Thursday, January 6, 2011

While driving to Michigan this week I saw an interesting article in the New York Times on Turkey's role in Iraq.

A Turkey as resurgent as at any time since its Ottoman glory is projecting influence through a turbulent Iraq, from the boomtowns of the north to the oil fields near southernmost Basra, in a show of power that illustrates its growing heft across an Arab world long suspicious of it.

Its ascent here, in an arena contested by the United States and Iran, may prove its greatest success so far, as it emerges from the shadow of its alliance with the West to chart an often assertive and independent foreign policy.

All in all, it's not a bad piece—it mostly shies away from the neo-Ottoman silliness that's been a feature of some western analysis of Turkish foreign policy recently.

The article appropriately focuses upon the Kurdish issue, which is a big factor behind Turkey's broader level of engagement in some parts of the region (with Iraq, and especially the northern Iraqi government, Syria, and Iran) in recent years. Rather than simply attributing the Turkish government's growing relations with its neighbors to psychological neediness ("chasing glory"), or in terms of a supposed anti-western bent to Turkish foreign policy (a "turning away from the west"), the article rightly associates Turkish moves in the region with efforts to make progress in neutralizing the PKK.

But still I find it interesting that Turkey would be considered "assertive" in actively pursuing relations with its neighbors. Should the US be considered "assertive" when Washington pursues relations with Canada and Mexico? Would France be considered "assertive" in encouraging investment in Belgium or Spain?

And what would the less "assertive" course of action (or "muscle-flexing," to borrow a phrase from the article's title) be for Turkey? Letting the United States set the agenda for regional relations? It almost sounds as if the most natural, least suspicious act would be for Turkey to simply let the United States manage these relations, as usual.

By pursuing relations with its neighbors (with whom decades' worth of difficult problems are being confronted in a very short time), Turkey comes across at some points in this article as undertaking a vaguely aggressive policy, whereas the fact that the United States is occupying countries thousands of miles away from its borders is presented as part of the natural order of things.

Or am I reading too much into this?

These issues notwithstanding, on the whole I thought the article reflected the generally positive, business-oriented approach of the Turkish government to pursuing better relations with its neighbors—which is a view much more in line with my own than the "neo-Ottoman" or "turning towards the east" narratives that often accompany scare-stories about Turkey working more independently  with its neighbors in the region.

There's also a short video on the economy of northern Iraq. Even though I do get tired of this sort of "Wow! Shopping malls in a former war zone! Isn't that awesome?!" type of journalism, some people might find it interesting.