Should you decide to accept this mission Mr. Davutoğlu...
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Kasım 19, 2008 00:00
It is just short of cliche to say that despite turmoil and endless antics in domestic politics, Turkey has emerged from its shell in recent years to become a trusted and credible actor internationally.
Credit goes to many. But the prime minister’s eminence grise for foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoğlu, is due specific acknowledgement as the architect of this new era: Turkey has mediated between factions in Lebanon, played host to low-key but critical talks between Israel in Syria, further developed the warming of relations with Greece, steered an honorable course through the thicket of intrigue in the Caucuses and is now emerging as the likely handmaiden to rapprochement between Iran and its American nemisis.
And now Turkey joins the world’s collective sigh of relief at the prospect that American President-elect Barack Obama will begin to thread his country’s way out of the geo-political swamp created by his predecessor. We share the sentiment and applaud the 2011 timetable for an American-free Iraq. But let’s be serious about just what this means.
As Davutoğlu has said many times, Iraq is a "microcosm of the Middle East," riven not just with the religious and ethnic divides, now part of daily journalstic jargon, but also by clan and tribal loyalties that cross-cut and intersect.
The current structure of governance illustrates the complexity. After Americans enabled and encouraged the creation of the autonomous Kurdish statelet that is northern Iraq, the only way to preserve the thin bands of national unity was the installation of a Kurdish president. Enter Jalal Talabani, the ex-leader of the PUK, Patriotist Union of Kurdistan. To keep the rest of the Kurds in the game, the foreign minister is now Hoshyar Zebari, an ex-member of the KDP, or Kurdistan Democratic Party, the political organization of Talabani’s longtime rival Massod Barzani. While playing for the spoils in the north, this is the team charged elsewhere with keeping angry Shiites, disinherited Sunnis, a tiny population of Christians and the forgotten Turcomans at the table of unity on behalf of a country whose borders were dreamed up by foreigners less than a century ago.
Factor in where the oil wealth in Iraq is, as well as where it isn’t. Attempt to fathom the scars of trauma left by the rule of tyrant Saddam Hussein. Blend that with a calculation of the more recent misery amid the civil-war-in-a-bottle that has been wrought by the American invasionÉ This is the package that Obama’s retreat will leave on Turkey’s doorstep.
Is is no time for Turkey to retreat from the responsibilities inherent in its new regional role. It is also no time to underestimate the size and scale of the challenges that Turkey’s leadership will face. We wish luck to Mr. Davutoğlu.
And now Turkey joins the world’s collective sigh of relief at the prospect that American President-elect Barack Obama will begin to thread his country’s way out of the geo-political swamp created by his predecessor. We share the sentiment and applaud the 2011 timetable for an American-free Iraq. But let’s be serious about just what this means.
As Davutoğlu has said many times, Iraq is a "microcosm of the Middle East," riven not just with the religious and ethnic divides, now part of daily journalstic jargon, but also by clan and tribal loyalties that cross-cut and intersect.
The current structure of governance illustrates the complexity. After Americans enabled and encouraged the creation of the autonomous Kurdish statelet that is northern Iraq, the only way to preserve the thin bands of national unity was the installation of a Kurdish president. Enter Jalal Talabani, the ex-leader of the PUK, Patriotist Union of Kurdistan. To keep the rest of the Kurds in the game, the foreign minister is now Hoshyar Zebari, an ex-member of the KDP, or Kurdistan Democratic Party, the political organization of Talabani’s longtime rival Massod Barzani. While playing for the spoils in the north, this is the team charged elsewhere with keeping angry Shiites, disinherited Sunnis, a tiny population of Christians and the forgotten Turcomans at the table of unity on behalf of a country whose borders were dreamed up by foreigners less than a century ago.
Factor in where the oil wealth in Iraq is, as well as where it isn’t. Attempt to fathom the scars of trauma left by the rule of tyrant Saddam Hussein. Blend that with a calculation of the more recent misery amid the civil-war-in-a-bottle that has been wrought by the American invasionÉ This is the package that Obama’s retreat will leave on Turkey’s doorstep.
Is is no time for Turkey to retreat from the responsibilities inherent in its new regional role. It is also no time to underestimate the size and scale of the challenges that Turkey’s leadership will face. We wish luck to Mr. Davutoğlu.