Today Zaman —
The rise of Turkey as a key strategic country in American foreign policy traces back to the 1947 Truman Doctrine, when the US decided to help Turkey, and this will be the counterbalancing of the Soviet threat.
Since then, the US has kept Turkey as its important ally, so much so that “acting through Turkey” came to be the mental habit of American diplomacy in the Middle East. In its first 50 years, the US was unquestionably the patron in this bilateral arrangement. Turkey was never colonized, but as for its foreign policy, it was certainly “colonized” by the US.
However, Turkey has gradually increased its leverage in the relationship, and a symbiotic model of it emerged after the late ’90s, the US having softened its unilateral “boss” presumption. Turkey’s progress in economic growth and democratization increased its autonomy vis-à-vis the US. Since then, the global economic crisis and developments in the Middle East have made it clear that the US can no longer occupy its former hegemonic position in the region. Accordingly, it has decided on a carefully planned retreat. But, when a hegemonic state retreats, it must leave the territory it vacates to a friendly, at least middle-sized, power, lest rival states move in. Turkey, apparently, is the American choice for the job of substitute power.
This is a wise choice by the US. With US approval, Turkey is confidently declaring itself the new rule maker in the Middle East. But this is consistent with this country’s critical role in the post-Cold War era, and with its participation in all (Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya) NATO-led wars. (I should note that NATO is now the most important instrument of American global hegemony, most importantly, in the Middle East and Europe.) Turkey’s role was again a key one in NATO’s inclusion of Slovenia, Hungary and Poland. The latest additions to NATO, these states became ipso facto the new clients of the US defense industry. Turkey has also done its best in the war on terror. To many people’s surprise, al-Qaeda carried off one of its bloodiest attacks in İstanbul. And although this has not been confirmed officially, it is known that the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program used Turkey as a base during its transporting of “terrorism” suspects. All these facts underline a certain point: Despite attempts to argue the contrary, Turkey has backed the US in all major issues in the post-Cold War era.
Simply, the Turco-American relationship is gaining a new face, and this is a makeover affected by the new configurations of the Middle East. Indeed, this made-over face will generate some serious outcomes: The US will tolerate Turkey’s stand against Israel. Israel should be able to see that Turkey’s worth to the US has changed. Turkey will be less interested in the EU. Heralding this likelihood, Turkey has recently declared that it will not recognize Cyprus as the holder of the rotating EU presidency. This is indeed a strange announcement by any standard of mainstream diplomacy. A candidate country is openly dictating the rules of the game! This suggests that Turkey may even be seeking to freeze its relations with the EU.
The burning question has to be this: What is the estimated lifespan of this new, symbiotic Turkey-US relationship? At the core, Turkey’s dependence on the US originates from three facts: Turkey is about to lose its pro-European vigor. The EU has no clear Turkey agenda, and, if it remains lax on this front, Turkey has only the US option as a guarantor of its global interests. Also, lacking its own military technology, Turkey is dependent on that of the US. And thirdly, the backbone of the Turkish economy is made of small and medium-sized companies. Turkish exports are not high-tech products, but second and third sub-level products, such as machinery and household goods. Such an economic structure makes the US a compulsory option for Turkey, for two reasons: It is only the US that can offer political cooperation, despite the poor economic outlook of the bilateral relations; and, given its economic structure, Turkey cannot realize complex relations with other developed states, like Japan, to increase its global leverage. Therefore, the lifespan of the Turco-American duet will be decided mostly by how these three facts evolve. So long as they exert themselves on Turkey in their present forms, we in the region shall be listening to the music of the Turco-American duet.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-257906-the-turco-american-duet-in-the-middle-east.html —