Thursday, September 8, 2011
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In “Enemy-less Turkey” in this column less than a year ago, I asked a few questions, hoping that the followers of the science fiction theory dubbed “zero problems” might give a convincing answer:
“Why does Turkey spend billions of dollars in naval systems, including new frigates, corvettes, submarines, coastal surveillance systems and even a ‘landing platform dock that can carry up to eight helicopters?’ Which country in our seas of peace poses a security threat to Turkey..? None, according to the (national security) threat paper. What, then, justifies the generous naval spending?
“Since Turkey has no enemies in its vicinity… what will it do with new-generation tanks and air-defense systems and frigates and a landing platform dock? Which government would spend tens of billions of dollars on equipment it thinks it will not need?”
Put another away, I was wondering why a country with a strictly no-problems-with-neighbors doctrine would spend $5 billion for new weapon systems every year? Apparently, the founder of the doctrine knew better than me and many others.
The always self-confident Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu set out to work with the ambitious zero-problems-with-neighbors dictum as if the world’s most volatile region had waited for him as the promised peacemaker for two millennia. And he has miraculously found millions of “buyers” in the marketplace of ideas, ironically, even among the people he is now in a cold war with, not to mention the naïve sons of Aristotle.
He has traveled half the world more than a few times, shook hands with hostile statesmen, built “brotherly” relations with Muslim leaders in this part of the world, won prize after prize, posed for cameras thousands of times, always smiling, always hopeful for the best fruit: peace.
He built an alliance with Syria, thought he could persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program, thought Aegean disputes would soon go away and thought that Cyprus would finally be reunited. He thought a landmark peace with Armenia was feasible. What’s more? “The return of the Ottomans,” theoretically, would make al-Quds an Arab-only city, and “we would all happily pray at the al-Aqsa mosque in the Palestinian capital al-Quds.”
After two years of hard work Professor Davutoğlu has been able to attain, sadly, a cold war with Israel. That cold war has already turned into a conventional war in the virtual world. An Israeli online news site reported that Turkish hackers “hijacked” 350 Israeli websites last Sunday.
The situation may look calmer, but deep down it may not be so when it comes to our great Muslim brothers and friends, Syria and Iran. Mr. Davutoğlu must be the last person Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would wish to see these days. Tehran’s nuclear program goes on at full speed while “zero-problem neighbor” Turkey has agreed to host a NATO radar system on Turkish soil to intercept any future Iranian missile threat. And the head of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi – no doubt, a brother and friend of Minister Davutoğlu – has made this not-so-brotherly statement: “Muslim countries should not serve NATO’s interests.”
The situation on the Aegean and Mediterranean is not better. To punish Israel, Turkey has pledged to increase its naval presence and warned against potential joint exploration activity by Cyprus and Israel in the eastern Mediterranean. “This is why we have a military,” EU Minister Egemen Bağış said in a threatening tone which naturally was perceived threateningly in Athens.
Greek Foreign Ministry Spokesman Gregory Delavekouras declared Minister Bağış’s statement as threatening and commented that: “This conduct is opposed to the policy Turkey has declared: that of zero problems with its neighbors.”
Even the country with which we Turks feel as “one nation-two states” apparently feels irritated by its Turkish brothers. WikiLeaks has quoted Azerbaijan’s president, İlham Aliyev, as confiding to American diplomats that all his country hopes to do is protect itself from Turkey’s neo-Ottomanism and Islamism. So, once again Mr. Davutoglu succeeded at what looks unthinkable: Making nemesis neighbors Armenia and Azerbaijan feel equally distant to Turkey (like the nemesis trio Israel, Syria and Iran do as well).
Apparently, this is not how you build a sea of peace. But why the dramatic ending? There may be dozens of reasons but, speaking of WikiLeaks, I suggest readers start by recalling another cable which quotes a former U.S. ambassador as putting it most realistically: “With Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources to cut themselves in on the action, the Turks have to ‘cheat’ by finding an underdog, a Silajdzic, Meshaal or Ahmadinejad.”
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