Informed Comment

Many catastrophes ensued from George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq (launched in order to, he told an astonished and puzzled Jacques Chirac, then French president, thwart the biblical monsters Gog and Magog in the Middle East ahead of the Judgment Day.)

Among them was a revival of the Kurdistan Workers Party guerrilla group (Turkish acronym PKK), which had been in decline in the late 1990s and early zeroes.

The PKK had launched attacks in eastern Turkey on Wednesday that left 28 Turkish troops dead and 15 wounded. In response, the Turkish government announced its right of hot pursuit into Iraq after them with helicopter gunships and a land incursion. France24 has video:

The Kurds in Northern Iraq, a virtually independent state in the 1990s and until present, gained eve more autonomy with the collapse of the Iraqi state in 2003. Ultimately some 5000 Kurdish guerrillas from the Turkish side of the border, who were in trouble with the Turkish security forces because of their activism, took refuge in villages like Qandil in Iraq. Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani and his Peshmerga paramiitary winked at their terrorist past and continued activities over the border in eastern Turkey.

Mirrored with thanks from the Christian Science Monitor

From 1980 through the late 1990s, the Turkish military had pursued a brutal dirty war against the then-Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party (Turkish acronym PKK). The latter pushed a separatist agenda on behalf of the Kurds of eastern Anatolia, who comprise about 10 percent of the Turkish population (and the poorest segment of it). Kurds speak an Indo-European language akin to the Persian in Iran and are spread among 5 countries in the Middle East. Kurdish nationalism, if it realized its goal of establishing a Kurdish state, would dismember Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and to a lesser extent Azerbaijan. The Turkish that is the official language in Turkey is an Altaic language related to Mongolian in east Asia. The PKK envisions a Kurdish withdrawal from Turkey, though few Turkish Kurds in opinion polling say they favor that option– though Turkish Kurds often do feel discriminated against and want more rights.

On Thursday morning, some 500 Turkish troops moved 5 miles into Iraq. At the same time, Turkish warplanes bombed suspected PKK outposts in villages in Dohuk and Sulaimaniya provinces, causing fires to break out and destroying property, and impelling villagers to flee.

The incursion is not so far as large as that launched in similar circumstances in 2008. Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani had condemned the PKK attacks as a plot against Turkish-Kurdish brotherly relations, but objected to the Turkish invasion of Iraq. Barzani actually has fairly good relations with Ankara, and Turkey is a major source of investment in Iraqi Kurdistan. But the PKK safe havens are a continued irritant in relations that could at any moment lead to the outbreak of a wider war.

The Bush administration, which ended up being weak in Iraq, never made any arrangements for what might happen to Kurdish-Iraqi and Kurdish-Turkey relations after the US withdrawal. The US depended too heavily on Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq to be in a position effectively to pressure Irbil. This weakness got worse as Obama withdraw tens of thousands of US troops from Iraq, losing virtually all leverage. Washington is therefore bequeathing to an unstable region even more instability.

Posted in Iraq, Turkey | 12 Comments

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta , on a visit to Israel and Palestine before heading to Egypt, publicly upbraided the Likud government of Israel for having become isolated diplomatically in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring, and warned direly that brute military force would not be enough to provide for Israel’s security.

Panetta said,

“It’s pretty clear, at this dramatic time in the Middle East when there have been so many changes, that it is not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated. And that is what has happened…”

Panetta added,

“The important thing there is to again reaffirm our strong security relationship with Israel, to make clear that we will protect their qualitative military edge… As they take risks for peace, we will be able to provide the security that they will need in order to ensure that they can have the room hopefully to negotiate.”

Panetta said he was aware of that Israel had more and better weapons than its neighbors… “but the question you have to ask is – is it enough to maintain an military edge if you are isolating yourself diplomatically?”

“Real security can only be achieved by both a strong diplomatic effort as well as a strong effort to project your military strength…” he said.

Panetta is clearly concerned at the bad relations between Israel and Turkey, and the increasingly rocky relationship between Israel and revolutionary Egypt, where angry demonstrators invaded the Israeli embassy and chased the ambassador out of the country. The Israeli ambassador to Jordan also had to leave briefly, because of the threat potentially posed by anti-Israel demonstrations in Amman.

The Obama administration, for which Panetta is speaking, is deeply frustrated with blustery Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far right cabinet, including thuggish foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman (a former Moldovian club bouncer).

But it is most likely that the Obama administration has other reasons for pressuring Netanyahu at this juncture. Pro-American Arab allies throughout the region are facing widespread protests and even revolutionary movements– in Bahrain and Yemen most prominently, and to a lesser extent in Jordan and Morocco. The closeness of those governments to Washington (and by implication to Tel Aviv) is among the strikes against them in Arab public opinion, because of the execrable treatment by Israel of the stateless, often homeless Palestinians. While pro-American oil states like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have tried to bribe their populations into quiescence, so far with some success, the Obama team must be frantic that Netanyahu’s provocations will help produce even more turmoil in the Arab world.

If Saudi Arabia blew up over the royal family’s close ties to Washington, the price of petroleum would rise astronomically. Saudi Arabia produces 9.7 million barrels a day of the 88 million barrels a day of petroleum pumped globally. Take that off the market (the revolution in Libya took its entire oil production offline) and there would be a global crisis of Depression-era proportions. Although oil futures prices and supplies have softened in the past quarter (down 17%) on expectation of Libya’s production coming back online and continued weak economic growth in Western Europe and North America, supplies are still tight by historic standards. You take 11% of world production off the table, and the price rise wouldn’t be serial, it would be exponential. (I.e., the price wouldn’t go up 11%, it would go up to like $500 a barrel, compared with $79 now for West Texas Crude).

The stability of pro-American Arab regimes in this time of enormous instability depends in some important part on public anger about treatment of the Palestinians. So to have Netanyahu and Lieberman caroming around making inflammatory statements and adopting belligerent policies, and blowing off Obama’s peace process is rather inconvenient. An announcement by the Palestine Authority that there was a prospect of progress on Palestinian rights through negotiations with Israel would be very, very helpful right about now.

But what does Obama (and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia) get? Announcements of settlement expansions on the West Bank, and Israeli air strikes on Palestinians in Gaza.

Netanyahu has refused to negotiate with the Palestinians in good faith, and his adventurism against the Gaza aid flotilla of 2010 created a diplomatic crisis that continues today. After twisting the arms of Western European allies like Germany to oppose the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, the Israelis deeply angered Germany and others by cheekily announcing that they will expand settlements yet again. The ostensible argument for opposing the Palestinian UN gambit was that it would make bilateral negotiations more difficult. But wasn’t that precisely what settlement expansion would do?

The Netanyahu government has unnecessarily set a course toward worsening relations with Turkey by refusing to apologize for killing 9 Turkish aid workers (one an American citizen) on the Mavi Marmara in late May of 2010. United Nations investigators found disturbing evidence of the use of excessive force by Israeli commandos. Turkey also objects to the Israeli economic strangulation of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, such that it prevents them from exporting any of their products and so has reduced them to poverty, with 56 percent being food insecure. Such blockades of staples imposed on non-combatants, including children, in an occupied territory are illegal in international law, not to mention inhumane and just plain creepy. I mean, what kind of a person keeps children living on the edge or prevents their parents from putting a roof over their heads? (An Israeli blockade to keep weapons from coming into Gaza would be legal and understandable, but since 2007 they’ve gone way beyond that policy into a very dark area of the soul.)

Turkey wants the blockade on Palestinian civilians dropped, and so does the vast majority of the world (talk about diplomatically isolated!) After the fall of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, who may have gotten kickbacks to do favors for Israeli policy, the new foreign minister, Nabil Alaraby, called the Gaza blockade “shameful.” (Alaraby has gone on to become secretary-general of the Arab League). Egypt shares the Israeli concern about weapons being smuggled into Gaza, but 99 percent of Egyptians object to the rest of the blockade.

The increasingly hostile rhetoric directed at Israel by the Turkish government over these issues, along with the popular protests against it in Egypt (where, if public opinion becomes important, relations are likely to turn even more chilly than those with Turkey– though likely the peace treaty is not in doubt).

Avigdor Lieberman’s response to Erdogan’s criticisms has been to implicitly threaten to ally with the PKK Kurdish terrorist group against Turkey, which is about the most explosive thing you could implicitly threaten Ankara with.

Throwing fuel on the flames has been the Netanyahu government’s arrogant refusal to freeze settlements on territory in the West Bank and around Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians, while negotiations proceed as to their ultimate disposition. In short, Israel is determinedly gobbling up the West Bank lands it militarily occupied in 1967, and the Palestinian Authority now says it just isn’t going to bestow legitimacy on this vast land-grab by engaging in mock negotiations that are doomed to leave the Palestinians with less and less territory– even while the negotiations are going on!

It is illegal for an Occupying power to flood the occupied territory with its own citizens, under the Geneva Convention of 1949. While an occupation can be legal, the extent of the violations Israel has committed against the 1907 Hague Convention and the 1949 Geneva Convention are so extensive as to have rendered their continued occupation of the Palestinians criminal at its core.

While the Baath government of Syria has been hostile to Israel and has supported small local anti-Israel paramilitaries like those of Hizbullah and Hamas, it hasn’t taken military action against Israel since 1973 and it intervened in Lebanon in 1976 and after to prevent the Palestinians and their allies from coming to power there. In short, because it is invested in order, the Baath has probably been less dangerous to Israel in recent decades than would be a populist regime of the sort that might emerge if President Bashar al-Asad is overthrown. And a revolution in Syria is not impossible, though it faces an uphill battle.

Even Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq has taken a hard rhetorical line against Israel recently, warning that it might find ways of benefiting from Arab turmoil. The popular political forces in Arab Iraq, whether Sunni or Shiite, are virulently anti-Israel, contrary to what the Neoconservatives used to promise Tel Aviv. Denunciations of Israel are now issuing almost in tandem from Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut.

And that’s another thing. Netanyahu’s and Lieberman’s obstreperousness are an opportunity for Iran to gain influence in the Arab world, and helps bolster Iran’s defense of the Bashar al-Asad government from its domestic critics.

Israel’s weird policy of illegally colonizing the West Bank and of keeping the Palestinians of Gaza under civilian blockade is damaging to Israelis. But they can probably get away with it.

My guess is that the Obama administration’s fear is that pro-American Arab regimes can’t get away with it.

Posted in Egypt, Israel/ Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen | 23 Comments

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Cairo on Tuesday morning, being greeted at the airport by thousands of cheering Egyptians.

Even though two dramatic moments envisaged by Erdogan’s staff– a side trip to Gaza and a speech in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo– have been cancelled, the visit is nevertheless an important one. Erdogan will explore trade deals and military cooperation with Egypt.

Since it came to power at the polls in Turkey in 2002, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party has innovated in much expanding Turkish trade. In 2002 only about 12 percent of Turkey’s external trade was with the Middle East. Now the percentage is about a quarter. By making peace with the Arab world, the Turkish government opened it to commerce on an unprecedented scale.

Justice and Development was able to accomplish this opening to the Arabs because it is more oriented to Turkey’s (Sunni) Muslim latent identity than to the strident Turkish nationalism of the officer corps, followers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. If Turkey is primarily about about being Turkish, then it will likely have ethno-nationalist conflicts with Arab neighbors such as Syria, as were common with the Turkish army dominated Turkish politics. But if Turkish identity is about being a moderate, modern kind of Muslim that values multi-culturalism and aspires to be European, then there is no real reason for conflict with Arab neighbors.

Ethnic nationalism can make for bad relations with neighbors if it is taken too far. But a Christian Democrat or Justice & Development kind of party can sidestep thorny issues of ethnicity and racial discrimination.

Not only has Turkey moved away from a wounded Turkish secular nationalism, but Egypt has moved away from a naive Arab nationalism. With the fall of the Hosni Mubarak regime, Egypt is groping toward a new, multi-cultural politics that makes a place for Muslim religious parties and for secularists alike. Many young Muslim Brothers speak favorably of a “Turkish model.”

Turkey and Egypt do about $2.7 bn in trade with one another annually (roughly the same as Turkey and Israel). Some 250 Turkish companies have invested $1.5 bn. in Egypt. In the first half of 2011, Turkey was the world’s fastest-growing economy.

The combination of trade expansion, “harmonious relations with neighbors,” and emphasis on a moderate Muslim identity instead of a strident Turkish nationalism have allowed Turkey to reestablish strong ties with the Arab world. Most of the Arab world had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, with its capital in Istanbul. Arabs and Ottoman Turks most often went their own ways during World War I, and at the end of the war the Ottoman Empire collapsed altogether. There were bad feelings between Turks and Arabs. As a result, Israel sought out Turkey as part of its policy of allying with non-Arab countries in the region.

Now that the Turkish government does not define itself primarily in ethnic terms, Turkey is no longer behaving like an outsider in the Middle East. Like the Arabs, it cares about the fate of the displaced, stateless Palestinians. But Turkey likewise is committed to parliamentary democracy, giving it a great deal in common with Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

All Turkey would have to do is to double its trade with Egypt, and it will have replaced its trade with Israel, more or less. Israel refuses to apologize for killing 9 Turks, one of them an American citizen, during a raid in May 2010 on an aid ship aiming to relieve the blockaded civilian population of Gaza.

Israel is by its intransigence driving Turkey into the arms of the Arabs, and the only victim visible on the horizon is the Israelis themselves.

Posted in Israel/ Palestine, Turkey, Uncategorized | 21 Comments

The crisis between Turkey and Israel deepened on Monday, allegedly provoking severe tensions between the Israeli officer corps and the far right-wing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman. There was also disarray among the officers over an allegation by one general that the Middle East might be moving toward comprehensive war, an assessment that was firmly rejected by the Israeli chief of staff and the minister of defense.

The Turkish government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan froze military trade and sent more naval vessels in the the eastern Mediterranean on Monday. Erdogan will go to Egypt next week to improve ties with its new revolutionary government. There is some talk of Erdogan visiting Gaza while in Egypt, but the trip may not materialize, especially if Egypt’s transitional government is [not] open to the idea.

Erdogan’s ruling AK Party includes among its constituencies Turks who are interested in Muslim politics. But AK is not a fundamentalist party and has not sought Islamization of Turkish law.

Israeli politicians and officers are usually adept in presenting a united front to the outside world, even though Israeli society is, like any other, divided socially and politically. But the Turkey crisis and the upheavals in the Arab have provoked open divisions that offer a window on the fissures in the Israeli elite.

PM Erdogan is angry that Israel refuses to apologize for killing 9 Turks on the Gaza aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, in May, 2010. The Israeli government maintains that commandos landing on the ship were within their rights to enforce the naval blockade against the Gaza Strip, which they construe as an enemy state. But the rest of the world almost uniformly views Israel as the Occupying Power for the Gaza Strip, insofar as it controls the Strip’s land borders, sea and air space.

Since Israel refuses to allow the Palestinians to have a state, it is hard to see how they can call Gaza an enemy state. Occupying powers operate in international law under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which forbids punitive measures against the civilian population of the sort that Israel routinely takes against Palestinians in Gaza (they are not allowed to export anything they produce or make, which has thrown most of them into horrible poverty and food insecurity).

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the top Israeli officers are saying that the government should offer an apology, “even if it is undeserved,” but have been rebuffed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman. The Turkish and Israeli militaries have had close ties in recent years. Al-Hayat says that Avigdor Lieberman of the extremist Yisrael Beitenu (“Israel is our Home”) Party thinks the Turks can be dealt with through international pressure.

Lieberman is known for his hard line stances and tendency to far rightwing extremism. He is said to have once joked about Israel bombing the Aswan Dam and washing the Egyptians into the Red Sea should Egypt take a negative stance toward Israel. He has also campaigned to deprive the 20% of the Israeli population that is Arab of their Israeli citizenship. Lieberman has been accused of harboring racist sentiments toward the Muslim peoples that surround Israel in the Middle East.

Not only is the officer corps apparently blaming Lieberman rather than the Turks for the severity of the crisis, but so too is opposition leader Tzipi Livni of the Kadima Party. She points out that Kadima had tense moments with Turkey, but always managed to find a way to smoothe over disputes, and she rejects the Likud-led coalition’s assertion that the rift with Ankara is “inevitable.” Kadima is a splinter of the Likud Party that rejected Greater Israel expansionism to some extent and favored relinquishing much Palestinian territory.

Meanwhile, the recent comment by Major Gen. Eyal Eisenberg that the Middle East might be moving toward comprehensive war was rebutted by his bosses, Israeli chief of staff Lt. Gen. Beni Gantz and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Barak’s subordinate Amos Gil’ad, head of the Defense Ministry’s Political-Security Department, underlined that there is no coalition of Arab armies, and there is no current significant threat of terrorism inside Israel. Barak added that Israel can live even with a nuclear-armed neighbor (apparently uncharacteristically, Barak wants to downplay the putative threat of Iran’s civilian nuclear research program.

Barak has in the past admitted that an atmosphere of high tension between Israel and Middle Eastern regional powers could cause substantial Israeli out-migration.

“Israeli Military Sources Deny Regional War Likelihood; Gil’ad: Situation Best Ever
Israel — OSC Summary
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 …
Document Type: OSC Summary…

Gil’ad: Eisenberg’s Statement Simplistic, Incorrect

State-funded but independent Jerusalem Voice of Israel Network B in Hebrew reports at 0400 GMT: “IDF and defense establishment sources are saying that there is no situation assessment anticipating a comprehensive war. Their comments came in the wake of the remarks of Major General Eyal Eisenberg, the Home Front Command chief, to the effect that the likelihood of a comprehensive war is rising. Speaking to our army and defense affairs correspondent Karmela Menashe, a defense source wondered whether it was necessary to warm up the arena. He added that it is untenable that an IDF general would make comments that would force the army to rephrase his remarks.

“Chief of Staff Beni Gantz said yesterday in closed discussions that he is not certain the Arab Spring is bringing a true spring, and that it may bring a winter or a fall. A military source noted that Gen Eisenberg may have been referring to the chief of staff’s statement. He stressed that Lt Gen Gantz did not speak of a growing likelihood of a comprehensive war.
“Amos Gil’ad, head of the Defense Ministry’s Political-Security Department, said in an interview with the Voice of Israel this morning that the comprehensive war statement was simplistic and incorrect. According to him, our security situation has never been better: There is no domestic terrorism, there is deterrence both in the north and the south, there is no coalition of Arab armies, and the region’s regimes are stable. Nevertheless, processes are taking place that deserve our attention.

“Gil’ad further told our correspondent Arye Golan that Turkey has not dissociated itself from Israel. He stressed that, contrary to reports, the Israeli military attache in Turkey remains in his position. He noted that Turkey stands to lose a lot if it pursues an extreme course of action, and this aspect is the space in which Israel should maneuver.”

Baraq: Comprehensive War Not Expected in Near Future, Nonconventional Weapons Unlikely

Commercial Jerusalem Channel 2 Television Online in Hebrew reports at 0656 GMT: “Defense Minister Ehud Baraq said in the course of a tour this morning that ‘there is no fear of a comprehensive war in the near future’ and that ‘the national situation assessment has not changed.’ Baraq made these remarks just hours after an opposite statement was made last night by Home Front Command Eyal Eisenberg.”

“Baraq added: ‘We are prepared for any eventuality, but it seems unlikely that any of our enemies will use nonconventional weapons, if they possess any, in a war against Israel.’”
“Political and defense sources were angry with Eisenberg’s remarks. ‘He revealed classified material that had been presented in a situation assessment only yesterday,’ they told the IDF Radio this morning.” Eisenberg Qualifies Statement

Amir Buhbut’s 0730 GMT report in leading news site Tel Aviv Walla! in Hebrew adds that “Gen Eisenberg this morning asked for a meeting with Chief of Staff Beni Gantz ‘to explain his gloomy forecasts’ concerning the growing likelihood of a comprehensive war.” “Eisenberg stressed that a comprehensive war may break out only if the most extreme scenarios materialize.”

Posted in Israel/ Palestine, Turkey | 22 Comments

Howard Eissenstat writes in a guest column for Informed Comment

Turkey’s Generals Resign: Thoughts on a New Chapter in Turkish Politics

For most of my professional life I have argued that one of the chief flaws of Turkish democracy was the overwhelming influence of its military. It is for this reason I have been largely sympathetic to the efforts of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) at pushing the military out of politics and, as the Turkish saying has it, back into the barracks. This process seems to have come to an end this past week, when top-ranking Turkish generals resigned in protest against what they consider ill-treatment. No crisis ensued, no coup was staged. Effectively, nothing happened: the government selected new generals, security meetings continued as scheduled, and people went on with their business. Although the resignations certainly received press attention in Turkey, they have not caused an uproar. All in all, Turks are far more concerned about the recent scandal in their national soccer league.

I wish I could feel happier about all this, but I don’t. It is not that there is much to miss about the Turkish military’s meddling in Turkish politics. Beyond the coups, the Turkish military has created an undemocratic constitution, consistently pushed for a stupidly hard line against Turkey’s Kurds, engaged in extra-judicial killings and terrorism, allocated for itself unseemly wealth, worked to create an obscenely militaristic popular culture, and generally treated the country’s citizens as slightly backward children, in constant need of guidance.

The problem is that the absolutely healthy process of asserting civilian control is being undertaken by a political party that has shown an unhealthy willingness to politicize the bureaucracy and a marked intolerance for dissent. To give the AKP their due, they have won their elections primarily because of a winning formula: tolerance for Islam in the public sphere, effective government, a relative lack of corruption, good services, and a keen ear for national trends. The Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdoğan, is brusque, arrogant, and intolerant, but he is also smart, hardworking, deeply patriotic, and perhaps the most natural, instinctive politician Turkey has seen in a half century. Domestically and globally, Turkey has become, under AKP leadership, an important regional power, economically, culturally, and politically. The claim that they are Islamist (or even, as so many journalists describe them as “mildly Islamist”), is not supportable. After nearly a decade in power, there is nothing about their rule that fits with even the broadest definitions of an Islamist agenda. It is true that they are clearly devout Muslims and that this colors their worldview and their attitude to some issues both domestic (headscarves) and international (Israel), but this hardly qualifies as evidence of a call to sharia or traditional Islamic law. Claims on the wacky right notwithstanding, the AKP has no intention of re-establishing a Caliphate on the Bosphorus.

It isn’t quite that the AKP is undemocratic. They clearly believe in elections. But they tend to view elections in the same way as other large, successful political machines do: as a means of connecting with the base and distributing benefits, but not meant as a real check on their power. Although the AKP’s reforms had real, positive effects in its first five years, as it has consolidated power it has become less interested in opening up Turkish political discourse, more traditionally nationalistic, and more aggressive in its persecution of political opponents. One can hardly blame them for the weakness and ineptitude of the political opposition, but this has only exacerbated the problem of too much power in the hands of one party for too long. Turkish political life, always subject to a tradition of patronage called kadrolaşma,in which political allies are rewarded with positions in the bureaucracy, has now created something resembling a democratically elected single-party state.

The particular question over which the generals resigned last week was the on-going Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations. It seems likely that there is some truth to the basic premise of these investigations, which allege a conspiracy to destabilize the democratically elected government of Turkey as a means of dislodging the AKP from power. Nonetheless, the investigations have bloated beyond all recognition, with hundreds under investigation and no trial in sight. Many of those accused, including some top military officers, have been put into pre-trial detention indefinitely. Moreover, the investigations have come to look increasingly like a means of punishing political enemies. Ahmet Şık for example, a journalist with a long-standing interest in human rights, and one of those who helped publicize the Ergenekon case in the first place, is now under arrest as a conspirator, though it appears his major “crime” was to write a book critical of the political ambitions of the Gülen movement, a religious group with close ties to the governing AKP.

By and large, the mood among the Turkish journalists and human rights workers that I have spoken to in recent months has been dark. The Ergenekon investigations seem to have gone off-track and it is likely that many of those being held are, in fact, completely innocent. The AKP has, for all its success in the mechanics of democratic politics, proven to be remarkably illiberal in its own right: authoritarian in its instincts, intolerant of dissent, and increasingly militaristic in tone. Political opposition groups are weak and divided, while there are few cracks evident within the AKP’s own structure. Moreover, violence associated with Kurdish nationalism has been on the upswing. The AKP’s response has been markedly bellicose. It is, in the final analysis, a good thing that the Turkish military’s role in “stewarding” Turkish politics has come to an end. But I am not feeling very celebratory.

Howard Eissenstat, Department of History, St. Lawrence University

Posted in Turkey, Uncategorized | 4 Comments