Turkey and the fight against the Islamic State

Turkish policy is "to pretend that it is waging a war against IS, while at the same time following up on another goal, which is to destroy the PKK"-----  Kerem Oktem, (Professor, Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz Austria).

Amidst the throes of neighbours enmeshed in the resultant troubles of the Arab Spring, Turkey has remained an island of stability in the volatile Middle East. Despite its secular pro-Western stance, and its membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Turkey’s neutrality and stability has been called to question following the current Syrian conflict.

As an ex-empire controller which held sway over the Middle East under its Ottoman heritage, despite seeming indifference to the conflict situations in its neighbours, Turkey’s intervention to these conflict case point would always be a question of ‘a matter of time’. After initial fence sitting, the Turkish military has recently been called to action following a suicide bomb attack by the Islamic State (IS) on the town of Suruc close to the Turkish-Syrian border killing about 32 people on 20th July. This aroused a new twist, as Turkish-Kurdish PKK rebels blaming the Turkish government for alleged collaboration with the Islamic State in the Suruc attack, took a break from an existing cease fire, to kill two Turkish Policemen they accuse of facilitating the Suruc bombing. As such, an initial reluctant Turkey in the fight against IS and intervention in  troubled neighbours of Syria and Iraq was forced to call upon the USA to make use of its Southern Incirlik airbase as a launch pad for airstrikes against IS whilst also pursuing its interest against perceived enemies of the Turkish State.

Whilst the IS pose a threat to regional and global stability causing a coalition of regional and Western powers to launch airstrikes to contain the movement in Syria and Iraq, Turkey has until now chose to stand aloof in the fight against the IS despite it being on the receiving end of refugee inflows from neighbouring Syria and Iraq. This apparent indifference has caused suspicions in some quarters as to the real intentions of the Turkish government regarding IS, especially as it now serves a transit for foreigners seeking to join the IS in Iraq and Syria.

On the domestic front, Turkey has been trying to curtail the insurgent activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) since 1974; who have been agitating for independence of Kurdish areas from Turkey, alongside recent anti-government protests against perceived poor economic and political policies by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP). Of all Turkish domestic troubles, the Kurdish question generates an unending regional resonance which sends jitters down the spines of the Ankara government.

United by ethnicity and language, the Kurds are spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and they comprise about one fifth the population of Turkey. Failing to get a state of their own following the Treaty of Sevres after World War one, the Kurds of Turkey entrusted their future on the Turkish state that emerged following the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which guaranteed the rights of minorities within Turkish borders. With the inability of the Kemalists to provide a sustainable democratic solution to the rights of minority peoples within Turkish borders, the Kurds became the latest group on the receiving end after bitter ordeals of the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks in the face of Turkish Nationalism which ultimately had exterminated their historic presence in what is known as modern Turkey today. The Kurds in Turkey had their identity repressed as they were to be referred to as Turks. The Kurdish language was banned even as a means of learning in Kurdish areas and was not granted official recognition by the Turkish government. This inflamed Kurdish rebellion against the Turkish government, initially calling for secession and recently greater autonomy and recognition of Kurdish rights in Turkey.

Recognizing the spread of the Kurds across its neighbours, Turkey keeps a close watch on the activities of Kurdish separatism across its borders more so as the PKK has found safe haven and unity of mutual kinship amongst its brethren in arms in Syria and Iraq. Turkey has sought guarantees of non-secession from the autonomous Kurdish government of Northern Iraq and pledges to curtail the activities of the PKK in return for mutual friendship and non Turkish aggression against these groups.

Nevertheless, the Turkish government is concerned to the heights following the increased Militarization of Kurdish groups across its borders who are actually seeking to consolidate the fight against IS. The Peshmerga of Iraq and the Kurdish Peoples Protection Unit (YPG) of Syria have both proved potent fighting machines curtailing the spread of IS, aided by coalition airstrikes lead by the USA. Thus, the PKK which has been on a long term cease fire with the Turkish government has sought opportunity to aid their kinsmen in arms against IS much to the chagrin of the Turkish government. As such, Turkey has sought to restrain the flow of Kurds across its borders to Syria and Iraq.

The recent standoff between the YPG and IS in kobane (Just across the Syria-Turkish border) in which the YPG was able to hold ground and ward off IS advance under the watchful eyes of an unconcerned Turkey, who, fearing an intervention could indirectly bolster the PKK, called to question the tendencies and sympathies of Turkey; seeing a common enemy in IS within inches at its borders. This tendency began anti-Turkish inflammation amongst the Kurds which gradually simmered into a fresh PKK insurrection against Turkey.

Source:bbcnews.com

Though Turkey has followed up the latest IS attack on Suruc with joining airstrikes against IS targets in Syria, there are also underlining fears that Turkish airstrikes against the PKK who have joined their brethren in the fight against IS in Syria and Iraq, might in the end sabotage the anti IS efforts.

Turkey occupies a strategic and indispensable bridge between the West and the Muslim Middle East; therefore, its concerns cannot be ignored by Western powers. Thus, the PKK (which Turkey has made to be seen as an outlaw and terrorist group in the eyes of the West) might just be sacrificial pawns in the latest fight against the IS.

However, with the seeming unabated military power of the IS and the potency of Kurdish groups in its curtailment, diversionary airstrikes against PKK positions already embedded with the Syrian YPG and Iraqi Peshmerga might prove disastrous on the long run.

Seeing the complexities of the diversionary trend of anti PKK airstrikes by Turkey, it will be in regional and global interest for a one and united effort against IS devoid of diversionary aims, whilst Turkey settles Kurdish differences at the negotiation table. Not even the creation of an IS free safe zone in Northern Syria patrolled by ‘moderate Syrian rebels’ will help the cause for peace in troubled Syria. Rather, a renewed and increased Turkish involvement in tandem with regional and global powers will do to help the Syrian cause.

Now that Turkey has deemed it fit to intervene in the conflict situation within its region, it must be done for a common good rather than for selfish aims.

THE ADVANCE OF ISIS: IMPLICATIONS OF A NEW REDLINE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

"Rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis,"……. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

On the first day of the Muslim fast which marks the commencement of the month of Ramadan corresponding to 1^st July 2014 or 1^st Ramadan 1435AH, the leader of the neo-caliphate enactment Islamic group also known as ISIS declared an Islamic State in the territories under the control of his group which straddles from Aleppo in Northern Syria to Diyala province in Iraq; effectively nullifying any existing border between Iraq and Syria whilst concomitantly invalidating any government control over these areas in both countries.

ISIS OPERATIONAL PRESENCE ACROSS IRAQ AND SYRIA

These actions were not neoteric, in fact, it had long been beginning to come and what was only left of that precipitate was the effect of that declaration and the harsh realities it meant for the peoples of the affected territories, neighbouring countries, the international diplomatic cosmos of World powers and other Nations of the Planet Earth.

The current civil and political instability in the Eastern Levant was precipitated by the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which toppled a stable Iraqi regime presided by Saddam Hussien, and the evasive consequence of the Arab spring which has perennially condemned Syria to a bitter warfare of attrition. Of all the Countries affected by the Arab Spring, the Syrian case remains most volatile and bloody; claiming fatalities of nearly 200,000 lives, displacing over 2000,000 civilians, and leaving heavy patches of ruins in all cities across the Syrian Urban and rural landscape.

What began as a protest for regime change snowballed into that of sectarian strife pitting the majority Syrian Sunni population against the minority Alawite led Syrian government. With Western powers wary of intervention, the Syrian scenario pitted a proxy warfare with sectarian regional powers sponsoring their military interests. The Syrian government found a ready ally in Iran (a regional Shiite power) and a readymade fighting man power in Hezbollah (a Lebanese based Shiite militant group). In response to the sectarian  dimension of the Syrian conflict, Sunni led militias such as Jabat al Nusra, ISIS (Islamic State in Syria and the Levant) and several others sprang up to fight the ‘infidel’ Alwaite or pro-Shia supported government. In no time, the Syrian conflict metamorphosed from a civil one to a religious one.

Across the Syrian Eastern border in Iraq, the government had been grappling for control of the country since the withdrawal of US and other allied forces. The ensuing unrest in Iraq assumed a sectarian cum religious dimension as the Kurds opted for autonomy whilst the  Sunnis and Shiites grappled for political power. The once repressed Shiites under Sunni Saddam Hussien gained political power being the majority (65% of Iraqis are Shia Muslims) amidst Sunni cries of marginalization. In between the Iraqi political discontent was a wave of pockets of insurgency by Islamic militias against what was seen as an American perpetrated government in Iraq. This insurgency was later mostly exclusively perpetrated by Sunni based militias against Shiite and government interests.

With regional and religious rivalry in the brew, Shiite militias and governments led by Shiites received military and support from Iran whilst Saudi Arabia and other gulf states actively funded Sunni Militias.

AN IMPLOSION OF THE ESTABLISHED ORDER.

With the Syrian situation attaining a stalemate, ISIS (a Sunni led Islamist Militia) seized Raqqa (a provincial capital in Northern Syria) and declared it a model for a proposed burgeoning Islamic State and claiming that they had the entire Middle East at sight for a Caliphate. Taking advantage of the security and political impunity in Iraq, ISIS fighters crossed over and disgraced an established multibillion dollar US funded Iraqi army; seizing Mosul, Tikrit, Anabar and Nineveh provinces in a lightening advance and threatening to match on Baghdad. For reasons best known to ISIS, it has slowed the pace of its advance whilst seeking to consolidate control on the swathes of territory under its control across Syria and Iraq.

IMPLICATIONS

The military exploits of ISIS has had a reverberating effect across the Middle East and even amongst Sunni led governments. The ISIS fighters are just a few kilometres away from the borders of Saudi Arabia and Jordan and providing a new impetus to crumble an already endangered Shiite led Syrian and Iraq government. For once, the quest of ISIS is now seen as a valid threat to an established order in the Middle East.

PERMUTATIONS

All through the wake of the Arab spring, the US and her allies have refrained from directly intervening militarily apart from Libya where air support was used to defeat the Gaddafi government. Rather, western intervention has been through cautious military advisory tactics and equipment (whether lethal or non lethal) to militant group they deem sympathetic.

Whilst tension and mistrust amongst Iran (a regional Shia power) and the rest of a Sunni dominant Arab Middle East remain high, both parties do not want to see a crumbling of established order in their respective domains.

A crumble of established order will add a renewed impetus for Kurdish independence a cause which will distort the boundaries of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran—all of which are not ready to lose territory.

Continued heightened tensions will ensure the partition of Syria and Iraq along Sectarian lines, deflating existing borders and threaten the corporate borders of Jordan and Saudi Arabia all of which who have tribal affiliations across the borders.

A continued push by ISIS will threaten Jordan and Saudi Arabia and later on Iran and Turkey. Remotely, Israel and Lebanon will come into the fray and it will be hard for the US not to fight.

At this juncture, the bi-polar powers cannot afford to stand arms akimbo. And maybe this explains why Russia has provided Iraq with jets to bomb ISIS positions with a fore running support of Syrian attempt.

Permutations for an ISIS destablized Middle East
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2655977/ISIS-militants-march-Baghdad-trademark-bullet-head-gets-way-control-north.html

In all, the latest trend in the Middle East precipitated by the action of ISIS may precipitate another gun power for a global conflict. Let’s hope Armageddon is not yet here!

"We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized...... "That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."... Barack Obama (20th August 2012)