NO MORE MR. NICE GUY / INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE OP EDITORIAL ( VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING )

April 5, 2012, 9:07 am
.No More Mr. Nice Guy
.By ANDREW FINKEL

     Leonhard Foeger/ReutersTurkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu.

ISTANBUL — For much of the Cold War, Turkey was NATO’s lonely sentinel, patrolling Europe’s southern flank. It’s not surprising that the thawing of that conflict left Turkey feeling somewhat abandoned. Its principal function — a strategic importance to its Western allies — had been devalued by the removal of the Soviet threat.



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War in Iraq, tensions with Iran, Turkey’s willingness to send peacekeepers to the Balkans and Afghanistan meant that Ankara has remained a large piece of the strategic puzzle. But in the last 10 years, under the current Justice and Development (AK) party government that came to power in 2002, Turkey attempted to further redefine its post-Cold War role. It was an interesting experiment while it lasted.



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The guru of this transformation was the current foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Whereas Cold War Turkey thought of itself as an island of stability in a dangerous sea, Davutoglu’s new motto was “zero problems with neighbors.” A new kind of pragmatic realism was born.


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The best way, Davutoglu declared, to deal with authoritarian regimes was to give them an incentive to reform. The new Turkey would rely not on military might but on its new-found economic clout. Upping the balance of trade with Iran, for example, would succeed where sanctions would fail in getting Tehran to resign its membership of the axis of evil.



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Turkey saw itself as up to the job of regional Mr. Nice Guy for a host of reasons: it has a cultural affinity with fellow Muslim-majority nations, and its economy is the biggest in its region. And after refusing to allow the United States to invade Iraq through its territory in 2003, Turkey demonstrated that it was no longer in Washington’s thrall.



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Best of all, “zero problems” was popular with Turkish voters who saw it as a restoration of the country’s independence and prestige.



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But to Washington, the policy smacked of appeasement; it meant Ankara would turn a blind eye to Damascus or Tehran while failing to mend fences with Armenia (where the United States had a pressing interest in reconciliation). We have WikiLeaks to thank for a former American ambassador’s faint praise for Davutoglu’s strategy, describing it as “Rolls Royce ambitions but Rover resources.”
The net positive results of Turkey’s new approach didn’t last. Pragmatism turned out not to be so pragmatic after all.



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Turkey’s relations with Israel eventually deteriorated, those with Cyprus never improved, and there was a falling out with the United States in 2010 when Washington pushed ahead with sanctions against Iran while Turkey and Brazil were trying to negotiate a compromise over Tehran’s nuclear-fuel enrichment program.



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The real blow to “zero problems,” however, came when the Arab Spring began to turn into a prolonged season of attrition. In the eyes of the West, Turkish pragmatism resembled support for regimes that oppressed their own people.


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Ankara ignored accusations of ballot rigging to be among the first to congratulate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for his re-election victory in 2009. Turkey only reluctantly abandoned support for the Qaddafi regime when it became clear the international community was determined to see him go. Increased tensions with the West over Ankara’s attempts to be a friendly neighbor were not part of the plan.



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Syria’s troubles have been particularly vexing for Turkey’s neighborhood relations. Ankara’s rapprochement with President Bashar al-Assad (which began in earnest in 2004) had once been the best example of the success of its “zero problems” policy. Now, Turkey spearheads the call for regime change, even denigrating Kofi Annan’s joint U.N.-Arab League plan for a settlement. This, in turn brings, Turkey into conflict with Tehran, which has no desire to see Assad retire.



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“Zero problems” is on its last leg. And things seem just like the old days. Even relations with the United States have improved.



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If Davutoglu is looking for a new catchphrase he could do worse than borrow from another pragmatist, Harold Macmillan. When asked what might derail his government’s policy, the British prime minister is reputed to have replied “Events, dear boy. Events.”

Andrew Finkel has been a foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over 20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-language newspapers. He is the author of the book “Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know.”