Rise of the Turkish crescent

Today, Turkey seeks to emerge from the shadow of America and the West in general, to become a regional if not world power in its own right. Some observers of Turkey think the nation dreams of re-establishing the glory days of the Ottoman Empire, which at its peak spanned from the gates of the Balkans to the Indian Ocean and "claimed the spiritual leadership of the Muslim world."

Turkish aspirations of imperialism, with their vision to politically dictate or dominate the nations of the former Ottoman Empire in the way that the Ottomans did, might not be confirmed in official circles, however the idea still persists in much of its foreign policy decision making. Only difference is, that modern Turkey by its comparative wealth, military might, political 'stability' and religious influence relative to other countries in the region, is in a position to become a nation to be reckoned with on the world stage.

Its economy is booming, even in the midst of a string of global downturns. It sustained an average of 6% growth from 2002-2006, an average growth rate of nearly 4% per year 2007-10, and projects at least 3.5% growth rate per year from 2011-20, one of the highest sustained rates of growth in the world. If current trends continue, by 2050, Turkey's GDP will be greater than that of Germany, Japan and France, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis. Earnings from exports are rising, especially in the former Ottoman colonies of North Africa.

Turkey provides Europe with much of its oil and natural gas through the Caspian basin, Russia, and eventually, from the Turkic Republics of Central Asia. Thus perfectly positioning it in the critical energy puzzle. Turkey's neighbors -- in particular, Syria, Iraq, and Iran -- depend heavily on it for economic stability.

George Friedman, founder of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, predicts in The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century that a new Turkish empire will arise from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Noting that Turkey currently has the seventeenth largest economy in the world, is growing by leaps and bounds and modernizing rapidly, Friedman predicts that it will become the unchallenged leader of the Muslim world. Indeed, Turkey has already become an influential regional power.

In much of its history since becoming a republic in 1923, Turkey has been isolationist, anchoring itself to the "civilized" West and untangling it from the "backward" lands to the East, as Forbes reports. During the Cold War, Turkey was pretty much a satellite of America, going so far as to store and point U.S. nuclear weapons at the Soviet Union out of fear that without them, the Soviets would attack Turkey or that communists would try to take control of Turkey from within. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis began when Soviets sought to set up missiles in Cuba directed at the U.S. to offset the U.S. missiles in Turkey. Fortunately for the U.S., the Soviets blinked and withdrew the missiles from Cuba, and President Kennedy secretly agreed to withdraw Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

The days of Turkey taking orders from Washington however are gone. It has recently asserted its independence from Israel, and offers itself as mediator and power-broker amongst the countries of the Middle East as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan. "In doing so, it certainly has become more enmeshed in the Muslim world, sometimes even positioning itself as the spokesman for the Islamic world," Forbes notes.

The easy temptation is to blame creeping Islamization for Turkey's foreign-policy shift. There is no denying that there is an ideological component to much of Erdogan's rhetoric, especially when it comes to Israel. However, the prime minister is not the architect of Ankara's foreign policy; Foreign Minister Davutoglu is the man responsible for the country's new international activism. Bookish, soft-spoken and extremely smart, Davutoglu is not an Islamist. Rather, he correctly perceived the role Turkey can play in a much-changed world. The structural changes resulting from the end of the Cold War, Europe's continuing rebuff of Turkey, and the economic opportunities to the country's south, east, and north have driven Davutoglu's thinking, not the Quran. 

Moreover, despite the bitter political battle being played out in Turkey over the country's political trajectory, there is general agreement across the political spectrum on the direction of Turkish foreign policy. Other Turkish governments might have been more cautious about the TRR deal, but they certainly would be seeking to maintain good relations with Iran, Iraq, and Syria, not to mention Russia.

The Obama administration has yet to grapple with the ways the structural changes in the international system have affected U.S.-Turkey relations. All the talk about strategic cooperation, model partnership, and strategic importance cannot mask the fundamental shift at hand. The stark reality is that while Turkey and the United States are not enemies in the Middle East, they are fast becoming competitors. Whereas the United States seeks to remain the predominant power in the region and, as such, wants to maintain a political order that makes it easier for Washington to achieve its goals, Turkey clearly sees things differently. The Turks are willing to bend the regional rules of the game to serve Ankara's own interests. If the resulting policies serve U.S. goals at the same time, good. If not, so be it.

Moreover, Ankara's approach has proved enormously popular in Turkey and among average Arabs. This is why Erdogan seems all too willing to discuss Turkey's newly influential role in the Middle East at even the most mundane ribbon-cutting events, from Istanbul to the Armenian border. Indeed, it is abundantly clear that Erdogan and his party believe they benefit domestically from the position Turkey has staked out in the Middle East. Observers believe that Turkey's new attitude toward Israel is part of a plan to revive the role it believes it should play as the leader and guardian of the Muslim World.

Although it is hard to fathom, after six decades of strategic alliance, Turkey and the United States are becoming strategic competitors -- especially in the Middle East. This is the logical result of profound shifts in Turkish foreign and domestic politics and changes in the international system.

This reality has been driven home by Turkey's angry response to Israel's interdiction of the Istanbul-organized flotilla of ships that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. After Israel's attempts to halt the vessels resulted in the deaths of at least nine activists, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu referred to Israel's actions as "murder conducted by a state." The Turkish government also spearheaded efforts at the U.N. Security Council to issue a harsh rebuke of Israel.

The revelation that despite the hopes of U.S. President Barack Obama, whose inauguration was greeted with a sigh of relief along both the Potomac and the Bosphorus. Officials in both countries hoped that the Obama administration's international approach, which emphasized diplomatic engagement, multilateralism, and regional stability, would mesh nicely with that of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party. The White House made it clear from the beginning that Turkey was a priority for Obama, who raised the idea of a "model partnership" between the two countries. Turkey, the theory went, had a set of attributes and assets that it could bring to bear to help the United States achieve its interests in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Naturally, as a longtime U.S. ally, Turkey was thought to share America's interests in these regions. That was the thinking, anyway.

A little more than a year after Obama addressed the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Washington seems caught between its attempts to advance this model partnership, and recognition of the reality that Ankara has moved on. This desire to restore close relations with Turkey is partially based on a rose-tinted view of the alliance's glory days; even then, the relationship was often quite difficult, buffeted by Turkey's troubled relations with Greece, Ankara's invasion of Cyprus, and the Armenian-American community's calls for recognition of the 1915 massacres as genocide. Back then, Turkey was a fractious junior partner in the global chess game with the Soviets. Today, Turkey is all grown up, sporting the 16th largest economy in the world, and is coming into its own diplomatically.

It is only a matter of time before we see one of two things happen, US policy towards Turkey can shift to a more hard-line approach with emphasis put towards solutions to perennial problems - like the recognition of the Armenian Genocides, the Cyprus issue and Aegean issues with Greece -  strongly leaning against Turkish interests, thus pushing it further away from the west and closer to the Arab world or will it the US stay quiet waiting for a potential change in leadership in order to more easily reign Turkey back into the western fold, an option it has strongly tried to push through pressuring the EU into accepting Turkey (something the Europeans to this point have been reluctant to do) in order to avoid further alienation in relations. 

The major question is can Greece, with its economic as well as its political problems rise to the occasion and restore itself to its former status of sharing regional power, or will it continue to play the role of the bystander falling ever more behind the times?