Turkey’s Referendum Doesn’t Mean Popular Support for a Regime Aligning with Iran

By Barry Rubin

September 27, 2010

It is true that the passage of the referendum in Turkey with 58 percent of the vote can be seen as a victory for the AKP regime. But that point shouldn’t be exaggerated. The bad feature of the reforms–in terms of consolidating the Islamist government’s power–is to strengthen the regime’s control over the courts and to limit further the autonomy of the Turkish army.
At the same time, though, there were many other provisions that the overwhelming majority of Turks wanted, expanding freedoms and civil liberties, reining in the possibility of military coups which those left of center have opposed in the past. Moreover, it was sold as a step toward Turkish entry into the European Union, still a prime goal though something that’s never going to happen.

There are many contradictory aspects. The legal changes strengthen women’s and privacy rights on paper but the regime has appointed hardly any women to high-ranking posts and has increased wire-tapping. To allow officers expelled from the army for Islamist activities to appeal the decision in court certainly seems to protect individual rights, but in practice it means that Islamists can now infiltrate the armed forces, organize politically, and if thrown out by the still-secular high command get it reversed by a regime-appointed judge.

I would bet that if it weren’t for fear of the provisions strengthening the regime–90 percent of Turks would have supported the proposed changes instead of just 58 percent. But that was part of the trick: putting in some key provisions fundamentally transforming the Turkish republic amidst twenty others that mainly referred to historical or abstract issues.

While the Washington Post gets it right, asking whether the regime isn’t reducing freedom and democracy in Turkey, the New York Times practically drools over the referendum and uncritically supports the regime in a shameful and quite ignorant manner:

“Turkey, already the Muslim Middle East’s sturdiest democracy, fortified its freedoms in a referendum on Sunday, with 58 percent of voters approving a package of constitutional amendments meant to end army meddling in civilian politics. That overwhelming ‘yes’ vote showed that Turks are fed up with ultimatums and coups and want elected politicians fully in charge.”

Um, yeah, but  not pro-Iran, Islamist politicians strangling the independent media, packing the court system with its flunky judges, infiltrating the army with radicals, and arresting peaceful dissidents, right?  Why don’t you mention that the referendum also tightens the regime’s grip on the court system–practically the last independent institution–and other instruments of power to an extent that many Turks find frightening? This is pure propaganda for the Islamist regime rather than a balanced assessment. Not a single criticism of the regime is mentioned, despite its growing power over the mass media, intimidation of critics, mass arrests, and other forms of repression and anti-democratic behavior.

One day this kind of editorial will be compared to that newspaper’s whitewashing of Stalinism in the 1930s and 1950s. Lenin once boasted that he would get the capitalists to sell him the rope with which to hang them. But even he thought that he would excite only their mercenary attributes while today Islamists often gain heartfelt and enthusiastic praise from their adversaries.

The fact is that the Islamist regime regularly use the praise it receives from U.S. officials, like this recent one from the assistant secretary of state and media to argue that it is really moderate; to demoralize its opponents; and continue to get away with its pro-Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah policy, while taking over more and more Turkish institutions.  In other words, U.S. policy and media coverage isn’t just a bystander, it is foolishly assisting in the Islamization of Turkey.

Indeed, the regime is using U.S. support in its bid for re-election and to demonstrate its legitimacy to Turks. Here’s how the Islamist President Gül put it:

“The best indicator, showing that the same kind of importance is attached [to this relationship] by the US, is the fact that Turkey is the country to which President Barack Obama paid his first overseas trip soon after being elected, and the fact that he described our relations in the best way–as a model partnership,”

In other words, if Obama gives us a seal of approval, say the pro-Iran, pro-Hamas, pro-Hizballah Islamists who rule Turkey, how can anyone claim that we are on the side of the anti-American terrorists and revolutionary Islamists? The fact that Turkey presently is chairing the UN Security Council adds to the regime’s prestige internationally. Yet its support at home is declining.

The referendum, then, did not end the struggle over Turkey’s future but merely begins it. The word is that the next elections will be called for around June 2011, though of course this could change. If past experience serves, a perceived victory like the referendum makes the regime more arrogant and accelerates its move toward a more Islamist Turkey. Such an outcome would alienate more voters and make the next election a referendum against the anti-secular, pro-Iran current rulers.

And what will the ruling AKP party do with power? It isn’t just, for example, that the regime is pro-Iran but it is publicly, loudly, and outspokenly pro-Iran, daring the United States to do something about it.

So at the very moment that much of the world is tightening sanctions on Iran against its nuclear program, the Turkish regime is coming to the rescue. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, at a meeting bringing more than one hundred Turkish investors together with Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi called for a tripling of Turkey-Iran trade.  Meanwhile, Reuters has done an investigative report about how the Turkish regime is secretly helping Iran’s nuclear program.

No problem with the Turkish regime, right?

Wrong. That government is becoming the main government-encouraged violator of the sanctions in the world. Part of the reason is to make money; part is to strengthen the regime’s ally in Tehran.

*               Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go tohttp://www.gloria-center.org.  You can read and subscribe to his blog athttp://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

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What can Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks Achieve?

As the latest round of Israeli/Palestinian peace talks begin, it is hard not to feel deep cynicism. We have seen such events being presented to the world as big media events, but the hope, like the media hype, diminishes at every occasion.

 

The most memorable rapprochement happened in 1978 when Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat engaged in talks that would eventually lead to them both signing a historic peace deal. Those talks had been negotiated under the Jimmy Carter Administration in the “Camp David Accords.” On March 26, 1979, the two men signed their peace deal.

 

Since the Six Day War when Israel’s Arab neighbors, assisted by Russia had failed to crush Israel (with Egypt losing control of Sinai in the process), Israel had been shunned by Arab nations. The decision by Egypt to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist was genuinely historic.  Sadat and Begin were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, but a price had to be paid. Sinai was returned to Egypt, but for his rapprochement with the “Zionist enemy” Anwar Sadat was regarded as a traitor to the Arab world.

 

On October 6, 1981, while watching a military parade and air show, Sadat was assassinated by gunmen firing from a military truck. Two grenades had been thrown into the presidential stand, causing chaos. Sadat’s vice president Hosni Mubarak, was escorted from the scene. Sadat and ten others were killed. The Palestinian Liberation Organization refused to condemn the assassination, with one official (Nabil Ramlawi) claiming: “We were expecting this end of President Sadat because we are sure he was against the interests of his people, the Arab nations and the Palestinian people.” In Tripoli, Libya, news of Sadat’s killing led to celebrations in the street.

 

From 1987 onwards, the “(First) Palestinian Intifada” erupted, and this only came to an end with a second historic agreement.

 

 

 The Oslo Accords of 1993 were celebrated publicly with a photo opportunity in Washington on September 13^th, 1993, with Bill Clinton posing with arms outstretched like a madonna of beatitude while Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasser Arafat. The agreement had nothing to do with America, but the Clinton publicity machine wanted to present an image of America the peace-maker. Clinton’s administration had more success with the Dayton Accords where fighting in Bosnia ended after Richard Holbrooke threatened to bomb any party that did not agree, and Clinton scored points in securing a Northern Ireland peace agreement (once Ted Kennedy had been persuaded to stop supporting IRA extremists).

 

The Oslo Accords had been negotiated in secret in Oslo, with 14 meetings held in camera in Norway and three more elsewhere before the two factions had signed an agreement on August 30, 1993. Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher had – apparently – not even been aware of the negotiations.

 

On issues as sensitive as negotiations between two entities that have been in a state of conflict, long diplomatic engagements, without the pressure of a press and public hungry to receive instant gratification, are the only way to prepare the ground for an engagement.

 

In a sad symmetry that mirrored the fate of Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin was murdered two years after the Oslo Accords were signed, on November 4, 1992, shot dead by Yigal Amir, an Israeli student.

 

 

The Second Intifada erupted in September 2000, and much has happened since. The PLO no longer exists as a great political force in Palestinian regions. Yasser Arafat died in 2004. AT the time, he was the head of the Palestinian National Authority  (PNA or PA). The Oslo Accords had made provisions for a body to be set up to govern the territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and also a Palestinian police force.

 

Hamas Fatah Split

 

The PA received massive amounts of funding from the U.S.A. and Europe. In January 2006, elections in Gaza had brought Hamas 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats and the mandate of government. With Gaza Strip government led by Ismail Haniyeh, foreign funds were channeled through the West Bank. This led to further tensions between Hamas and Fatah, with Hamas members in the Gaza Strip throwing Fatah members from buildings and vice versa.

 

Mahmoud Abbas, of the more secular Fatah group, was made President of the PA in January 2005. His term of office should have ended in January last year, but he has extended his term of office. His position in the current peace talks, when his presence as leader of the PA is not fully legitimated, is problematic. Were he to step down, there could be further chaos in the West Bank.

 

Abbas had planned to have PNA elections on January 24, 2010, but Hamas’ leader Khaled Meshaal, objected. Meshaal lives in Syria and has led Hamas since 2004. Meshaal had also rejected Abbas’ suggestions of early election for 2009. On both occasions, Meshaal wanted there to be reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah.

 

There are other issues that weaken Abbas’ role as a representative, capable of arguing on behalf of the Palestinians. The political split with Hamas-ruled Gaza is one. The other is ideological. Even though Fatah has been guilty of terrorism (via its terror wing, Ala-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade) it is not totally opposed to the existence of Israel. Hamas is an Islamist group and its 1988 Charter – never revised or abrogated – maintains that its ultimate aim is to destroy Israel. Similarly, Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia terrorist group led by Hassan Nasrallah is active in the region. Both Hamas and Hezbollah receive funding and weaponry from Iran. While external agencies are funding Palestinian factions and insurgents and they – like Hamas – have no desire for rapprochement with Israel, Abbas cannot give any cast iron assurances for the future.

 

In 2006, Hezbollah incursions achieved their desired aims – a war between Lebanon and Israel. This war weakened the Christian factions in Lebanon’s government and created a situation where Israel was demonized in the international media. While these rogue elements are active, and there is a leftist media that actively seeks to delegitimize Israel, any peace could be so easily undermined.

 

What will mar any agreement within the Middle East may no longer have anything to do with politics. Religion is dividing the camps of Hamas and Fatah further. Hamas invokes Islamic Hadiths in its charter that justify fighting against Israel.

 

In Article 7 of the Charter can be found these words:

 

“The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Muslim Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Muslim Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1968 and after.

 

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

 

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).”

 

In a political setting, negotiations can be achieved. But in a setting of religious or racial conflict, it is far harder to find reasonable solutions, and far harder to defuse conflicts.

 

America

 

The role of America in negotiating a peace settlement should never be criticized, if it is a sincere effort. Sadly, under the current administration, it seems that official announcements have been made to appease the Arab/Muslim world, to gain credibility.

 

Real peace talks can begin, but they can never get anywhere when they are subjected to the demands of the presidential publicity machine, or have journalists trying to report back to their public every piece of information.

 

There is a real fear that the administration could be merely grandstanding. A real peace requires a lot of deep thinking, and so far the president has sided with Abbas to demand that Israel stop building settlements.

 

Abbas had previously laid down preconditions for talks, demanding that Israel must halt settlements, particularly in Jerusalem.

 

The cessation of settlement construction may slightly help the situation, but it is not the role of the United States to dictate conditions, when it should be convening talks as impartially as possible, to find a way forward. Once, America was Israel’s strongest ally. At this moment in time there is understandable Israeli caution about the motives of the U.S. administration. Israel cannot give away any more of its territory. It has already given away enough of the land it once had when it was proclaimed as a new nation on May 14, 1948.

 

After the president’s  Iraq speech, there is a fear that this could be another exercise in window-dressing, as hollow as Bill Clinton’s photographed pose with Rabin and Arafat.

 

The Oslo Accords were not perfect, but they provided a scheme which has existed to this day. But there can be no more demands made of Israel. No other state has been forced to justify its legitimacy by weakening it borders or its ability to defend itself.

 

The success of the Oslo agreements came because an independent entity (Norway was not even part of the European Union) hosted numerous secret talks. Certain presidents who failed when they tried to be tough – such as Jimmy Carter – have tried to rebuild themselves later as peace-makers.

 

America’s current administration is not even trying to be seen as a winner of battles, and is hoping that if it portrays itself as a beacon of benevolence and tolerance that it will gain credibility. The Middle East is volatile, where Arabs are riven by factions who detest each other. The Arabs have had little to unify them. Under the Ottomans they felt outsiders, and the Pan-Arabist movement died after the Six Day War. Now, only Libya and Syria have “Pan-Arabist” ideals.

 

There must be some moves for peace, but the Arab nations must put their houses in order. The OIC aims to draw Muslim nations together, and with Turkey and Iran within this sphere, Israel has little hope. The United Nations, the body which approved Israel’s existence, has ceased to be an impartial place for conflict resolution for almost a decade. It has virtually abandoned the country it helped create.

 

With an American president who can only make anodyne speeches, Israel may have to wait for a stronger and more focused administration to host peace negotiations.

 

It would be uplifting if something good comes from the peace talks, but I think that this meeting could just be another presidential exercise in media manipulation, hoping to gain a good impression before the midterms. A lasting peace needs a long commitment, and support.

 

The Quartet (UN, USA, EU and Russia) was set up in 2002 to assist in creating peace in the Middle East. It has achieved little so far.

 

Maybe Norway could offer some advice……

The Editor

Czech List: Sometimes Even A Conference Can Teach Vivid Political Realities

By Barry Rubin*

http://www.gloria-center.org/blog/2010/08/sometimes-even-a-conference-can-teach

I’m not a big fan of conferences. There’s nothing more repetitive than sitting in a panel where the presentations have interesting titles but are otherwise disappointing. Or listening to a speaker who may be very good but says absolutely nothing you don’t know already. But sometimes you have fascinating experiences which are not exactly on the agenda. Here are three from a conference I attended in Prague a few years ago, each of which contains its own lessons. Incidentally, nothing about the below was off the record, though the names and some details have been omitted since this is about points, not personalities. 1. The German parliamentarian was well-dressed, angry, and red in the face. He raised his voice in righteous indignation. Why, he complained, were there a number of Israelis at the meeting but no Palestinians. Obviously he thought that he had caught the Czech hosts in some politically incorrect indiscretion. After he finished his somewhat insulting remarks and sat down, one of the Czechs stood up and explained very politely that plenty of Palestinians had been invited; all expenses paid, and had accepted but had simply not shown up. That’s something I’ve seen plenty of times. A Lesson: Why get rewarded for deciding not to succeed? Hamas refuses to act peacefully, and then is rewarded for having committed aggression and been soundly defeated as a result (2008-2009). Same applies for Hizballah (2006). The Palestinian Authority refuses to make peace and then is rewarded for alleged suffering under an occupation it has the power to end when it so wishes. Recently, a reader made a startling suggestion to me that I think is a brilliant insight. In this day when not only equal opportunity but equal results is supposedly supposed (yes, that double use is deliberate) guaranteed, Israel is being “unfair” at doing so well socially and economically. In past decades, the failure of a nation to achieve democracy or prosperity would have been attributed to its own choices. That’s a good thing because its people can then realize their mistakes, realize them, and succeed. Today, however, failure is often attributed to being a victim of racism, imperialism, and pure meanness. Woody Allen allegedly said (it isn’t clear that he did) that 99 percent of life is showing up. Yes, indeed. Showing up and performing well. But in the counter-Calvinism of our time, material achievement is a proof of damnation. The development theory of the 1950s and 1960s focused on how a country could achieve take-off to progress and prosperity. It is a model followed nowadays by China, South Korea, and some others. The currently dominant view, at least in intellectual circles and among fashionable dictators and terrorists is the idea that underdevelopment is not a result of history, culture, society, and bad choices but of imperialist exploitation. Instead of reforming yourself, the object is to wage war and other struggle to get the West to hand over the loot. This leads to violence, social intransigence, political stagnation, and failure. But at least it is a popular, rationalized failure. 2. The pompous American intellectual made a stirring speech about how great things were going in Afghanistan, a country he obviously knew nothing about. He was playing those Washington and academic games in which the lives of distant people are toyed with on the basis of book learning and theories. The fact that this particular fool happened to be conservative didn’t change anything in the usual pattern. My Afghan friend, who had been analyzing his own country for years and seen, as he put it, half his family murdered by the Communists and the other half murdered by the Islamists, could take no more. He stood up and countered with facts and details. His talk was a devastating response. The police in Kabul wouldn’t leave their barracks to deal with violence. The war lords were out of control. Despite official optimism, Afghanistan was still Afghanistan and American plans were just illusions. A lesson: One would have thought that the arrogant fool would have been forever silenced by the graphic demonstration that he knew nothing and was speaking nonsense. Of course, such people are never influenced by that kind of humiliation. I’ve heard and read him since saying similar things. These “masters of the universe,” to use Tom Wolfe’s phrase-historically on the right but nowadays much more common on the left-think about their egos and careers, not the lives being affected by their prattling. Nevertheless, the experience provided a stirring example of the difference between the real and fantasy worlds, between those who know and those who blow hot air, between those who merely articulate their ideological desires and those who have the courage to speak the truth. I’m cynical enough to ask: Guess who gets the bigger honors and rewards? But not so pessimistic or craven to stop trying to do what’s right. 3. Its one thing to be a pacifist but quite another to talk like a pacifist while being a high-ranking official at the French Defense Ministry. The well-dressed, debonair, and relatively young man was explaining how nothing was worth fighting for, how conflict had to be avoided at virtually any cost. Naturally, he would object to my summary but it is nonetheless accurate. I have a friend, though, who loves being provocative in a funny way. In personal life, he is a sweet and considerate person but he loves to play the role of the nasty, arrogant hardliner. You could see in his glittering eyes and slight smile that he saw a big fat target of opportunity. And so as the French bureaucrat proclaimed that no one should go to war without prior approval of the UN, my friend stood up and pointed out that France had intervened dozens of times in Africa-overthrown governments, put down revolts, backed up oppressive regimes-without any reference to the UN whatsoever. Up on stage, the French guy was livid, totally losing his temper, rose menacingly, and as I remember it threatened to punch out my friend. The spiritual man of peace had instantly turned into macho man cruising for a bruising. I think someone physically restrained him. A lesson: When others advise that you have no right of self-defense, are using excessive force, and similar such stuff, note how ferocious they become and totally indifferent to moral or legal considerations when their interests are at stake.

*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org. You can read and subscribe to his blog at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.