Opinion Turkey’s inner struggle

Americans have tended to look at Turkey as a bridge or a base — either a cultural bridge that connects the West and the Muslim world,or as our base (Incirlik Air Base) that serves as the main US supply hub for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Turks see themselves differently.”Turkey is not a bridge. It’s a centre,” explained Muzaffer Senel,an international relations researcher at Istanbul Sehir University.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,Turkey has become the centre of its own economic space,stretching from southern Russia,all through the Balkans,the Caucasus and Central Asia,and down through Iraq,Syria,Iran and the Middle East. So Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees himself as the leader of a rising economic powerhouse of 70 million people who is entitled to play an independent geopolitical role — hence his UN vote against sanctioning Iran. But how Turkey rises really matters — and Erdogan definitely has some troubling Hugo Chávez-Vladimir Putin tendencies. I’ve never visited a democracy where more people whom I interviewed asked me not to quote them by name for fear of retribution by Erdogan’s circle — in the form of lawsuits,tax investigations or being shut out of government contracts. The media here is rampantly self-censored. Moreover,Erdogan has evolved from just railing against Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza to spouting conspiracy theories — like the insane notion that Israel is backing the PKK terrorists — as a way of consolidating his political base among conservative Muslims.

Is there anything the US can do? My advice: Avoid a public confrontation that Erdogan can exploit to build more support,draw US redlines in private and let Turkish democrats take the lead. Turkey is full of energy and hormones,and is trying to figure out its new identity. There is an inner struggle between those who would like to see Turkey more aligned with the Islamic world and values and those who want it to remain more secular,Western and pluralistic. Who defines Turkey will determine a lot about whether we end up in a war of civilisations.

This struggle is for Turks,and they are on it. Only two weeks before the Gaza flotilla incident,a leading poll showed Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party,known as the AKP,trailing his main opposition for the first time since the AKP came to office in 2002.

That is surely one reason Erdogan openly took sides with one of the most radical forces in the region,Hamas — to re-energise his political base. But did he overplay his hand? Up to now,Erdogan has been very cunning,treating his opponents like frogs in a pail,always just gradually turning up the heat so they never quite knew they were boiling. But now they know. The secular and moderate Muslim forces in Turkey are alarmed; the moderate Arab regimes are alarmed; the Americans are alarmed. The fight for Turkey’s soul is about to be joined in a much more vigorous way.