Others argue such talk of Islamization is nonsense and that Ankara is merely adapting to its new geostrategic environment. In this post-Cold War multidimensional context, Turkey is a rising power. It is only to be expected that Turkish national interests will not always converge with those of the Euro-Atlantic community. In my opinion, these grand generalizations about “strategic context” or “ideological reorientation” have only limited explanatory value. Is there really an Islamization of Turkey’s foreign policy? Are Turkey’s national interests really no longer in line with Western ones in the Middle East? Is Ankara’s Iran policy a result of the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) pro-Islamic tendencies? Ideology and perceptions certainly matter. The AKP has Islamic roots. But during its tenure, the party showed time and time again that it has a pragmatic approach to problem solving. The AKP’s approach to Cyprus, the European Union, Russia and Armenia, its military contributions to Afghanistan and Lebanon and its domestic policies aimed at solving the Kurdish problem and the Alevi issue are not symptomatic of an Islamist mindset. One, therefore, needs to ask whether ideology is the main factor in its Iran policy.And the same question can be asked about the AKP’s approach to Israel. Let’s not forget that only a short while ago Ankara was mediating between Syria and Israel. How come no one talked about the AKP’s Islamist tendencies in 2008? Even US officials admit that Turkish diplomacy acted with great professionalism during these negotiations in winning the trust of Israel. Ankara indeed came much closer to finding a solution to the problems between Syria and Israel than Washington during the Clinton administration. It is also important to remember that it was not Prime Minister Erdoğan’s outburst at Davos or the recent Gaza flotilla incident that caused the crisis in Turkish-Israeli relations. The problem started in early 2009 when Israel heavily bombed Gaza, causing the deaths of more than 1,500 people (the majority of them civilians) right when Turkey was getting ready to announce a historic breakthrough in Syrian-Israeli talks. Prime Minister Erdoğan felt betrayed by his Israeli counterparts, and relations have been going from bad to worse ever since.
This is why instead of talking about an Islamist shift in Turkey or diverging national interests between Ankara and Washington (I assume Washington would have been very happy with an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement), it is time to consider alternative explanations about Turkey’s Iran policy. There seem to be two major driving factors behind Ankara’s logic. The first is about avoiding another escalation to war as in Iraq. The second is about Turkish ambitions to contain Iran in the greater Middle East. Because space is limited, let’s look at the first factor now and analyze the second next week. The way Ankara looks at Iran is through the prism of Iraq. In other words, Ankara is very concerned that the dynamics that led to war in Iraq could repeat themselves in the case of Iran. In Iraq, sanctions did not lead to anything positive. In fact, they allowed Saddam to blame the West for the downturn in the economy as he rallied support behind his Baathist regime. Since those sanctions were imposed because of Iraq’s clandestine weapons of mass destruction program, Turks see similar dynamics at play today in Iran. Ankara believes sanctions will once again pave the way for war. In the eyes of Turks, diplomatic and economic coercion against Iraq led to a slippery road towards military confrontation. And war led to regional and domestic chaos in the Middle East. The same and worse could happen with Iran.
In short, Ankara’s Iran policy is primarily driven by something quite pragmatic and non-ideological: the need to avoid what happened in Iraq. It was very telling that when Ahmet Davutoglu and his Brazilian counterpart wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, the title was “Giving Diplomacy a Chance.” The implication was clear: The alternative to diplomatic engagement is war. I believe both Ankara and Washington genuinely share the same strategic objectives in Iran: a country without nuclear weapons. They want to achieve this objective without military means. This is why the divergence is more about tactics rather than strategy and national interest. Those who keep talking about Turkey’s Islamist mindset should pay more attention to parallels between Iran and Iraq in the eyes of Ankara.
