FT reports Jordan may invade Syria soon

As Turkey’s civil and military leadership spar over whether or not to invade northern Syria (full story➚) to establish a unilateral buffer zone for refugees, a similar drama is playing out on the other side of the war-torn country within one of the region’s absolute monarchies.

The Financial Times earlier this week broke the story that Jordan is planning to invade southern Syria and take over part of the country by force to assist the rebels, under the guise of a “humanitarian” mission to establish a buffer zone southeast of Golan Heights in the Daraa area next to the Jordanian border.

Click to enlarge: Detailed conflict map of Southern Syria, July 1, 2015, including Daraa. Red = Syrian regime. Green = FSA/Nusra rebels. Blue = Hezbollah. Dark Gray = ISIS. (Adapted by Arsenal For Democracy from Wikimedia)

Click to enlarge: Detailed conflict map of Southern Syria, July 1, 2015, including Daraa. Red = Syrian regime. Green = FSA/Nusra rebels. Blue = Hezbollah. Dark Gray = ISIS. (Adapted by Arsenal For Democracy from Wikimedia)

More details from the FT:

It is also unclear how much co-ordination has so far taken place to prepare southern Syria’s existing brigades of rebel fighters for the operation: senior figures in the southern brigades contacted by the FT said they were unaware of the plans. While Jordanian intervention is likely to be welcomed in Deraa, there is also a question over whether forces backed by Amman will be so readily supported in neighbouring Suwayda province, where Druze tribes have an uneasy relationship with anti-Assad forces.

 
The U.S. State Department claimed it had not seen any evidence that Jordan or Turkey were planning such invasions or buffer zones. But the State Department never seems to have any clue what’s going on in Syria, so. I don’t take that at face value. The contention also seems to be wrong based on the large troop movements everyone else is noticing and the fairly public debate in Turkey.

Both countries have absorbed huge numbers of Syrian refugees and appear to have reached saturation of what they are willing to handle internally. Jordan also appears to be concerned about the possibility of ISIS reaching key border points. In February, Jordan stepped up its air campaign against ISIS (full story➚) in Syria and Iraq after the execution of a hostage Jordanian Air Force pilot.

AKP, military spar over whether Turkey should invade Syria

Hurriyet Daily News: “Turkish army reluctant over government will to intervene in Syria”.

An alternative version of that headline might be: Caretaker Turkish government without parliamentary mandate tries to start a doubly illegal war in Syria. Military politely declines request.

Click to enlarge: Detailed conflict map of Northern Syria, June 29, 2015, including Kobani. (Adapted by Arsenal For Democracy from Wikimedia)

Click to enlarge: Detailed conflict map of Northern Syria, June 29, 2015, including Kobani. (Adapted by Arsenal For Democracy from Wikimedia)

Maybe back off on this, AKP. It’s not like you were rushing to invade Syria when you had a parliamentary majority at any point during the last four years of war. Now you don’t even really control the government because it’s an interregnum during coalition talks and you’re suddenly picking a fight with the military to dare them to defy you — as they probably should in this case. Why would you do that? Probably, in case fresh elections are called, so you can re-engage the ranks of anti-militarist voters who appreciate the AKP’s efforts to curb military meddling in Turkey’s politics and defiance of civilian authority.

Here’s the military’s rationale, per Hurriyet Daily News:

Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel has delayed the government directive with justifications of international law and politics and the uncertainty of reactions from the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, as well as from its supporters Russia and Iran, together with the United States.
[…]
The military does not want to get into a major military action on the directives of the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) government which lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7 elections. The coalition talks to form a new government with either the Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP) or the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) will start next week and if a new government is formed in weeks’ time, the directive which might lead to a war could be obsolete. It is a fact that if the CHP becomes a coalition partner, which is more likely, that Turkey’s policy on Syria and ISIL could change.

There is also the factor of a reshuffle among military ranks. The office of Özel ends in August and civilian sources speculate that he is playing with time in order not to become the general that takes Turkey into war at a critical time.

 
Generally fairly solid reasoning, I would say.

The elected civilian leadership should be paramount to the military leadership in virtually all circumstances, but this is an exceptional situation: after elections and before the formation of a new government. Launching a non-defensive war of choice is probably not within the current government’s authority. Therefore the military is probably making a reasonable point in stalling here.

Plus, the conditions in northern Syria since at least April primarily have tipped in favor (at least temporarily) toward the anti-government rebel forces most closely aligned with Turkey, with the exception of Syrian Kurdish fighters who are doing their own thing and not really causing a true emergency for Turkey either (despite the Turkish president’s fearmongering). So there’s no apparent, genuine urgency now, relative to any other moment in the past six months.

Turkey’s military is right to urge patience and a new government before making any huge decisions like invading a neighbor engulfed in civil war.

June 10, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy 130

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

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Topics: Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 2015 Turkey elections. People: Bill, Nate, Persephone. Produced: June 8th, 2015.

Discussion Points:

– What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and why isn’t it getting more coverage?
– Do the recent elections in Turkey signal another turning point for the country’s democracy?

Episode 130 (52 min):
AFD 130

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NY Times: Obama’s Covert Trade Deal
The Globalist: Barack Obama a “Progressive”? Teddy Roosevelt Wouldn’t Agree.
Huffington Post / Ralph Nader: 10 Reasons the TPP Is Not a ‘Progressive’ Trade Agreement
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New Turkey elections might be AKP’s worst option

I suspect the AKP will regret it sorely if they call another election immediately, which is an option that has already been floated by some of the AK membership’s sorer losers (or sore 18-seats-short plurality-winners).

Here’s my back-of-the-envelope assessment on why new elections would return an even worse result for the AK Party than most other longer-term options, including a weak minority government or an unpleasant coalition arrangement. First, I bet there aren’t a lot of people who cast a vote for a non-AK option on Sunday and then wished they hadn’t. The only exception would perhaps be some small share of the 942,000 cranky voters for the Felicity Party — the minor Islamist party that shares roots with AKP…but it is generally antagonistic because of the shared background. The trendline is very much against the AKP, and buyer’s remorse from the first round is more likely to hurt them than to hurt the other major parties. The AKP in 2015 lost 2.3 million votes since the 2014 presidential election less than a year ago, despite 6 million higher turnout. To be honest, I wonder how the AKP didn’t see this month’s result coming after the lower-turnout presidential election saw the HDP get 9.76%, just shy of the 10% cutoff that applies in a parliamentary race. That meant they were credibly within reach and needed to be taken more seriously (especially to be a potential partner), rather than marginalized, literally attacked, and otherwise mishandled.

Second, there was a fairly large number of people who cast votes either for AKP or for a minor party (they collectively got about ~2.5 million votes I think) that I believe would vote for a different Big 3 opposition party now, knowing how everyone else ended up voting in the first round. In particular, I bet HDP would get an even bigger result in a fresh election now that it’s clear they can pass the 10% threshold so it’s not a “waste” to vote for them. Kurds, other minority voters, and Turkish allies in the electorate are likely to be even more enthusiastic about the party’s message and viability alike in an immediate second election, riding the successful momentum of the first one. The party specifically picked up a huge chunk of Kurdish ex-AKP supporters — and that’s likely to go up, if it goes any direction.

Third, even if AK holds fairly steadily onto its own voters but some 2 million minor-party voters shifted across to the Big 3 opposition parties in a second election, a CHP/MHP/HDP tripartite arrangement would emerge with the support of 27 million votes, not just 25 million. A narrower CHP/HDP liberal coalition would reach perhaps 18 million votes…which is just shy of what AKP got this time. That’s not enough for a liberal majority either, but it probably would land only 18-20 seats away. Between possible confidence-vote options from MHP (in theory anyway) and the more realistic scenario of HDP shaving off a fair number of additional MPs from AKP in Kurdish constituencies in a second round, I’d bet they could make it work some way or another. Which is not to say that such a coalition would be stable.

But it is to suggest (along with the other factors above) that AKP is probably looking at a far rosier scenario under their current performance than after a 2nd election.

Now to make lemonade out of lemons and demonstrate the rosier world than new elections, let’s acknowledge that there are some pretty acceptable coalition/cooperation scenarios if the AKP wants to seize the opportunity under the hand it was just dealt. Preliminary AKP/CHP talks have begun. One particularly exciting scenario for Turkey and the AK Party alike would be if Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu reached a deal that stripped significance powers away and platform out from under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sidelining him (and silencing him to the extent humanly possible) — rather than elevating him further — and finally allowing Davutoğlu to fly on his own. He’s been really squashed trying to escape Erdoğan’s shadow, but he always seemed pretty decent and very competent, with far less personal baggage than his benefactor. He could break the link between the party and its increasingly authoritarian / rogue party founder, Mr. Erdoğan. The party could move past him (and get on with the good work it had been doing under his leadership before he began to go around the bend in 2013), voters would be less alarmed by returning an AK majority to power in the near future, and Turkey’s democracy would be stronger.

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Turkish riot dispersal industry takes a hit (really)

The business section English-language Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News reports “Water cannon producer’s stock dips after Turkey’s ruling AKP loses majority.”

The largest supplier of police water cannons in Turkey has seen a steep fall in its stock prices, hours after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority.

Shares in Katmerciler Ekipman, the company that manufactures the riot control vehicles popularly known as TOMAs, decreased 10 percent early June 8.

The fall was worse than the average decline in Borsa Istanbul stock prices, which saw a fall as low as 8.15 percent in its opening following the June 7 general elections.

 
The reason? Turns out it will be probably harder to win government contracts to hose down protesters when they voted for the government’s likely coalition partners. It’s also hard when your company depended on a suspiciously close relationship with the ruling party very specifically:

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had said the government “would buy 10 new TOMAs for each one destroyed” by ongoing street protests in the country.

The company, which is owned by a former AKP deputy, İsmail Katmerci, emerged as one of the biggest winners from the nationwide Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013.

 
The new big winner is likely to be less partisan alternatives for acquiring riot dispersal tools — like UK-based manufacturers for example. The AK Party may have lost its majority in Turkey and may be on the verge of joining a coalition, but the Conservatives in Britain just got out of a coalition and into a majority government. That means five more years of extremely enthusiastic government approvals of arms sales to governments engaged in suppressing popular demonstrations by their own people. With rigorous oversight, of course. Wink.

And regardless of who comes to power in Turkey’s next government, there will still be a purchases to be made: Turkish passion for authoritarian over-reactions to mild criticism is sadly likely to continue for a while longer.

Riot police in action during Gezi park protests in Istanbul, June 16, 2013. (Credit: Mstyslav Chernov via Wikimedia)

Riot police in action during Gezi park protests in Istanbul, June 16, 2013. (Credit: Mstyslav Chernov via Wikimedia)

Turkey Elections: Down to the wire

In January, I published my article “The Questions Posed by the World’s 2015 Elections,” in which I identified the 15 national elections around the world that I thought presented the most intriguing or important questions this year. Chronologically, Turkey’s parliamentary election held today will come as number five for the year (tied with Mexico, which is holding its midterm legislative elections today too).

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Here are the questions I identified in January for Turkey’s election today:

Can PM-turned-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party continue to consolidate its electoral mandate in the assembly (and consolidate power to the presidency instead of the prime minister’s office) in the face of mounting questions about the government’s Syria policy, Kurdish policy, family policies, and general authoritarian trends? Mathematically, even without any authoritarianism, the answer is probably yes. Should they? That’s a trickier question.

 
The mathematical question is shaping up to be a potentially much more gripping one than expected then. The dramatic and complex Kurdish political gamble (see my explanation from March) actually looks like it has a shot of paying off in the form of the Kurdish HD Party clearing its entry threshold to join parliament — though it is still very much on the margin of success and failure. If they win just over 10% of the vote, Erdogan’s aspirations for constitutional reform will likely collapse because the HD Party will taken some 50 seats that the AKP could otherwise use to reach a supermajority. If the HDP win slightly less than 10%, they’ll be wiped out completely and amendments will happen. They are hovering on the brink according to polling analyzed at the Al-Monitor link above. There have also been violent bomb attacks against Kurdish political supporters in recent days; the reaction from Erdogan — whose dreams are threatened by the HDP’s surging support — was not overly sympathetic.
Read more

Authority Figure

Recep-Tayyip-ErdoganIn March, I noted that as part of Erdogan’s increasingly erratic and authoritarian behaviors, anti-“Insult” crackdowns on free speech are mounting in Turkey. Erdogan’s immoderate behavior of the last two years (since the Gezi Park riots) is complex and motivated by many factors — some reasonable, others less so. But as I’ve argued many times before, it fits a pattern of political practices that are fairly consistent with Turkish (and maybe even pre-Turkish Ottoman) political culture, and I do not believe his actions and statements are uniquely egregious or related to his political affiliation as an Islamist democrat.

I just ran across an interesting piece from Mustafa Akyol, April 10, 2014 (during the run-up to Erdogan’s successful presidential campaign last year), headlined “Turkey’s doctrine of pre-emptive authoritarianism” for Al-Monitor, which goes more into depth on the political culture angle and how (at least) some of this has been “performed” authoritarianism:

This doctrine, which has not been observed much in Turkey simply because it is taken as a fact of life, is based on a simple rule: In every political confrontation, the thing to do is to be as strong, defiant, stubborn and threatening as possible. Only then, the enemy will be crushed and victory will be secured. Otherwise, the enemy will begin to come after you, defeat you and will show no mercy. So, you should pre-emptively corner and weaken him as much as possible.

This doctrine does not believe in peaceful solutions that will come through negotiation, bargaining and consensus. Reasonable concessions, which could normally lead to such consensus-based solutions, are condemned as naivete, weakness and perhaps not outright treason.
[…]
It is not a first step forward toward reconciliation. It is rather the first step back toward downfall. Once the malicious people on the other side see your concession, they will become only more invigorated and aggressive. So you should keep them at bay by never accepting any of their demands and showing them how tough you are.
[…]
This is why while Erdogan’s growing authoritarianism puzzles the West, it makes him only more popular at home among his conservative base. In fact, most conservatives love Erdogan precisely for being so defiant. One could see this feeling on the huge posters of Erdogan that were put up all around Istanbul during the recent election campaign: They carried a resolute pose of the prime minister and two simple words: “iron will.”

To be sure, it is not just Erdogan’s supporters who love an iron will, but most of his opponents as well. For decades, Turkey’s secularists praised Ataturk’s authoritarian legacy and rallied behind the military, which insisted in oppressing the “reactionaries” and the “separatists,” or religious conservatives and Kurdish nationalists, with all means possible.

 
Obviously I’m not excusing any of this, because it’s consistently one of Turkey’s biggest political culture failings. And I don’t think historical context and behavior automatically exculpates Erdogan himself. But I think it’s important to see that there is a wider/longer context, so that it’s not blamed on his faith or political affiliation, which I think has been wrongly implicated by some commentators who have an agenda of tearing down democratic political Islam and the religion generally.