Here is Schenker’s take on Turkey: “Recent developments suggest that while Turkey’s military leadership remains committed to the state’s secular, Western orientation and the defining principles of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the civilian Islamist government led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) seems to have different ideas. Ankara is increasingly pursuing illiberal policies at home, for instance by attacking independent media, while aligning itself with militant, anti-western Middle East regimes abroad.“The latest demonstration of Ankara’s political shift was its cancellation last month of Israel’s long-standing participation in NATO military exercises in Turkey. Even worse, on the same day Israel was disinvited, Turkey announced imminent military exercises with Syria, a member of the US list of ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism.’ These developments came just weeks after Ankara and Damascus established a ‘senior strategic cooperation council.’ These developments could signal the beginning of the end of Turkey’s close military and economic cooperation with the Jewish state.
“Ankara is simultaneously moving closer to the mullocracy in Tehran, even though the Islamic Republic is undermining stability in Afghanistan and Iraq by providing insurgents in both countries with explosives that are killing NATO and US soldiers. The Iranian regime is also threatening to annihilate Israel, the very state Turkey is now distancing itself from. And yet Turkey and Iran have signed several security cooperation agreements over the past few years, and just two months ago, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hinted he would oppose sanctions against Iran, saying he ‘firmly believe[d] that the international community’s concern over Iran’s nuclear program should be eased.’ This past June, Turkish President Abdullah Gül was among the first to call Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to congratulate him on his fraudulent re-election.”
Now let’s turn to Patrick Seale and his op-ed in The New York Times for a completely different take on Turkish foreign policy in recent years. According to Seale: “America’s failure in Iraq -- and its equal failure to tame Israel’s excesses -- has encouraged Turkey to emerge from its pro-American straitjacket and assert itself as a powerful independent actor at the heart of a vast region that extends from the Middle East to the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
“The Turks like to say that whereas Iran and Israel are revisionist powers, arousing anxiety and even fear by their expansionism and their challenge to existing power structures, Turkey is a stabilizing power, intent on spreading peace and security far and wide.
“Turkey is extending its influence by diplomacy rather than force. It is also forging economic ties with its neighbors, and has offered to mediate in several persistent regional conflicts. … Turkey’s dynamic multi-directional foreign policy started to take shape when the Justice and Development party, or AKP, came to power in 2002 under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Abdullah Gül, now president of the Turkish Republic. … Two visits in October illustrate Turkey’s activisim [sic]. Prime Minister Erdoğan, accompanied by nine ministers and an Airbus full of businessmen, visited Baghdad, where he held a session with the Iraq government and signed no fewer than 48 memoranda in the fields of commerce, energy, water, security, the environment and so forth.
“At much the same time, Foreign Minister [Ahmet] Davutoğlu was in Aleppo, where he signed agreements with Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Muallim, of which perhaps the most important was the removal of visas, allowing for a free flow of people across their common border.
“Turkey also broke new ground in October by signing two protocols with Armenia, providing for the restoration of diplomatic relations and the opening of the border between them. … Underpinning Turkey’s diplomacy is its central role as an energy hub linking oil and gas producers in Russia and Central Asia with energy-hungry markets in Europe.
“One way and another, a resurgent Turkey is rewriting the rules of the power game in the Middle East in a positive and non-confrontational manner. This is one of the few bright spots in a turbulent and highly inflammable Middle East.”
As you can see, it is as if Schenken and Seale are talking about two different countries. The reason I wanted to quote these two different takes on Turkey at such length is to illustrate that there is no standard and monolithic view of Turkey in the West. What Western analysts see in Turkey depends on their pre-established assumptions and worldviews. And the same can be argued about Turkey’s domestic debate. We should therefore agree to disagree and refrain from sweeping generalizations about how the “West” sees Turkey. There is no single “West,” and there is no single “Turkey.”
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