southern flank.

First, for Erdogan, the agenda is to expand on a blend of Islamism and radical nationalism beyond Turkey’s borders. Second, what Germany represses in its collective unconscious is that Turkey’s foreign policy is nearly entirely militarised and it is no longer interested in diplomatic tactics.

As noted by Unal Cevikozn, a former diplomat and an MP with Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party: “Turkey, with its weakening attention on diplomacy and peaceful resolution of conflicts, also loses its soft power capacity. It would not be unfair to suggest that this new approach of Turkey in the region is perceived like ‘gunboat diplomacy’.”

Any hope that Ankara will make a U-turn and give up on its deal with Tripoli without serious concessions from the European Union or accept to sit at the table with Cyprus on East Med energy talks is nothing but a pipe dream.

What Athens faces deep anxiety about is how determined Ankara is to escalate the conflict in the Aegean and Eastern Med to its breaking point. The Greek Defence Ministry’s general staff said Turkish military aircraft violated Greece’s airspace 4,811 times in 2019, the largest number in one calendar year since 1987. Turkish Navy warships have increasingly violated Greece’s national waters as well. The number of violations increased from 133 in 2010 to 299 in 2015 to a staggering 2,032 in 2019.

The crisis encompassing the Eastern Med and Libya reveals an unsettling fact: There is a deadly game being played. Irrational adventurism is seeing jihadists deployed to a conflict zone and a mighty power, Turkey, is seeking to trigger a military confrontation with Greece.

The choice will be whether or not the world acts together to deter militaristic expansion. Perhaps it is time for US and EU warships to intensely patrol the hot waters of the Mediterranean.

Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 20 January 2020
Word Count: 788
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As if the swirling pace of events lately were not enough to expose the rudderless nature of Turkey’s regional foreign policy, the killing of al-Quds Force Major-General Qassem Soleimani along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, leader of the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia and deputy commander of Al-Hashed al-Shaabi, added to the confusion in Ankara.

Turkish media were once again mired in their blurred optics, with Islamist and leftist media joining ranks to condemn US imperialism while ignoring the divisive, violent and subversive activities of Soleimani in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in the furtherance of Iranian expansionism.

Turkish opposition media tried to determine what to make of the killings and their aftermath while Islamist pro-government outlets speculated about whether Soleimani’s death could benefit Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This explains the remarkable delay in Ankara’s reaction to the eruption of tension between Iran and the United States. In a routine statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry employed cautious language, saying: “Turkey has always been against foreign interventions, assassinations and sectarian clashes in the region. We call upon all parties to show restraint and act responsibly, avoiding moves that can threaten the peace and stability in the region.”

From the various statements in Ankara, it was obvious that official sources had their eyes and ears locked on what Erdogan would say. Eventually, many of them focused on his hints that Turkey was involved in reducing tensions between Iran and the United States. This seemed to be an “aha moment” to suggest that Erdogan had realised that returning Turkey to a soft power role and adopting an intermediary mission would take him out of the dark hole into which he had squeezed himself.

While it was true that, in the killing of Soleimani, Erdogan might have seen windows of opportunity but it didn’t include a genuine recalibration of his pursuits in the region.

On the face of it, the death of Soleimani and Muhandis might have come as a relief for Erdogan’s government. They represented Shia expansionism in the region but, more important, a steady stumbling block for Turkey’s pursuit of regime change to the benefit of Sunni jihadists in Syria. Good riddance of anything supportive of Damascus, as long as it doesn’t rock the vulnerable boat Turkey and Russia are rowing.

Erdogan likely saw a tactical opportunity for a go-between role between US President Donald Trump and Tehran. Despite the historical rivalry between Turkey and Iran and despite the Sunni-Shia divide, Turkey under Erdogan’s predominantly Islamist rule since 2012 has deepened trade with Iran, often challenging the US embargo — on several occasions crossing the line. Two massive graft investigations in Turkey in 2013 brought about serious charges involving a US federal court specialising in organised crime.

At the centre of the cases stood top figures of the Erdogan administration and Halkbank. Experts said the findings constituted the tip of the iceberg, extending far beyond the $30 billion in an oil-for-gold scheme involving Turkish and Iranian governments.

The trial in New York continues to be the main parameter through which Erdogan shapes his policies with Washington. His once ceaseless obsession with having the cases in the US courts dismissed has evaporated. This is one of the major reasons he has Trump as the sole American figure who supports him in Washington.

If any of the suggestions that Erdogan may adopt an intermediary role in helping de-escalate Iran-US tensions are true, it is through calculations by the Turkish president. It may be true that Trump will need damage-control efforts and dialogue-by-proxy with Tehran. If he reaches out to his friend in Ankara, Trump is highly likely to have a familiar condition thrown at him: Help me so we all forget the breach of Iranian embargo that my folks have been involved in, free Halkbank of charges so we can all proceed to better times.

As the US 2020 election season begins, Trump and Erdogan know they need each other — badly. For the former, any regional victory he can sell to his public would secure a second term. For the latter, helping his sole friend win the election would grant Erdogan carte blanche for further consolidation of absolutist power at home.

It may be far-fetched but Soleimani’s death may provide such a breakthrough moment to serve the two men’s personal interests.

Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 15 January 2020
Word Count: 713
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The new year began with a bang. The drone attack that killed Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, commander of al-Quds Force, the external wing of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, will have far-reaching consequences in the Middle East and beyond, adding to the battle for influence in the region between Russia and the United States.

However, the strike does not change the situation created by Turkey’s convulsive moves in the Eastern Mediterranean and Libya.

Initially underestimated and watched with measured anxiety by the European Union, the escalation reached a new level January 2 after the vote by Turkish parliament to allow Turkish troops to be dispatched to Libya, as Greece, Israel and Cyprus signed an accord for a 1,900km undersea pipeline deal in Athens.

Russia and Turkey are to sign the Turk Stream agreement, which would set up an accelerated power struggle as the countries in the region display axes being formed against each other, a dangerous development that is reminiscent of the times preceding two world wars in the 20th century.

Turkey’s policy choices have placed it in a massive vortex. In the Eastern Mediterranean and Libya, it stands far closer to serving Russia’s long-term interests, while challenging the European Union and, to a great deal, the United States. As a consequence, the policies pursued by Ankara, contrary to what major European capitals seem to think, will have a determining effect on developments. The resolve of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his team in the pursuit of a high-stakes game should be better understood.

“The one who considers his own end can never become a hero,” Turkish Vice-President Fuat Oktay said before the vote in Turkish parliament.

What should be understood is that Ankara’s policies are designed by a solid group of adventurists circling around Erdogan, who, instead of standing up to his delusions of grandeur, seem to encourage him to pursue more daredevil gambling.

This is not without a rationale: the rudderless drift in Europe and the disarray in Washington provide a perfect setting for raising the stakes. Erdogan has long realised that, to have a say in a world in disorder, his government can and should cross the lines and do its best to benefit from fait accompli situations.

Syria was a fine example and now Ankara has its eyes set on Libya — no diplomatic bluffing there. A foothold in North Africa’s shoreline has less to do with neo-Ottoman dreams than with spreading Ikhwanism — Muslim Brotherhood ideology — having access to energy and politically winning over Africa.

“I don’t think there’s any thought of a re-establishing the Ottoman Empire with control over territory but there is a desire to establish Turkish influence throughout the former Ottoman area, which covers, of course, all of North Africa and extends into parts of sub-Saharan Africa,” said David Shinn, a former US ambassador now teaching international relations at George Washington University in an interview with Public Radio International.

“As a result, you’ve seen a major effort by Erdogan to re-establish Turkey’s interests throughout all of Africa, including those parts that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Ottoman Empire.

“A good indication of this is simply the fact that Turkey now has embassies in 42 of 54 of Africa’s countries. That’s an astounding number for an economy the size of Turkey. I think it’s an effort to establish not only a political presence but also political influence in as many countries as possible to ensure these countries’ support in forums such as the United Nations over issues like Cyprus, for example.”

Those observations are only part of a broader reality. What has united Turkey’s staunch nationalist, anti-Western circles with Erdogan was the will to recalibrate Turkish foreign policy as autonomous from American-European frameworks.

In Syria and in Libya, Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) still see an opportunity to help the Muslim Brotherhood regain the sphere of influence it lost there. The resolve with which Erdogan raises his stakes in tying his links is, in a way, an attempt to keep the AKP rule intact at home. Erdogan knows that Turkey, which he rules with the help of his Islamist circle of advisers, and his party are the last bastions of Ikhwanism — a fact often ignored by analysts.

Throughout 2020 we will watch Erdogan’s Turkey pushing the boundaries for irredentist adventures, backed by the notion that Erdogan will do his best to endorse US President Donald Trump, his only base of support in the West.

All this is fine with Russia, which sees this as its best chance for revenge after the fait accompli toppling of the Qaddafi regime in Libya, after the adventurist move by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The stage is set for huge complications for Europe and its fragile democratic orders.

Erdogan is launching a game-changing offensive in the entire Eastern Mediterranean and he may succeed unless the European Union’s major actors master their courage and pre-empt his move. The odds of that happening are quite remote. Expect a storm ahead.

Yavuz Baydar is a senior Turkish columnist, and news analyst. A founding member of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) in Istanbul, he has been reporting on Turkey and monitoring media issues since 1980. A European Press Prize Laureate in 2014, he is also the winner of Germany’s ‘Journalistenpreis’ in 2018.

Copyright ©2020 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 06 January 2020
Word Count: 836
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As 2019 hastens to an end, its defining patterns are clear.  The year was marked by two rancorous relationships: between China and the United States and between Turkey and NATO. Then there was United States and the sole superpower’s shape-shifting view of its role in the Middle East and North Africa.

Taken together, the world goes into the 2020s in an extraordinary flux, engaged in something that actress Gwyneth Paltrow and singer Chris Martin once said of the state of their disintegrating marriage: conscious uncoupling.

What might this mean in real terms for the region?

In 2020, the final year of US President Donald Trump’s first term, it’s clear that his promised Deal of the Century is off the immediate agenda. Though the White House said the long-delayed peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complete and had promised its release after Israeli elections in September, that schedule has been disrupted by Israel’s domestic political situation.

Israel’s third election in less than a year looms in March. By then, the US presidential season will be roaring ahead and the focus will narrow to Trump’s re-election campaign through Election Day, November 3.  Accordingly, Trump’s much-hyped grand bargain seems destined to remain a ghostly, unseen presence, at least for the remainder of this presidential term.

Trump all but acknowledged this in his address December 7 to the right-leaning Israeli American Council. Seeming to blame the intractable nature of the conflict rather than his administration’s maladroit diplomacy and partisan attitude towards one party to the dispute, Trump said he had been told that achieving peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians would be the hardest deal of all. “If Jared Kushner can’t do it, it can’t be done,” he declared.

In the new year, US policy on Syria is also likely to remain reflexive and short-term. On December 11, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper told a congressional committee that the reduced US contingent in Syria had a circumscribed focus: “The mission remains the enduring defeat of [the Islamic State] ISIS,” he said, adding “We could consider redeploying… when we feel confident that local security and police forces are capable of handling any type of resurgence.”

Two months after Trump’s decision to pull troops out of northern Syria in a tacit go-ahead to Turkey’s subsequent offensive, Esper admitted that the United States “expected turmoil” as Turkey moved Syrian refugees into the area.

Even as he acknowledged concerns that Turkey was “moving out of the NATO orbit” and towards Russia and engaging in actions “to the detriment of the alliance,” Esper laid out six broad objectives for the US military in the region that served to emphasise the narrow prism of America’s perceived interest.

“The stability of the Middle East remains important to our nation’s security,” he said. “As such, we will continue to calibrate all of our actions to deter conflict, to avoid unintended escalation and to enable our partners to defend themselves against regional aggressors. In doing so, we will preserve the hard-won gains of the past and ensure the security of the United States and our vital interests.”

In the circumstances, it’s fair to ask if the new year will see the United States all but washing its hands of the MENA region. If so, what might this mean?

There are parts of the US approach that accord with a theory put forward by Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, whose academic research re-envisions global power dynamics. Mahbubani’s latest book bears a somewhat provocative title, Has the West lost it? In it, he argues that the West, which is to say the US-led community of Western countries, must not “lose it” in the impending clash with rising powers. Instead, he argues, the West should adopt a “3M” strategy: minimalist, multilateralist and Machiavellian.

There is something to be said for Mahbubani’s 3M strategy.

Minimalism, which is a call to do less — intervention, fighting unnecessary wars — will not only help regions such as MENA where the West has traditionally meddled to little purpose and great harm but would also prevent the draining of spirits and resources from Western societies.

As for multilateralism, it ties in with a Machiavellian strategy of self-preservation. With most of the world population — 88% — living outside the West, it is wise to prop up global multilateral institutions, Mahbubani argues.

It all makes good sense but the year is closing out with a key multilateral institution — the World Trade Organisation — crippled by the Trump administration. On December 11, the WTO’s trade court became ineffective because Washington has repeatedly blocked judicial appointments since 2017.

All bets are off on what lies ahead in 2020 but it probably won’t be a sober and well-judged 3M strategy on the part of the West.

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2019 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 25 December 2019
Word Count: 787
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In 2010, Turkey was regarded by some as an exemplary case of economic and internal stability, having weathered the global financial crash better than most other countries. The 2010s were set up for a defining decade as it approached its centenary as a modern state in 2023.

A nascent peace process with Kurdish militants was taking shape and Kurdish civilians enjoyed an unprecedented level of rights with the lifting of restrictions on broadcasting and minority languages, including the opening of a state Kurdish channel — TRT Ses — in 2009.

Istanbul’s Taksim Square was opened for the first time in decades to May Day demonstrators and trade unionists in 2010. “Constitutional amendments granted the right of collective bargaining for public-sector employees,” said Amnesty International, describing it as a major shift towards workers’ rights.

A decade ago, Ankara was beginning to enjoy the keen ties it had worked hard to develop with a host of important regional and international actors (excluding Israel, following a deadly raid on a Turkish-dominated flotilla to Gaza).

In 2009, Turkey signed an agreement to open diplomatic relations with Armenia. With Abdullah Gul as president and Recep Tayyip Erdogan as prime minister backed by a fleet of keen, ideological local politicians spread across Anatolia, the future looked good.

By 2013, Istanbul and other cities in Turkey served as sanctuaries for thousands of Syrians fleeing political and other forms of persecution.

On the streets of Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, Syrian Kurds openly wept at hearing traditional songs, banned in their home country, performed in public for the first time. Syrian intellectuals gathered in teahouses giddily imagining a democratic future for their homeland.

On the economy front, Turkey has undergone enormous change with the building of billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure projects. The Justice and Development Party, which has ruled throughout the decade, is a building party; its mantra: construct new facilities for the masses — trains, housing, bridges, airports and highways — and come election time your seat in parliament will be all but assured.

However, the latter half of the decade has seen Turkey slide into an autocratic grip from which there appears no way out.

Tragically miscued policies in Syria, including allowing rebels, who by 2015 morphed into fundamentalist extremists, over the southern border, contributed to a series of Islamic State attacks in Istanbul, Ankara and elsewhere that year. There has been a return of the decades-long war with Kurdish separatists that continues and which has taken thousands of civilian lives in south-eastern Turkey.

The failed coup in July 2016 triggered one of the most widespread human-rights crackdowns the world has seen in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of suspected opponents of the government detained, many without trial.

Today, Turkey’s economy is flagging. With Erdogan alone at the helm and with no one to stop him driving the country into the ground from his $615 million, 1,100-room palace in Ankara, its international isolation looks set to continue. Incredibly, GDP per capita stands at less than $9,000, around $1,000 less than in 2010 and a staggering $3,500 less than in 2013, the year before Erdogan took over as president.

That means that, despite the widespread availability of easy credit, Turks today are more than one-quarter less well off than they were the year before Erdogan took complete control of Turkish politics. That’s a staggering indictment of the president and the government’s failures. On the street, people are frustrated and jaded, in part because of the constant rhetoric of conspiracy that dominates newspapers, TV and radio but mostly because there’s less money to go around.

Many observers say the troubles engulfing the country are because of events outside Turkey’s control — the war in Syria and consequent refugee crisis and the broader, global move away from emerging markets by investors. They wouldn’t be wrong.

In truth, however, these are minor factors: Syrian refugees, in fact, fuelled major economic growth and development in south-eastern Turkey and in poorer parts of Istanbul. It was Erdogan’s constant meddling in the country’s monetary policies that saw the lira lose most of its value against major currencies (when I moved to Turkey in May 2013, the lira stood at 2.2 to the US dollar. Today, it’s 5.88 and falling).

In 2010, Erdogan’s leading allies were Ahmet Davutoglu, Abdullah Gul and the other visionaries that transformed Turkish politics. Today, as the president continues his hell-bent mission to retain power, they are his rivals — enemies, even. These days Syrians in Istanbul hide from police charged with relocating them to the Turkish hinterland.

In 2017, academic Howard Eissenstat wrote how “One of the core arguments that President Erdogan has offered for expanding his power through constitutional reforms is that further centralisation of authority will increase stability. Yet the experience of the past ten years has demonstrated that the opposite is true.”

Though there are signs that a critical mass may be fed up with the president’s ways, the battle for the future of Turkey has yet to begin and the ten years to come look very grim.

Stephen Starr is an Irish journalist who lived in Syria from 2007 to 2012. He is the author of Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising (Oxford University Press: 2012).

Copyright ©2019 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 24 December 2019
Word Count: 837
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BEIRUT — A delegation of state-sanctioned Syrian journalists arrived in Riyadh in mid-December, invited to a meeting of the Arab Journalists Syndicate for the first time since bilateral relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia were suspended in August 2011.

That coincided with reports that the Saudi Embassy in Damascus and the offices of Saudi Airways were being refurbished in preparation for reopening.

Just days earlier, the UAE charge d’affaires in Damascus was quoted as saying that the United Arab Emirates was looking forward to a return of calm to Syria “under the wise leadership of President Bashar Assad.”

That was shortly after Arab countries issued back-to-back statements fiercely condemning the Turkish invasion of the north-eastern Syria that started October 9.

Earlier this year, a delegation of Syrian lawyers was hosted in Amman, followed by a visit by Syrian Parliament Speaker Hammouda al-Sabbagh to the Jordanian capital.

The snail-paced Arab normalisation with Syria began with the reopening of the UAE Embassy in December 2018, followed by those of Jordan and Bahrain. The Syrians reciprocated, muting their criticism of Saudi Arabia in state-run media outlets, focusing only on the Turkish threat, which was music to the ears of leaders in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Syria notably stayed out of the Jamal Khashoggi controversy in 2018, with not a single word said against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz. When asked about him at a news conference, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Khashoggi’s death was of no interest to him.

“It seems that Syrian-Saudi governmental relations are now moving forward,” said Mustapha al-Sayyed, a Syrian political commentator based in Dortmund, Germany, aimed at curbing both Iranian and Turkish influence in Syria. “Moscow is the main drive behind this re-engagement,” he said, adding that the Kremlin hopes to reduce Syria’s economic and military dependence on Tehran.

The Russians had pushed for the reopening of the Syrian-Jordanian border, giving Syrian products safe passage to the Arab Gulf and a lifeline for the cash-strapped Syrian economy.

After the United States announced it was withdrawing troops from Syria, Russia hoped that, by regaining oilfields from the Kurdish fighters east of the Euphrates River, the Syrian government would become less dependent on Iranian oil. That aspiration was interrupted by US President Donald Trump’s last-minute decision to keep US troops at the Syrian oilfields, ostensibly to prevent an Islamic State comeback.

Saudi officials believed they could lure the Syrians away from Iran, repeating a strategy that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed had carried out — with limited success — in Iraq. Instead of trashing the post-Saddam leaders of Baghdad as agents of Iranian expansionism, he reached out to them, one after another, courting them with red carpets in Riyadh and Jeddah.

The Saudi crown prince signalled prominent Iraqi allies of Tehran, such as Muqtada al-Sadr, Ammar al-Hakim and then-Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, with the sole aim of creating a threshold in Iraqi politics and not leaving the Iraqi stage wide open to Iranian meddling. He seemed convinced that he could do the same with Damascus.

The Saudis were left out of the Astana process, which monopolised Syrian affairs in the hands of Russia, Turkey and Iran. They were excluded from the recent UN-led constitutional talks that started in Switzerland last October and from the Russia-approved Turkish safe zone between Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad.

Last year, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa took the initiative, warmly embracing his Syrian counterpart at the UN General Assembly. The footage — not surprisingly — was aired exclusively on the Saudi Al Arabiya channel and not on Syrian state-run television. He then appeared on Al Arabiya saying: “We deal with the Syrian government and not with those trying to bring it down.”

The Bahraini foreign minister noticeably used the word “government” instead of “regime,” adding that it was inconceivable for Arab countries to be excluded from the entire political process in Syria.

One week later, a favourable interview with the Syrian president was run in the Kuwaiti-newspaper al-Shahed, in which Assad praised Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah. Weeks later, then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir travelled to Damascus, the first Arab head of state to visit the Syrian capital since 2011. Many speculated he was carrying a goodwill message from Saudi Arabia, to which he was allied in the war on Yemen.

Gulf countries reopened their embassies but did not provide direct financial aid or investment to Syria, fearing US sanctions. That prompted Assad to travel to Tehran in February 2019, triggering a series of economic agreements between the two countries, in infrastructure, telecommunications, housing and agriculture.

Arab countries expressed willingness to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League and invite it to the 2019 Arab Summit in Tunisia but that did not happen because of a veto from Qatar — still at daggers drawn with Damascus.

It was decided that Syria could return to the league but only after it fulfilled two conditions: the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for the start of a political process, and to distance itself from Iran. While the first has sluggishly kicked off with the constitutional talks in October, Syrian-Iranian relations remain fully intact.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian historian and author of Under the Black Flag (IB Tauris, 2015).

Copyright ©2019 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 23 December 2019
Word Count: 858
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ISTANBUL — Turkey is increasingly relying on military capabilities in its foreign policy, triggering regional and international tensions — the latest being with Russia over potential troop deployment in Libya.

Largely isolated in Europe and the Middle East, with Qatar as the only staunch ally, Ankara is flexing muscles in Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and now in Libya.

Ankara seems to be on a collision course with Moscow over Turkey’s plans to deploy troops in support of the Islamist-backed Tripoli government. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assailed the presence of the Russian private military company Wagner in Libya on the side of Libyan National Army Field-Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

“Through the group named Wagner, they are literally working as Haftar’s mercenaries in Libya. You know who is paying them,” Erdogan was quoted December 20 by broadcaster NTV. He added: “It would not be right for us to remain silent against all of this.”

Russia earlier said it was “very concerned” by the possible Turkish troop deployment in Libya, the Interfax news agency reported.

Erdogan recently stated Turkey was ready to send troops to Libya to back the internationally recognised government in Tripoli, which is already a recipient of Turkish military support.

“We will be protecting the rights of Libya and Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean,” Erdogan told A Haber television channel on December 15. “We are more than ready to give whatever support necessary to Libya.”

Citing military sources, the internet publication Haberturk reported that Turkey may build a military base in Libya like the ones in Qatar if the Libyan government asks for a Turkish troop deployment. Feasibility studies for the Libyan base had been completed, Haberturk columnist Cetiner Cetin wrote. There was no official confirmation.

The Turkish government said it is trying to make its voice heard in a region where conflicts pose threats on Turkey’s doorstep and where other players ignore Turkish interests but the approach is not winning Turkey any friends and is a far cry from the idea of having “zero problems with neighbours” that is the official mantra promoted on the website of the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

Mustafa Gurbuz, a non-resident fellow at Arab Centre in Washington, said an alliance between Erdogan, Turkish nationalists and the country’s military leadership is part of the reason for the militarisation.

“Erdogan’s nationalist allies are pushing for military activism in the Eastern Mediterranean against Greece over Cyprus,” Gurbuz said by e-mail.

To some extent, military power has always played a role in Turkey. Its fighter jets and ground troops have been confronting militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in northern Iraq since the 1990s but, in recent years, unilateral military action has become a much more regular feature of Turkey’s foreign policy, putting the country on a collision course with neighbours, regional powers and other NATO members.

When Erdogan spoke October 1, during parliament’s opening session of the new legislative term, he greeted “security forces that proudly hoist our flag in Syria, Iraq, Qatar and many other places.”

Since 2016, Turkey has staged three military interventions in Syria. In November, Erdogan announced the construction of a second military base in Qatar. Turkish soldiers are deployed in Somalia. Lately, Ankara added a drone deployment in the Turkish part of Cyprus.

A decade ago, soft power and the “Turkish model” of a “Muslim democracy” were at the centre of Turkey’s foreign policy.

“It set an example for the rest of the Middle East as a Muslim nation that was democratic, secular, integrated into the world economy and part of key Western institutions like NATO,” Turkey analysts Gonul Tol and Birol Baskan, of the Middle East Institute in Washington, wrote last year. “The Middle East welcomed the ‘new Turkey’ and its newfound involvement in the region.”

Turkish soap operas became hit shows throughout the Middle East and Turkey received an increasing number of tourists from the region.

The picture has changed, however. Eruptions of violence, such as the Syrian war on Turkey’s southern border, demonstrated the limits of soft power. In Syria, Erdogan ended his friendship with Syrian President Bashar Assad and started support for rebels fighting against Damascus. Turkey’s bond with the Muslim Brotherhood and its neo-Ottoman rhetoric alienated governments in the Middle East while Ankara’s relations with the European Union and the United States soured.

“Behind Turkey’s increasing military activism is the fall of what was once called the ‘Turkish model,’” Gurbuz said.

On Turkey’s domestic scene, a decrease of voter support for Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party has made the president reliant on nationalist allies who secure a pro-government majority in parliament and have pushed him to the right.

Gurbuz said Erdogan’s slide towards authoritarianism and his lack of non-nationalist political partners in Ankara have strengthened the influence of nationalist bureaucrats and the Turkish military in foreign policy matters. Some of his new allies promote a Eurasianist vision that argues Turkey should seek closer cooperation with Russia and China. Others are nationalist followers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder.

“The shift in Syrian policy, for example, was an outcome of Erdogan’s new alliance with Eurasianist, nationalist and Kemalist generals,” Gurbuz said.

Turkey’s latest Syria intervention triggered a confrontation with the United States because Washington has been supporting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia in northern Syria, a group seen as a terrorist organisation by Ankara. At the same time, Turkey threatened military action to stop gas exploration by other countries off Cyprus, driving up tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Ankara says its robust style is designed to make other players listen to the Turkish position. When a recent controversial maritime agreement between Turkey and Libya sparked EU criticism because it ignored what Greece regards as its own territorial waters, that was exactly the outcome intended by Ankara, a Turkish official said.

“With this signature, we can negotiate,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It created an opportunity to negotiate.”

Some observers say it is doubtful that the abrasive approach will turn out to be to Turkey’s advantage.

“When a country’s diplomatic style is confrontational, what do you get? Confrontations,” Simon Henderson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote in an analysis for the Washington publication the Hill. “It has become Turkey’s signature style.”

Thomas Seibert is an Arab Weekly contributor in Istanbul.

Copyright ©2019 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 23 December 2019
Word Count: 1,038
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The past few days brought one of the more moving examples of the interconnectedness of our world and the irreducible core of the eternal human quest for justice, Gambia’s case accusing Myanmar of genocide of the Rohingyas has begun at the International Court of Justice. Days later, it ended with the somewhat flat expectation that a ruling on the allegation of genocide could take years.

Even so, the case is significant. When Gambia filed its lawsuit, having received the formal backing of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), there was surprise.  Why would a small country in West Africa be taking another, half a world away, to court?

The Rohingyas are mostly Muslim but is that enough to prompt such a profoundly empathetic gesture from another mainly Muslim but relatively poor and unregarded country 11,500km away? What would be gained and by whom?

More to the point, what credibility did Gambia have in pursuing this particular case? It is hardly a template for systemic justice and human rights. Struggling to get to grips with decades of violence under Yahya Jammeh, the dictator who ruled the country for 22 years before fleeing after surprise election defeat to Equatorial Guinea in 2017, Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission began hearings this year into alleged human rights abuses by Jammeh. It’s proving to be a painful and partial process. Reconciliation is a long and hard road; reparation is an aspiration.

In addition, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) typically addresses disputes between signatory states and has no jurisdiction over proceedings in Myanmar, which is not an ICJ member. Some have said that Gambia’s lawsuit at The Hague was an act of frivolous and ostentatious attention-seeking, to no particular end.

That last point was addressed by the fact the ICJ took up the case. Its 15 judges can rule on disputes stemming from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which applies to the killing of “in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Both Gambia and Myanmar are signatories to the pact.

What of the broader issue about the wisdom and purpose of bringing such a case? Gambia’s lawsuit is a stirring story that underlines our shared humanity, the enormous power of the lessons of history and that coincidences sometimes have huge consequences.

First to the coincidences. It was an unlikely coincidence that Gambia’s foreign minister pulled out of the OIC annual conference in Bangladesh last year and sent Justice Minister Aboubacar Tambadou instead. It was a further coincidence that the OIC conference included a tour of Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. The third coincidence was that Tambadou spent more than a decade prosecuting cases from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. When he heard the Rohingya refugees’ stories in Cox’s Bazar, he said he “saw genocide written all over” them.

Another coincidence of a sort was that Tambadou was from a country that suffered from both the violence of the Jammeh years and international indifference to its misery. As Tambadou explained: “Part of the reason we were motivated to be involved in this case was because of our own experiences. Had the international community took up this responsibility at the time and condemned the former president, I don’t think we would have gone through two decades of terrible atrocities.”

Never mind the eventual outcome of Gambia’s lawsuit against Myanmar on behalf of the Rohingyas, a stateless minority that the Myanmar authorities routinely call “terrorists.”

Never mind the reality that no ICJ ruling can change the fact the Rohingyas were stripped of citizenship in 1982 by the country formerly known as Burma on grounds they are not one of its so-called national races. Consider the momentousness of what Gambia achieved in simply filing a lawsuit that stresses justice and a belief in the essential humanity of us all.

The case refocused attention on the plight of the Rohingyas, some 700,000 of whom have been forced by Myanmar’s military to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh in the past few years. At the Hague hearing, Gambia asked the ICJ to approve temporary measures to protect the Rohingyas.

These may prove unenforceable but John Packer, Neuberger-Jesin professor of International Conflict Resolution at Ottawa University’s law faculty, said, “Genocide is considered an injury against everybody — a general wrong — which allows any state to take this up. Little Gambia is acting for the whole world.”

In a sense, Gambia’s attempt to hold Myanmar accountable for the Rohingyas’ suffering tells an exhilarating story about multilateralism and international rule of law. Perhaps what it really says is: When the richest, most powerful countries look away from injustice, it falls to small and seemingly inconsequential ones to remind us of the difficulty — and necessity — of being good.

Rashmee Roshan Lall is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly. She blogs at www.rashmee.com and is on Twitter @rashmeerl

Copyright ©2019 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 18 December 2019
Word Count: 793
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For decades the United States has been the world’s leading safe-haven destination for refugees.

In 1980, the refugee cap was set as high as 231,000 people. Every year since 2000, the average annual figure was 70,000-80,000. At the height of humanitarian disasters in Syria and Myanmar, former US President Barack Obama’s administration set the 2017 cap at 110,000.

This year, however, is expected to see the fewest applications granted — 30,000 — since the United States’ refugee programme began in 1980. A lower figure is expected to follow for next year.

In September, the White House announced plans to admit 18,000 people under the programme in 2020. Initially, it wanted to admit zero refugees in the coming year but was walked back by Republican and Democratic politicians.

Approximately 4,000 of those places will be taken by Iraqis who helped or otherwise worked with the US military, 5,000 for people fleeing religious persecution and 1,500 for at-risk Central American migrants.

“The current burdens on the US immigration system must be alleviated before it is again possible to resettle large numbers of refugees,” the US State Department claimed in September.

It added it has been forced to deploy its workforce to deal with asylum applications coming through on the United States’ southern border but, in a callous and thinly veiled reproach, stated: “Prioritising the humanitarian protection cases of those already in our country is simply a matter of fairness and common sense.”

Observers and immigration specialists know that’s an argument that holds little water.

Let’s put the global threats facing persecuted people in context: There are around 2.5 million people in Syria’s Idlib province, where Syrian government and Russian bombardments from the air are a harrowing aspect of everyday life.

Yet, this year, just 563 Syrian refugees are to be resettled in the United States. Muslims and Christians are being affected alike. From 2016 until this year, Muslim admissions plunged 87%, to 4,943 people, while for Christians the figure declined 37%, to 23,754.

This is happening at a time when the number of refugees globally is at an all-time high of around 26 million people, half of whom are children.

The non-partisan Migration Policy Institute said the steep decline “has not affected all refugees equally” and “refugee admissions from particular countries, most notably from the Middle East, with an attendant plunge in the resettlement of Muslim refugees.”

Moreover, “overall, refugee admissions fell from most countries from Fiscal Year 2016 and Fiscal Year 2019 but the majority of the drop is attributable to three countries: Syria (from 12,587 to 563), Iraq (from 9,880 to 465) and Somalia (from 9,020 to 231), three of the countries labelled “high-risk.” Taken together, admissions from these 11 designated high-risk nations have fallen 95%,” the institute said.

Refugees, of course, have long been an easy scapegoat for right-wing politicians and nativists who claim that immigrants take jobs and profits out of the hands and mouths of “real Americans.”

However, it’s long been established that refugees and immigrants, in general, do exactly the opposite — they create jobs, revive blighted neighbourhoods and fuel local economies.

In addition to the tens of thousands of desperate people around the world now left to deal with persecution and poverty without the prospect of resettlement in the United States, thousands more working in refugee assistance fields inside the country could lose their jobs as well. That’s because the much-reduced number of approved refugee applications require fewer workers to process those cases.

It is on the global stage, where the fallout will be felt most keenly and not where you may expect. US generals and leaders in the US Defence Department have long viewed the refugee programme as a means to strengthen the United States’ political and diplomatic standing around the world.

For example, if the United States agrees to unburden the cash-strapped Lebanese government of thousands of Syrian refugees, it gives Americans an “in” concerning Lebanese political affairs. Accepting refugees doesn’t just help desperate civilians but also has a huge weighty political dimension.

Unlike the exchange of goods and services between countries (in which trade deals can be formed with relatively little fuss once negotiation has been successful), the exchange of people is much more complicated since human lives don’t stand still.

Desperate refugees don’t — can’t — end their quest for a safe haven just because the United States has shuttered its doors. That means that Canada, the European Union and European countries are better placed to reap the economic benefits of refugees and command influence and better political ties, especially with Middle Eastern countries.

The sum fallout of the refugee cutback is that the United States’ global standing vis-a-vis the refugee programme is to suffer more in the Middle East than in any other region. The big question for Arab countries amounts to: “Does America even matter anymore?”

Stephen Starr is an Irish journalist who lived in Syria from 2007 to 2012. He is the author of Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising (Oxford University Press: 2012).

Copyright ©2019 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 16 December 2019
Word Count: 802
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The Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the Gordian knot of modern-day politics. The more levels you untie, the more problems there seem to be.

The Middle East has stumped and confused the brightest of minds with intricate knowledge and understanding of the area, its people, its culture and its problems. From the brightest of politicians to the wisest of scholars, all come up a shekel short or a day late.

So imagine how much more complex this conflict must seem to outsiders lacking the in-depth knowledge of the land and without the understanding of what motivates the people in this conflict.

Lacking the needed experience in resolving such conflicts, Trump administration negotiators will find themselves in this bottomless pit that has dragged every politician who has tried to mediate in the dispute since Gunnar Jarring’s first stab at negotiating peace between the Arabs and the Israelis in 1967.

What makes this more worrisome is the arrogance of the current White House resident, who lacks experience in mediating a barroom brawl, let alone one of the world’s longest-running and most complex conflicts.

US President Donald Trump wrongly believes that his decisions may be advancing the peace process. In reality, he is adding to the problem.

Trump believed he could advance the dormant peace process but his interjecting edicts, as when he ordered the US Embassy transferred to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv or when he declared that Israel could annex the Golan Heights, set the potential for a peaceful resolution further back.

Trump believes he and his close associates, mainly his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, can succeed where others failed. So far, they have only succeeded in alienating the Palestinians, who refuse to negotiate with Trump.

The United States had supported the idea of a two-state solution but, in view of Pompeo’s statement concerning Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the United States is making a major reversal of the long-standing policy and legal opinion that deemed settlements inconsistent with international law.

The two-state solution was based on a set of trade-offs: the Palestinians reclaiming their land in exchange for Israeli security and peace and the Palestinians accepting a formula of no right of return to Israel in exchange for Jerusalem as their capital.

However, the move by the Trump administration buries the idea of two states existing side by side and leaves a one-state solution as the only alternative, one in which the Arabs would comprise roughly 50% of Israel’s population, an unfortunate alternative for both Israelis and Palestinians.

The Israelis, far more than the Palestinians, reject the one-state solution because, if Palestinians are absorbed into Israel, it would, within a very short time, leave Israelis as a minority in their own country.

A few years ago, following another failed attempt at bridging the gap between the Israelis and the Palestinians, some young Palestinians floated the idea of accepting the one-state solution.

“I am tired of being treated as a second-class citizen. I am tired of the occupation and the manner in which we are treated by the Israelis,” said a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation negotiating team. “Make us citizens of a one-state solution with equal rights and let’s forget about having an independent state of Palestine.”

The first blow to a two-state solution came when Trump declared Jerusalem as the legitimate capital of Israel without also stating the same for the Palestinians.

The Trump administration then stated that the only right of return for Palestinians should be for those who originally left Israel more than 70 years ago, not their offspring, totally ignoring international rights of return and property ownership for family members.

Now comes the fatal blow — Pompeo stating that Israel has the right to take Palestinian land in the West Bank to accommodate the expansion of its citizenry. Pompeo ignored the fact that the settlements have been deemed illegal.

“Now that the US has declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, settlements in the West Bank as legal and the US statements on limiting rights of return, there is little reason for either side to negotiate a peaceful and final agreement of a two-state solution,” said Edward M. Gabriel a former US ambassador to Morocco and currently president of the American Task Force for Lebanon.

Claude Salhani is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly.

Copyright ©2019 The Arab Weekly — distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 16 December 2019
Word Count: 714
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