When Zero Problems With Neighbors Becomes Over The Top
March 28, 2012 § 5 Comments
This is a good example of where trying to make everybody happy is going to leave nobody happy. Erdoğan is in Iran today for meetings with Ahmadinejad and other Iranian government officials on the Iranian nuclear program and what to do about Syria. To begin with, the optics of this are just silly given that any knowledgeable Iran observer insists that the nuclear program and any real decisions pertaining to it are controlled by Khamenei and not by Ahmadinejad, so these meetings are likely a waste of Erdoğan’s time. More importantly, Erdoğan arrived in Tehran straight from South Korea, where he attended President Obama’s conference on nuclear security. It is possible that he is conveying a message from Obama to the Iranians, but if not it can’t be terribly reassuring to the U.S. that Erdoğan is running straight to Iran to brief them on whatever went on behind closed doors in Seoul. On the Syria issue, it also appears to be bad timing with the Friends of Syria conference beginning on Sunday in Istanbul in light of Iran’s support and bankrolling of Assad. I don’t think that anyone is under any illusions as to whether Iran is going to dump Assad over the side of the boat, and I guarantee you that Erdoğan and Ahmadinejad are not discussing the best way to set up a buffer zone, so why have these meetings now? I am all for diplomacy and think it will have a big place in resolving the Iran nuclear issue, but the timing of this feels very off to me. Why not wait until after the Friends of Syria conference, which might provide some more impetus to exert pressure on Iran? I understand that Turkey feels a vital need to maintain good relations with almost every state in the region, and it is part of what makes Turkey a valuable U.S. ally, but this is one time where trying to get everyone to like you is not going to yield any tangible benefits.
Turkey Wants Its Own Mickey Mouse
March 19, 2012 § 2 Comments
Dimitar Bechev argues that after a two decade lull, Turkey is resuming its post-WWII trajectory of Americanization both in how it conducts its foreign policy and in the shape of its political culture and domestic institutions. In some ways he is right and in others I think he is wrong – AKP majoritarianism does not look like what Arend Lijphart called the consensus model of European social democracies but it also does not look like the system in the U.S. Congress, and Turkey’s culture wars are more a mirror image of France’s than a carbon copy of American ones – but he glides over the way in which I think Turkey’s foreign policy does most resemble an American one, which is the strategy of expanding and utilizing soft power.
America’s rise as a global superpower was of course predicated on its victory in WWII and its military might, but its far reaching influence is just as attributable to its dominant soft power, which was increased by the spread of American culture and consumer goods. A constructivist take on the end of the Cold War is that the U.S. defeated the Soviet Union in the realm of ideas, and American culture was just as responsible for the downfall of the Soviet Union as was increased military spending. Certainly the obsession with all things American (a trend that has been on the decline for at least a decade and probably more) helped turn American companies into global behemoths.
Turkey has made a conscious effort to do the same thing, first in the Middle East and now in more far flung places. Davutoğlu’s “zero problems with neighbors” strategy was an effort to increase Turkish influence, and Turkish soap operas are wildly popular in Arab countries, as is Turkey’s advocacy of the Palestinian cause. Posters of Erdoğan lining the streets of Cairo during his visit last September and his position atop Arab public opinion polls are the direct result of Turkish soft power and cultural/political influence. Turkey has also rapidly been moving into Africa, increasing their diplomatic presence and flooding markets with Turkish consumer goods that are viewed as being of higher quality than cheaper Chinese imports. This is all reminiscent of the push to increase American influence around the world during the second half of the 20th century amid the recognition that military power was not going to be enough. In looking at ways in which Turkey is consciously or unconsciously mimicking the U.S., the move to increase its soft power as a major component of its foreign policy seems to me to be a big one.
