The deeply shocking and carefully organized destruction of the independent and sovereign state of Lebanon by its neighbor, Israel — to put it back “by 20 years” to quote the IDF — has presented Turkey with a number of extremely difficult questions.
These mostly fall on a sensitive area of Turkish politics: is Turkey going to move to the West or East?
Turkey is physically close to Lebanon, which has a 53 percent Muslim population (mainly Shiite), and Hezbollah is an extremist organization — regarded as a terrorist outfit in Israel. Turkey prides itself on its friendly relations with the Arab and fellow Muslim countries. It will be remembered it did not wish the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to take place through Turkey to the annoyance of Washington.
But Turkey is part of the Israeli-Turkish Strategic Partnership, which was once described by an Israeli academic, only half in jest, as the two bad guys in the area coming together.
Israel claims to have achieved with Turkey, a stalwart member of NATO, a new and better balance of power in the region. Turkey sees the Partnership as a way of getting closer to America and thus the West.
Today Turkey is under powerful pressure from the United Nations, and from a number of important countries, to send a sizable contingent to beef up the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon that is floundering.
France has now agreed to dispatch a total of 2,000 soldiers that is less than first expected. (In October 1983, 58 French peacekeepers died in a suicide bombing in Beirut, which has acted as a brake on the French government in 2006.) Turkey has a huge army, has performed well on peacekeeping duties in such different places as Kosovo and Afghanistan, and it would be bad for Turkey’s international image if it did not now get behind the UN effort in Lebanon. The suggested total figure of 15,000 looks unobtainable at present.
Unlike many other Muslim countries it is highly acceptable to Israel. I am not happy over Israel’s refusal to accept countries to the peacekeeping force if they do not recognize Israel.
The United Nations is rightly most anxious to have Muslim troops well represented in a largely Muslim country.
Time is of the essence after Israel’s special forces raid on a Hezbollah location in the Bekaa Valley, and after Hezbollah’s statement that it had no plans to hand over its arms. The United Nations must quickly build up its force levels in Lebanon if the cease-fire is not to fold away.
However, I have some sympathy for the Turkish Cabinet that needs to be told more about the mandate under which Turkish troops will be expected to operate. They will not want their troops to be told to disarm Hezbollah, which will have considerable support for standing up to Israel in many parts of Turkey. For the moment Turkey is sensibly increasing its aid program to Lebanon — like many other countries.
I cannot claim to be surprised that in Turkey popular support for Iran is growing and that for the United States is declining. The United States, through its own very obvious policy mistakes and ignorance, is losing ground in the Middle East.
It has been reducing the number of its troops in Afghanistan just at the moment when the Taleban has been surging forward. It seeks to cut back on its troops in Iraq, but has been forced by the chaos in Baghdad to send many thousands of them to the capital. Israel’s amazingly poor performance against Hezbollah, after being given extra time by America — and I regret the United Kingdom — to destroy it, has only added to the general feeling in the area that American strategy has run out of ideas and is on the edge of collapsing.
On Aug. 23 the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London produced a report on Iran that suggested it had been the “main beneficiary” of the Iraq war. It discusses Iran’s complex links with Turkey. There can be no doubt that Hezbollah’s success in Lebanon, and the evidence it is now working with Hamas, reinforce the impression that Iran is the up and coming power in the region. This causes concern in the Gulf states.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared more than once his country cannot be “neutral and impartial” in the Lebanon conflict. The Leader of the Republican People’s Party, Deniz Baykal, responds that there is a danger of Turkey being dragged into “the Middle East ring of fire”. Some journalists in Ankara claim that the prime minister is now distancing the country from the West, and warn of a possible increase in anti-Semitism in Turkey.
This is a dangerous moment for Turkey and calm and intelligent leadership is required. It is a big player on the edge of an unstable region facing further conflict.
