What the article doesn’t cite is detailed evidence of this campaign -- apart from the off-hand complaint by the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak over what he described as the pro-Tehran sympathies of Turkey’s new intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan. This does not technically qualify as a rumor, since Mr. Barak, for better or worse, has defended his comments in public. However, it is clear that accusations of a “smear campaign” are to some degree prompted by a concern that Ankara is losing ground in another sort of campaign -- a campaign to win hearts and minds in Western capitals for a more assertive style of foreign policy, including its terse stance towards Israel.
The news from the public diplomacy front is not encouraging. Many leading -- and a lot of minor -- commentators now seem to take it for granted that Turkish foreign policy has gone rogue and that Ankara is trying to jump its Western moorings. Indeed, we are in the usual position of the US Senate holding up the appointment of a new ambassador to Ankara. In a letter to the secretary of state, Republican Senator Sam Brownback suggested that the new appointee, Frank Ricciardone, has a track record of appeasing Middle Eastern autocrats and is worried he would do the same in today’s Turkey. “I am also concerned that we have not fully considered the ramifications of a Turkish tilt toward Iran and away from Israel,” he writes.
Ankara’s considered answer to this is that Turkey as a nation has the right and obligation to pursue its own best interests. If the famous “zero problems with neighbors” policy means anything, it is that Turkey has to live and co-exist in a neighborhood very different from that of the US and Western Europe and that its ability to do so, is ultimately in the West’s own interests. Indeed, its own press and politicians have accused Washington of displaying grotesque carelessness in betraying both US’s and its allies’ interests, with the invasion of Iraq. That was an exercise far more ill-starred than the flotilla that tried to breach the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The most damning criticism of Turkey, however, is not that it has switched sides in the hypothetical war on terror, but that it is making things up as it goes along. This is a view put forward in a recent contribution to World Affairs by Claire Berlinski, who suggests with apparent tongue in cheek, that Turkey is not the new axis of evil but instead a hive of self-delusion. We shouldn’t expect it to have a consistent foreign policy because consistency and logic is not what Turkey does best. This kind of parody is difficult to get right, and I have had people write to me to say they find the piece offensive. But more than one friend has written, entirely unprompted, to say it struck a chord.
One such e-mail arrived from a former ambassador who hails from a “neutral” country far from Turkey and the Middle East. The annoyance with Ankara is palpable. “In the flotilla fiasco Turkey used non-state actors to further state objectives knowing it would not be proper for the state to take on this task. Then they take umbrage as if it were a legitimate state action. Though it is perfectly legitimate for Turkey to complain about the legitimacy of the blockade, to send its citizens on a blockade breaking venture is not. It is like the children’s crusade of medieval times,” my friend writes. The thing is, he is now a senior UN official. Not someone, I hasten to add who is involved in the flotilla enquiry but very senior and a specialist in the law of the sea to boot. “I was not impressed with puffed up talk about ‘international waters.’ For this purpose, where the action took place is irrelevant,” my correspondent adds.
The argument will continue (…it was not just Turkish citizens on the boats…but then why did government MPs refuse to join the ships at the last minute?). However, one upshot is that Turkey must anticipate that even a UN enquiry will see another side to the story apart from Turkish indignation. The thing about “zero problems” as well is that it means getting on with those who do not share the preconceptions of your domestic audience and also understanding that every criticism is not a smear.
