The Ducks are Lining Up - and Turkey is a Turkey
Middle East reaction to Israel's defensive operations in Gaza is split along lines indicating that the locals understand Israel's fight to be at least as much about Iran as about Hamas. The new alignment has major implications for future regional diplomacy, including President-elect Obama's desire to have a different relationship with Iran than his predecessor. (Outstanding as President Bush has been on Israel's self-defense and the nature of Hamas, there will be, sadly, no follow-through.)
On one side, Egypt and Jordan are, by absolute necessity, clearly aligned with the anti-Iranians - meaning with Israel. In Amman, King Abdullah replaced the chief of intelligence last week over his conversations with Hamas. Egypt is fighting in the Sinai to keep Muslim Brotherhood members from leaving Gaza for Egypt. More surprisingly - unless you consider Iran - Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have not only been quiet, there has been a spate of articles in the Gulf press questioning Hamas as a legitimate Palestinian leadership group and wondering aloud why the Arabs are so fixated on the Palestinian question anyhow. There is no free press in the Gulf.
Iran tried to call an emergency meeting of the 54-member Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) to fulminate over "Palestine," but only eight countries agreed to show up. The Saudis said that since there was a regularly scheduled meeting of OIC foreign ministers in two weeks (now in about a week) there was no need for an emergency meeting. Palestine does not constitute an emergency. This is in line with Saudi, Bahraini and Omani gestures to Israel over the past year indicating that they see Israel as a partner in countering Iran.
And there is the point - Iran is trying to round up the usual suspects to denounce Israel, but a lot of those suspects would prefer to denounce Iran. Iran's allies are Syria, Hezbollah and Turkey. No surprises but Turkey and that's only a surprise if you haven't been paying attention.
Under the leadership of the AKP and Prime Minister Erdogan, Turkey has moved sharply from pro-Western to pro-Iranian. Some of this has to do with the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam; some of it is old politics - Istanbul (now Ankara), Tehran, Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad are historic centers of regional power (it helps to think in centuries, not years). Muslim-but-not-Arab Turkey has moved to enhance its position in the Middle East at the expense of Arab Cairo and Arab Baghdad. Its key friend is Muslim-but-not-Arab Shiite Iran. Sunni-populated-but-Alawi-ruled Arab Syria has thrown in with the Shiite Persians.
Probably to justify its continuing relations with Israel, Turkey presents itself as a "mediator" between Israel and Syria, and Israel and the Palestinians - including Hamas, which was formally received in Ankara despite the protestations from the United States and Europe. Israel foolishly, and in the face of U.S. opposition, allowed itself to be used by Turkey in sham "peace" talks with Syria.
Now, after a "fact finding" tour that skipped Israel, Erdogan has "found" that Hamas strictly observed the "truce," but Israel is conducting "inhuman acts" in Gaza. "Allah," he said, "will punish those who violate the rights of the innocent." Turkish President Abdullah Gul added, "What Israel has done is nothing but atrocity." Strange words for Turks.
Turkey in or Turkey out, if the incoming Obama administration wants to play a useful role in regional politics, it should first understand that the paradigm has shifted, the ducks are realigned, the ground has moved, or whatever cliché you like. It is no longer simply "everybody in the region against Israel," and it is not about a Palestinian state. It is, rather, the pro-Iranian axis including Hamas and Hezbollah as its proxies vs. the anti-Iranian axis that puts Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States on the same side.
Our side.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment