M K Bhadrakumar
Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Germán Leyens
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=80286
Hay diferentes maneras de juzgar al Partido de Justicia y Democracia, o AKP, que gobierna Turquía. Laicistas militantes y kemalistas afirman que es un caballo de Troya de salafistas que se presentan como demócratas. Otros dicen que el AKP es tan extremadamente moderado que podría ser excluido como infiel si fuera trasplantado a Irán o Afganistán.
Pero parece que podría haber una tercera vía – ver al AKP como una consecuencia de la revolución treintañera de Irán. Por lo menos, es lo que piensa Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri. Es uno de los clérigos más importantes de Irán, fue presidente del Majlis (parlamento) y ahora tiene la encumbrada posición de asesor del Supremo Líder Gran Ayatolá Ali Jamenei.
Nouri explicó el domingo pasado: “Cuando los iraníes hablaban de ‘exportar’ su revolución, no querían decir que fabricarían algo y luego lo exportarían a otros países en camiones o barcos, querían decir que transmitirían el mensaje de su revolución y comunicarían su doctrina.” Nouri dijo que se sentía inspirado para afirmar que el AKP es un excelente legado de la revolución porque en Turquía tuvieron lugar “las más hermosas manifestaciones por el tema de Gaza” en las últimas semanas.
Un fuerte desaire
Podrá haber exagerado un poco al afirmar que incluso el ejército turco “que tenía ciertos antecedentes, ha cambiado ahora.” De todas maneras, su afirmación de que “las cosas han cambiado” en Turquía – como dijo Nouri – tiene sentido, porque es lo que mostró la avalancha de apoyo popular para Hamás en su batalla contra Israel.
En particular, el desaire público del primer ministro Recep Tayyip Erdogan al presidente israelí Shimon Peres del jueves pasado en un debate en el Foro Económico Mundial en Davos, Suiza, captó el interés del mundo islámico y supera la división chií-suní. De repente, Erdogan toma la forma de un sultán otomano moderno con un imperio que se extiende por las llanuras mesopotámicas, los desiertos árabes, el Valle del Nilo, el Levante y el Magreb, hasta el corazón de África.
Erdogan, un muchacho del distrito de clase trabajadora de Kasimpasa en Estambul, ha llegado lejos en su tumultuosa carrera política. Es indudablemente uno de los políticos más carismáticos y talentosos de Turquía. Su sitio en el panteón de líderes de Turquía está asegurado. De todas manera, no podría haber imaginado que un día se le propondría para el Premio Nobel de la Paz – o que su patrocinador sería una reverenciada figura religiosa en el mundo del chiismo.
Dirigiéndose el domingo a una reunión de estudiantes de teología en la ciudad santa iraní de Qom, el ayatolá Naser Makarem-Shirazi hizo precisamente eso: la protesta de Erdogan, dijo el ayatolá, ha tenido un profundo efecto en la seguridad regional, ha fortalecido la resistencia palestina y humillado y aislado aún más al “régimen sionista.”
La “postulación” de Erdogan a un Premio Nobel se basaría de modo endeble en las 56 palabras que pronunció en el debate de Davos, cuando amonestó a Peres: “Usted es más viejo que yo y su voz es muy fuerte. El motivo para que alce su voz es la psicología de la culpa. Yo no elevaré tanto la voz. En cuanto al tema de matar, sabéis bien cómo matar. Cómo bombardeasteis a los niños en las playas [de Gaza], como los matasteis, eso yo lo sé bien.”
Alienación musulmana
Ciertamente nos dice algo sobre la profunda alienación que se apodera actualmente de Oriente Próximo, el que la resonancia de un simple grupo de 56 palabras pronunciadas con angustia por sobre justicia, honor y equidad se niegue tan obstinadamente a dejar de resonar. De un día al otro Erdogan se suma a Hasan Nasrallah de Hezbolá en el Líbano y al presidente de Irán, Mahmud Ahmadineyad, quienes entrecruzan con envidiable abandono las divisiones sectarias históricas en el mundo musulmán. Seguramente, algo para que vaya pensando el presidente de EE.UU., Barack Obama.
Erdogan volvió de Davos a Estambul y fue recibido como un héroe. Los sondeos de opinión muestran que más de un 80% de los turcos apoyan su tajante réplica y su “retirada en señal de protesta” del debate. La popularidad del AKP asciende a más de un 50%, tanto que los partidos de oposición, que esperaban aprovechar los problemas económicos de Turquía en las elecciones locales a fines de marzo, se sienten alicaídos.
En la propia Gaza, se ha convertido de un día al otro en un personaje icónico, tanto que los gobernantes árabes pro-occidentales parecen embarazados – como ciertamente lo está "Abu Mazen" (el presidente palestino Mahmud Abbas), quien dirige despreocupadamente la Autoridad Palestina. Por cierto, no hay forma de que Arabia Saudí o Egipto vayan a renunciar al liderazgo a favor de Turquía. Pero, desde ahora, tendrán que tener en cuenta seriamente que las sombras de Turquía se profundizan en el paisaje musulmán suní en Oriente Próximo.
Irán está claramente encantado. El poderoso jefe del Concejo Guardián de Irán, Ayatolá Ahmad Jannati, envió un mensaje a Erdogan, diciendo: “Su posición épica ha complacido a Hamás y a sus partidarios y humillado a los dirigentes lacayos de varios Estados árabes.”
El “neo-otomanismo” gana velocidad
En la propia Turquía, la repercusión ha sacado a la luz la identidad escindida del país. La oligarquía de las elites turcas occidentalizadas basadas en Estambul se siente escandalizada de que Erdogan pueda haber estropeado la imagen cultivada del turco civilizado en Europa. Con su sentido de la historia y de la cultura, el turco de Anatolia, por otra parte, se siente alborozado de que Erdogan esté reivindicando el asentamiento perdido hace tiempo de Turquía en su hogar ancestral de Oriente Próximo musulmán.
Sin duda, la agenda de “neo-otomanismo” del AKP dio un salto cuántico la semana pasada. Una fase fascinante está a punto de comenzar en la cual la primacía residirá cada vez más en el redescubrimiento del legado imperial de Turquía, mientras el país continúa su busca de un nuevo consenso nacional que pueda reconciliar las numerosas identidades de los turcos.
Bajo los siete años de gobierno del AKP; Turquía inició el doloroso proceso de aceptar su patrimonio musulmán y otomano. Contrariamente a las impresiones generales, el neo-otomanismo no es ni islamista ni imperialista. Es posible que utilice el común denominador del Islam para derivar una idea menos étnica de “turquicidad” que esté en mucho más armonía que el secularismo militante con el carácter multi-étnico del Estado turco.
Pero en la política exterior, el “neo-otomanismo” tiene una agenda mucho más grandiosa. Como escribió el destacado columnista Omer Taspinar del periódico turco Zanian: “El neo-otomanismo ve a Turquía como una superpotencia regional. Su visión estratégica y cultura reflejan el alcance geográfico de los imperios otomano y bizantino. Turquía, como Estado central, debiera por lo tanto tener un papel diplomático, político y diplomático muy activo en una amplia región de la cual es el ‘centro’.”
No es sorprendente que los críticos de Erdogan en las elites occidentalizadas en Estambul y Ankara vean semejantes aperturas pan-turcas o islámicas en la política exterior como aventureras y dañinas en última instancia para los intereses de Turquía.
Para citar a uno de los principales comentaristas turcos, Mehmet Ali Birand, de CNN Turk, Erdogan ha “perturbado” un equilibrio delicado en la política exterior de Ankara y “se ha colocado, con su país, en una posición arriesgada… Será interpretado como un lento alejamiento del campo de Israel-EE.UU.-Unión Europea-Egipto-Arabia Saudí… Incluso si no cesan las relaciones con Israel, el color comenzará a cambiar de ahora en adelante y cambiará hacia la aversión. Si no son equilibradas de inmediato, las relaciones entre Israel y Turquía no se recuperarán fácilmente. Los reflejos serán vistos en Washington y en los mercados monetarios.”
Sin embargo, el pronóstico lleno de pánico de Birand parece pretencioso. No existe una base para el argumento de que el “neo-otomanismo” signifique que Turquía vuelva la espalda a Occidente. Como señaló Taspinar, después de todo, el Imperio Otomano fue conocido como “el hombre enfermo de Europa” y no de Asia o de Arabia. El legado europeo de abrirse a la influencia de Occidente y occidental fue una característica constante de la era otomana. La ambiciosa política regional de Erdogan en Oriente Próximo, por ello, no debe ser considerada como si esquivara una búsqueda activa de la incorporación a la Unión Europa o de buenas relaciones con Washington.
Nubes en los lazos turco-israelíes
Sin duda, la ofensiva de Israel en Gaza y el episodio de Erdogan en Davos han creado fracturas en los lazos estratégicos entre Turquía e Israel. Pero la cuestión es si el daño es suficientemente serio como para iniciar un realineamiento importante en la región. La mayor probabilidad es que la relación turco-israelí como tal se recupere cuando se calmen las pasiones.
Los militares turcos han hecho saber que no hay marcha atrás en la cooperación con Israel. Dijeron que la cooperación militar de Turquía con todos los países, incluido Israel, se basa en intereses nacionales y que no se prevén dificultades en la entrega programada por Israel de Vehículos Aéreos sin Tripulación Heron de alta tecnología.
La Ministra de Exteriores israelí, Tzipi Livni dijo: “Hay una grieta en nuestras relaciones. Eso no se puede ocultar. Pero esas relaciones son muy importantes para ambos países.” Tomó nota de que Ankara “hace una distinción entre los lazos bilaterales y la censura que nos hacen por la operación [de Gaza]”. Grupos judíos basados en EE.UU. también están tratando de calmar la agitación en las relaciones turco-israelíes.
Es concebible que Erdogan abrigue un sentimiento de traición. Dijo al Washington Post que la mediación turca había “aproximado mucho” a Israel y Siria a conversaciones directas de paz sobre el futuro de las Alturas del Golán. Durante la visita del primer ministro israelí Ehud Olmert a Ankara el 23 de diciembre, no sólo ocultó a Erdogan que Israel planificaba el ataque a Gaza cuatro días después, sino aseguró el líder turco que en cuanto volviera, consultaría a sus colegas y volvería sobre las conversaciones con Siria.
Mientras Olmert estaba en Ankara, Erdogan llamó por teléfono al líder de Hamás, Ismail Haniye, en Gaza, y lo consultó sobre los temas a ser discutidos con el primer ministro israelí en visita. Es muy comprensible que Erdogan se haya sentido engañado. “Esta operación [en Gaza] también muestra falta de respeto hacia Turquía,” dijo. Israel está acostumbrado a actuar sólo en función de sus propios intereses. Pero Erdogan es un turco orgulloso para quien la pérdida de prestigio es simplemente inaceptable.
La necesidad de Turquía de Israel
Mientras tanto, Turquía estalló en masivas manifestaciones públicas contra Israel por los informes sobre atrocidades israelíes en Gaza. El máximo cuerpo de decisión política de Turquía, el Consejo Nacional de Seguridad, que es presidido por el presidente e incluye al primer ministro y a los jefes de las fuerzas armadas, dijo en una declaración del 30 de diciembre que Israel debía cesar de inmediato las operaciones militares, dar una oportunidad a la diplomacia, y permitir que la ayuda humanitaria llegue a la gente de Gaza.
Pero Israel tomó con calma la crítica turca. Israel dijo que Erdogan estaba siendo “impulsivo”. Erdogan replicó: “Yo no soy impulsivo. Hablo como nieto del Imperio Otomano, que aceptó a vuestros antepasados cuando fueron exiliados… La historia los acusará [a Olmert y Livni] de mancillar a la humanidad… Es imperdonable que un pueblo que en su historia sufrió tan profundamente pueda hacer algo semejante.”
En resumidas cuentas, perjudica más a Israel que a Turquía que se haya desarrollado un déficit de confianza. Turquía tiene muchos amigos en la región, mientras que Israel apenas tiene alguno. Turquía es un aliado irremplazable para Israel no sólo en Oriente Próximo, sino en todo el mundo musulmán. Con la posible confrontación estadounidense-iraní y la resultante realineación en la región, Israel (y los Estados árabes pro-occidentales) necesitan a Turquía como “contrapeso” más que en ningún momento antes. Iraq ya no puede jugar ese papel. Como muestra el efusivo saludo iraní a Erdogan, Teherán también está fuertemente consciente de los nuevos imperativos.
Más allá de todo eso, una preocupación sempiterna ante la cual Israel debería despertar y tomar nota es que por primera vez en el corazón del territorio anatolio, se ve una marea de antisemitismo. Si el fabuloso historial de la era otomana de proveer asilo para todo judío errante va a convertirse verdaderamente en una reliquia histórica, no hay que preguntar quién es el responsable. Los dirigentes de Israel tendrán que aceptar su culpabilidad.
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El embajador M K Bhadrakumar fue diplomático de carrera en el Foreign Service indio. Sus misiones incluyeron a la Unión Soviética, Corea del Sur, Sri Lanka, Alemania, Afganistán, Pakistán, Uzbekistán, Kuwait y Turquía.
Asia Times Online
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB04Ak01.html
Showing posts with label Turkia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkia. Show all posts
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Turkish snub changes Middle East game
By M K Bhadrakumar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB04Ak01.html
There are different ways of looking at the Justice and Democratic Party, or AKP, which rules Turkey. Militant secularists and Kemalists allege it is a Trojan horse of Salafists whose members masquerade as democrats. Others say the AKP is so extremely moderate that it might get ostracized as infidel if it were transplanted to Iran or Afghanistan.
But it appears there could be a third way - looking at the AKP as a progeny of the 30-year-old Iranian revolution. At least, that is how Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri thinks. He is one of Iran's senior clerics, used to be a speaker of the Majlis (parliament) and now holds the exalted position of advisor to Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Nouri explained last Sunday, "When Iranians talked of 'exporting' their revolution, they did not mean manufacturing something and
then exporting it to other countries by trucks or ships; rather, they meant transmitting the message of their revolution and conveying its doctrine." Nouri said he felt inspired to claim the AKP as a fine legacy of the Iranian revolution by the fact it is in Turkey that the "most beautiful demonstrations on the Gaza issue" were held in recent weeks.
A mighty snub
He may have gone slightly overboard by claiming that even the Turkish army "which had certain records, has changed now". All the same, the point is well taken that "things have changed" in Turkey, as Nouri put it, which is what the avalanche of popular support for Hamas in its battle with Israel showed.
In particular, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's public snub of Israeli President Shimon Peres last Thursday in a television chat show on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meet in the Swiss resort of Davos has caught the imagination of the Islamic world and cuts across the Shi'ite-Sunni divide. All of a sudden, Erdogan takes the form of a latter-day Ottoman sultan with an empire that spreads all across the fertile Mesopotamian planes, the Arabian desserts, the Nile Valley, the Levant and the Maghreb, all the way into the heart of Africa.
Erdogan, a back-street boy from the working-class district of Kasimpasa in Istanbul, has come a long way in his tumultuous political career. He is undoubtedly one of Turkey's most charismatic and gifted politicians. His place in Turkey's pantheon of leaders is secure. All the same, he couldn't have fancied that one day he would be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize - or that his sponsor would be a revered religious figure in the world of Shi'ism.
Addressing a gathering of theological students on Sunday in the holy Iranian city of Qom, Ayatollah Naser Makarem-Shirazi did precisely that. Erdogan's protest, the ayatollah said, has had a profound effect on regional security, and it has strengthened the Palestinian resistance and humiliated and further isolated the "Zionist regime".
Erdogan's "claim" to a Nobel Prize tenuously hangs on the 56 words he spoke at the Davos television show, when he told off Peres, "You are older than me and your voice is very loud. The reason for your raising your voice is the psychology of guilt. I will not raise my voice that much. When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know very well how you hit and killed children on the beaches."
Muslim alienation
It certainly speaks something of the profound alienation gripping the Middle East today that the resonance of a mere cluster of 56 words spoken in anguish about justice, honor and equity should so stubbornly refuse to die down. Erdogan overnight joins Lebanon's Hassan Nasrullah of Hezbollah and Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad who criss-cross with enviable abandon the historic sectarian divides in the Muslim world. Surely, some food for thought for US President Barack Obama.
Erdogan returned from Davos to Istanbul to a hero's welcome. Opinion polls show that over 80% of Turks endorse his sharp retort and his "walkout" from the TV show. The AKP's popularity is soaring above 50%, so much so that the opposition parties, which had hoped to cash in on Turkey's economic problems in local elections in end-March, feel crestfallen.
In Gaza itself, Erdogan has overnight become an iconic figure, so much so that the pro-West Arab rulers look embarrassed - as indeed is "Abu Mazen" (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas), who nonchalantly heads the Palestinian Authority. Of course, there is no way Saudi Arabia or Egypt will surrender the mantle of leadership to Turkey. But from now, they will need to seriously factor that Turkey's shadows are deepening on the Middle Eastern Sunni Muslim landscape.
Iran is plainly delighted. The powerful head of Iran's Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, shot off a message to Erdogan, saying, "Your epic stand has pleased Hamas and its supporters and humiliated the lackey leaders of several Arab states."
'Neo-Ottomanism' gathers pace
In Turkey itself, the ricochet has ripped open the country's split identity. The oligarchy of Westernized Turkish elites based in Istanbul feels scandalized that Erdogan might have marred the cultivated image of the civilized Turk in Europe. With his sense of history and culture, the Anatolian Turk, on the other hand, feels jubilant that Erdogan is reclaiming Turkey's long-lost habitation in its ancestral home in the Muslim Middle East.
To be sure, the AKP's agenda of "neo-Ottomanism" took a quantum leap last week. An engrossing phase is about to commence where the primacy may incrementally come to lie on the rediscovery of Turkey's imperial legacy while the country continues its search for a new national consensus that can reconcile the Turk's many identities.
Under the seven-year AKP rule, Turkey began the painful process of coming to terms with its Muslim and Ottoman heritage. Contrary to general impressions, neo-Ottomanism is neither Islamist nor imperialistic. Arguably, it uses the common denominator of Islam to derive a less ethnic idea of "Turkishness" that is much more in harmony than militant secularism ever could be with the multi-ethnic character of the Turkish state.
But in foreign policy, "neo-Ottomanism" has a more grandiose agenda. As prominent columnist Omer Taspinar of Turkey's Zaman newspaper wrote, "Neo-Ottomanism sees Turkey as a regional superpower. Its strategic vision and culture reflects the geographic reach of the Ottoman and Byzantine empires. Turkey, as a pivotal state, should thus play a very active diplomatic, political and diplomatic role in a wide region of which it is the 'center'." Unsurprisingly, Erdogan's critics among the Westernized elites in Istanbul and Ankara view any such pan-Turkic or Islamic openings in foreign policy as adventurous and ultimately harmful to Turkey's interests.
To quote a top Turkish commentator, Mehmet Ali Birand, of CNN Turk, Erdogan has "disturbed" a delicate balance in Ankara's foreign policy and "put himself and his country in a risky position ... It will be interpreted as a slow drift away from the Israel-United States-European Union-Egypt-Saudi Arabia camp ... Even if relations with Israel are not ceased, the color will start to change from now on and turn toward dislike. If not balanced immediately, relations between Israel and Turkey will not recover easily. The reflections will be seen in Washington and on the money markets."
However, Birand's panicky prognosis seems presumptuous. There is no basis to the argument that "neo-Ottomanism" means Turkey turns its back on the West. As Taspinar pointed out, after all, the Ottoman Empire was known as the "sick man of Europe" and not of Asia or Arabia. The European legacy of being open to the West and Western influence was a constant feature of the Ottoman era. Erdogan's ambitious regional policy in the Middle East, therefore, should not be construed as sidestepping an active pursuit of European Union membership or good relations with Washington.
Turkish-Israeli ties under cloud
No doubt, Israel's Gaza offensive and Erdogan's Davos episode have created fractures in Turkish-Israeli strategic ties. But the question is whether the damage is serious enough to start a major realignment in the region. The high probability is that with the cooling of tempers, the Turkish-Israeli relationship as such will recover.
The Turkish military has let it be known that there is no rollback in cooperation with Israel. It said Turkey's military cooperation with all countries, including Israel, was based on national interests and no difficulties were foreseen in the scheduled delivery by Israel of high-tech Heron Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, "There is a rift in our relations. This cannot be hidden. But these relations are very important for both countries." She took note that Ankara was "drawing a distinction between bilateral ties and the censure they are leveling at us over the [Gaza] operation". Jewish groups based in the US are also trying to calm the agitation in Turkish-Israeli relations.
Conceivably, Erdogan harbors a sense of betrayal. He told the Washington Post that Turkish mediation had brought Israel and Syria "very close" to direct peace talks on the future of the Golan Heights. During the visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Ankara on December 23, not only did he hide from Erdogan that Israel was planning to attack Gaza four days later, but he assured the Turkish leader that as soon as he got back, he would consult his colleagues and come back on the talks with Syria.
While Olmert was in Ankara, Erdogan telephoned Hamas leader Ismail Haniye in Gaza and consulted him on the issues to be discussed with the visiting Israeli prime minister. Quite understandably, Erdogan felt let down. "This operation [in Gaza] also shows disrespect to Turkey," he said. Israel is used to acting solely in its self-interest. But Erdogan is a proud Turk for whom loss of face is simply unacceptable.
Israel's need of Turkey
Meanwhile, Turkey erupted into massive anti-Israeli public demonstrations over reports of Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Turkey's highest policy-making body, the National Security Council, which is chaired by the president and comprises the prime minister and the military chiefs, said in a statement on December 30 that Israel should cease military operations immediately, give diplomacy a chance and allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza.
But Israel took the Turkish criticism in its stride. Israel said Erdogan was being "emotional". Erdogan shot back: "I am not emotional. I am speaking as a grandson of the Ottoman Empire, which welcomed your forefathers when they were exiled ... History will accuse them [Olmert and Livni] of putting a stain on humanity ... It is unforgivable that a people who in their history suffered so profoundly could do such a thing."
On balance, it hurts Israel more than Turkey that a trust deficit has developed. Turkey has many friends in the region, whereas Israel has hardly any. Turkey is an irreplaceable ally for Israel not only in the Middle East but in the entire Muslim world. With the expected US-Iranian engagement and the ensuing realignment in the region, Israel (and the pro-West Arab states) needs Turkey as a "balancer" more than any time before. Iraq cannot play that role anymore. As the effusive Iranian salute to Erdogan shows, Tehran is acutely conscious of the new imperatives, too.
Beyond all that, an ageless concern that Israel ought to sit up and take note is that for the first time in the Anatolian heartland, a surge of anti-Semitism is visible. If the Ottoman era's fabulous record of providing asylum for any wandering Jew is indeed becoming a relic of history, don't ask who is responsible. Israel's leaders must take the blame for it.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB04Ak01.html
There are different ways of looking at the Justice and Democratic Party, or AKP, which rules Turkey. Militant secularists and Kemalists allege it is a Trojan horse of Salafists whose members masquerade as democrats. Others say the AKP is so extremely moderate that it might get ostracized as infidel if it were transplanted to Iran or Afghanistan.
But it appears there could be a third way - looking at the AKP as a progeny of the 30-year-old Iranian revolution. At least, that is how Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri thinks. He is one of Iran's senior clerics, used to be a speaker of the Majlis (parliament) and now holds the exalted position of advisor to Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Nouri explained last Sunday, "When Iranians talked of 'exporting' their revolution, they did not mean manufacturing something and
then exporting it to other countries by trucks or ships; rather, they meant transmitting the message of their revolution and conveying its doctrine." Nouri said he felt inspired to claim the AKP as a fine legacy of the Iranian revolution by the fact it is in Turkey that the "most beautiful demonstrations on the Gaza issue" were held in recent weeks.
A mighty snub
He may have gone slightly overboard by claiming that even the Turkish army "which had certain records, has changed now". All the same, the point is well taken that "things have changed" in Turkey, as Nouri put it, which is what the avalanche of popular support for Hamas in its battle with Israel showed.
In particular, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's public snub of Israeli President Shimon Peres last Thursday in a television chat show on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meet in the Swiss resort of Davos has caught the imagination of the Islamic world and cuts across the Shi'ite-Sunni divide. All of a sudden, Erdogan takes the form of a latter-day Ottoman sultan with an empire that spreads all across the fertile Mesopotamian planes, the Arabian desserts, the Nile Valley, the Levant and the Maghreb, all the way into the heart of Africa.
Erdogan, a back-street boy from the working-class district of Kasimpasa in Istanbul, has come a long way in his tumultuous political career. He is undoubtedly one of Turkey's most charismatic and gifted politicians. His place in Turkey's pantheon of leaders is secure. All the same, he couldn't have fancied that one day he would be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize - or that his sponsor would be a revered religious figure in the world of Shi'ism.
Addressing a gathering of theological students on Sunday in the holy Iranian city of Qom, Ayatollah Naser Makarem-Shirazi did precisely that. Erdogan's protest, the ayatollah said, has had a profound effect on regional security, and it has strengthened the Palestinian resistance and humiliated and further isolated the "Zionist regime".
Erdogan's "claim" to a Nobel Prize tenuously hangs on the 56 words he spoke at the Davos television show, when he told off Peres, "You are older than me and your voice is very loud. The reason for your raising your voice is the psychology of guilt. I will not raise my voice that much. When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know very well how you hit and killed children on the beaches."
Muslim alienation
It certainly speaks something of the profound alienation gripping the Middle East today that the resonance of a mere cluster of 56 words spoken in anguish about justice, honor and equity should so stubbornly refuse to die down. Erdogan overnight joins Lebanon's Hassan Nasrullah of Hezbollah and Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad who criss-cross with enviable abandon the historic sectarian divides in the Muslim world. Surely, some food for thought for US President Barack Obama.
Erdogan returned from Davos to Istanbul to a hero's welcome. Opinion polls show that over 80% of Turks endorse his sharp retort and his "walkout" from the TV show. The AKP's popularity is soaring above 50%, so much so that the opposition parties, which had hoped to cash in on Turkey's economic problems in local elections in end-March, feel crestfallen.
In Gaza itself, Erdogan has overnight become an iconic figure, so much so that the pro-West Arab rulers look embarrassed - as indeed is "Abu Mazen" (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas), who nonchalantly heads the Palestinian Authority. Of course, there is no way Saudi Arabia or Egypt will surrender the mantle of leadership to Turkey. But from now, they will need to seriously factor that Turkey's shadows are deepening on the Middle Eastern Sunni Muslim landscape.
Iran is plainly delighted. The powerful head of Iran's Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, shot off a message to Erdogan, saying, "Your epic stand has pleased Hamas and its supporters and humiliated the lackey leaders of several Arab states."
'Neo-Ottomanism' gathers pace
In Turkey itself, the ricochet has ripped open the country's split identity. The oligarchy of Westernized Turkish elites based in Istanbul feels scandalized that Erdogan might have marred the cultivated image of the civilized Turk in Europe. With his sense of history and culture, the Anatolian Turk, on the other hand, feels jubilant that Erdogan is reclaiming Turkey's long-lost habitation in its ancestral home in the Muslim Middle East.
To be sure, the AKP's agenda of "neo-Ottomanism" took a quantum leap last week. An engrossing phase is about to commence where the primacy may incrementally come to lie on the rediscovery of Turkey's imperial legacy while the country continues its search for a new national consensus that can reconcile the Turk's many identities.
Under the seven-year AKP rule, Turkey began the painful process of coming to terms with its Muslim and Ottoman heritage. Contrary to general impressions, neo-Ottomanism is neither Islamist nor imperialistic. Arguably, it uses the common denominator of Islam to derive a less ethnic idea of "Turkishness" that is much more in harmony than militant secularism ever could be with the multi-ethnic character of the Turkish state.
But in foreign policy, "neo-Ottomanism" has a more grandiose agenda. As prominent columnist Omer Taspinar of Turkey's Zaman newspaper wrote, "Neo-Ottomanism sees Turkey as a regional superpower. Its strategic vision and culture reflects the geographic reach of the Ottoman and Byzantine empires. Turkey, as a pivotal state, should thus play a very active diplomatic, political and diplomatic role in a wide region of which it is the 'center'." Unsurprisingly, Erdogan's critics among the Westernized elites in Istanbul and Ankara view any such pan-Turkic or Islamic openings in foreign policy as adventurous and ultimately harmful to Turkey's interests.
To quote a top Turkish commentator, Mehmet Ali Birand, of CNN Turk, Erdogan has "disturbed" a delicate balance in Ankara's foreign policy and "put himself and his country in a risky position ... It will be interpreted as a slow drift away from the Israel-United States-European Union-Egypt-Saudi Arabia camp ... Even if relations with Israel are not ceased, the color will start to change from now on and turn toward dislike. If not balanced immediately, relations between Israel and Turkey will not recover easily. The reflections will be seen in Washington and on the money markets."
However, Birand's panicky prognosis seems presumptuous. There is no basis to the argument that "neo-Ottomanism" means Turkey turns its back on the West. As Taspinar pointed out, after all, the Ottoman Empire was known as the "sick man of Europe" and not of Asia or Arabia. The European legacy of being open to the West and Western influence was a constant feature of the Ottoman era. Erdogan's ambitious regional policy in the Middle East, therefore, should not be construed as sidestepping an active pursuit of European Union membership or good relations with Washington.
Turkish-Israeli ties under cloud
No doubt, Israel's Gaza offensive and Erdogan's Davos episode have created fractures in Turkish-Israeli strategic ties. But the question is whether the damage is serious enough to start a major realignment in the region. The high probability is that with the cooling of tempers, the Turkish-Israeli relationship as such will recover.
The Turkish military has let it be known that there is no rollback in cooperation with Israel. It said Turkey's military cooperation with all countries, including Israel, was based on national interests and no difficulties were foreseen in the scheduled delivery by Israel of high-tech Heron Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, "There is a rift in our relations. This cannot be hidden. But these relations are very important for both countries." She took note that Ankara was "drawing a distinction between bilateral ties and the censure they are leveling at us over the [Gaza] operation". Jewish groups based in the US are also trying to calm the agitation in Turkish-Israeli relations.
Conceivably, Erdogan harbors a sense of betrayal. He told the Washington Post that Turkish mediation had brought Israel and Syria "very close" to direct peace talks on the future of the Golan Heights. During the visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Ankara on December 23, not only did he hide from Erdogan that Israel was planning to attack Gaza four days later, but he assured the Turkish leader that as soon as he got back, he would consult his colleagues and come back on the talks with Syria.
While Olmert was in Ankara, Erdogan telephoned Hamas leader Ismail Haniye in Gaza and consulted him on the issues to be discussed with the visiting Israeli prime minister. Quite understandably, Erdogan felt let down. "This operation [in Gaza] also shows disrespect to Turkey," he said. Israel is used to acting solely in its self-interest. But Erdogan is a proud Turk for whom loss of face is simply unacceptable.
Israel's need of Turkey
Meanwhile, Turkey erupted into massive anti-Israeli public demonstrations over reports of Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Turkey's highest policy-making body, the National Security Council, which is chaired by the president and comprises the prime minister and the military chiefs, said in a statement on December 30 that Israel should cease military operations immediately, give diplomacy a chance and allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza.
But Israel took the Turkish criticism in its stride. Israel said Erdogan was being "emotional". Erdogan shot back: "I am not emotional. I am speaking as a grandson of the Ottoman Empire, which welcomed your forefathers when they were exiled ... History will accuse them [Olmert and Livni] of putting a stain on humanity ... It is unforgivable that a people who in their history suffered so profoundly could do such a thing."
On balance, it hurts Israel more than Turkey that a trust deficit has developed. Turkey has many friends in the region, whereas Israel has hardly any. Turkey is an irreplaceable ally for Israel not only in the Middle East but in the entire Muslim world. With the expected US-Iranian engagement and the ensuing realignment in the region, Israel (and the pro-West Arab states) needs Turkey as a "balancer" more than any time before. Iraq cannot play that role anymore. As the effusive Iranian salute to Erdogan shows, Tehran is acutely conscious of the new imperatives, too.
Beyond all that, an ageless concern that Israel ought to sit up and take note is that for the first time in the Anatolian heartland, a surge of anti-Semitism is visible. If the Ottoman era's fabulous record of providing asylum for any wandering Jew is indeed becoming a relic of history, don't ask who is responsible. Israel's leaders must take the blame for it.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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