Of course the role of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s charisma particularly in the Muslim world cannot be ignored in this progress. His most recent visits to Kuwait and Qatar showed just how much the public and other leaders support Erdoğan. These are important factors but they can’t be the sole basis for a vision.
In this respect, it’s crystal clear that Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s “global actor” claim, which he brought up during a meeting of ambassadors in Erzurum, is groundless and empty. Let us take a look at the recent developments.
Turkey’s official policy was to oppose the division in Sudan. Despite global public reaction, Turkey even established close relations with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is being accused of committing crimes against humanity. But we must admit that even though Turkey’s Africa initiative was successful, Turkey does not have the power to influence, let alone determine, the future of this country, which has tremendous importance in terms of energy resources.
On the other hand, America, which is competing with China over oil resources, clearly expressed a will for the division of Sudan, and ultimately Sudan is being divided. It just hasn’t been officially declared yet. Likewise, Turkey had to backpedal in the face of Iran, which has invested in Lebanon for many years. Disturbed by the possibility that a report on Hariri’s assassination could accuse Hezbollah members, Iran has urged Hezbollah ministers to resign from the government, bringing the country to the brink of another civil war.
This was another failure for Turkey, which had been trying to prevent another civil war from breaking out by keeping the current government in place.
The Armenian initiative was blocked by a veto from Azerbaijan, which Turkey depends on for oil and natural gas pipelines, and has been postponed. When considered from this point, we can’t argue that Ambassador James Jeffrey’s assessment about Turkey failing to achieve its foreign policy goals -- which was released by WikiLeaks -- is unfair. Turkey’s role in world production and trade is obvious. Exaggerating this role can lead to wrong policies, just as downgrading it can too. Foreign policymakers need to understand this fact.
A foreign policy vision that isn’t backed by economic and military power means it doesn’t have a solid foundation. Certainly Turkey has made significant economic progress in recent years; it has improved the standard of democracy and has implemented serious legal reforms. However, Turkey still lags behind the main actors in the international arena. A country that has yet to resolve its Kurdish problem and still faces the risk of entering a conflict does not have much chance of preventing other countries from being dragged into a civil war. The main player in the current world order is still the United States, regardless of the challenges it faces. There are predictions that China, Russia and India could challenge the US’s power in the future, but we should not forget that none of these countries will be able to come anywhere close to the US in terms of military power for many more years to come. The US has indicated that it wants the UN to announce its decision on Hariri’s assassination. This might be part of a plan to settle accounts with Iran in a possible civil war via Lebanon. We don’t know that for sure. But what we do know is that Turkey should not set targets that it can’t achieve or that it can’t achieve in the short term.
Turkey has the potential to become a regional actor and it can contribute to the game plan of big powers in the global sense, but it can’t become a global actor. There’s a saying in Turkish that describes this situation very well: “Ne kadar ekmek, o kadar köfte,” which can be roughly translated to “You only get as much as you put in.”
