“There will be a real shock in Turkey” and the Turkish government will not be able to prevent popular demands to stop cooperating with the United States, Gül said. There is no doubt the foreign minister is right. America’s image is already at an all-time low in Turkey, and a new crisis with Washington will only exacerbate anti-American Turkish nationalism. If accepted, the Armenian genocide resolution will provide plenty of ammunition to the anti-EU and anti-American camps in the midst of an election year. The main losers will be the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Washington itself, while the nationalist right and left -- namely MHP and CHP -- will emerge with considerable gains.
In writing short opinion pieces such as this one, there is always a journalistic tendency to focus on the short term. If we look deeper; however, it is high time to recognize that the malaise in Turkish-American relations has become a structural one. Since the end of the Cold War and especially in the wake of 9/11, Ankara’s problems with Washington are now deeply intertwined with the country’s Kemalist identity dilemma. Let me explain why I’m pessimistic. During the Cold War, Ankara and Washington shared a common enemy. Yes, relations witnessed their fair share of ups and downs. Suffice to remember the 1969 “Johnson letter” and the 1974 arms embargo to debunk a mythical “golden age.” There were always problems. Yet, the Soviet menace was real and it brought a sense of predictability and limit to what could go wrong. Moreover, during times of the Cold War, virulent anti-Americanism belonged to the realm of the Turkish radical left.
Today, the situation is radically different. For starters, Ankara and Washington no longer share a common enemy. The “axis of evil” is no “evil empire.” Perceptions of terrorism radically differ. Turkey’s PKK and America’s al-Qaeda are two different animals. They fail to generate common cause. But the real problem is elsewhere: America is now on the wrong side of Turkey’s Kemalist polarization. In other words, America has lost the Kemalists. This is a radically new phenomenon that requires some historical background.
With the end of the Cold War, Kurdish nationalism and political Islam re-emerged as the “twin threats” to Kemalism. Gone are the good old days when left-wing and right-wing ideologies were able to superficially mask the country’s Kurdish and Islamic cleavages. Today, unlike during the Cold War, the left is no longer able to co-opt Kurdish dissent, and the right can no longer use Islam against communism. Since the end of the Cold War, Kurdish dissent and political Islam have become autonomous forces. As a result, the Turkish security paradigm shifted back to the 1920s and 1930s -- decades when the fledgling Kemalist Republic confronted violent Kurdish and Islamic challenges.
This Kemalist dilemma is now fueling an unprecedented sense of anti-Americanism. Washington is at the heart of the conspiracy-prone public debate in Turkey. In the eyes of the Kemalist elite, the lone superpower is actively promoting “moderate Islam.” The AK Party’s Turkey is now America’s “model” for the Middle East. This American plot, they believe, is developing at the expense of Kemalism. The anger against America is even stronger on the front of Turkish nationalism. Today all Turks, from former ambassadors to cab drivers, believe Washington wants to create a Kurdish state in Iraq. America is therefore perceived to be on the wrong side of Turkey’s secular and nationalist identity. Here is my question: If America has lost the Kemalists because of secularism and the rest of the country because of the Kurdish question, who is left to work with? No wonder Turkey has become the most anti-American country in the West….
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