Our agenda focuses on the question of whether Donald Trump's presidency will turn over a new leaf in Turkish-U.S. relations. The same question is true for the U.S.'s other regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
In the election campaign, Trump talked about bringing its broken relations with its allies to a new level. Now the question is whether Trump's naked pragmatism can eliminate Barack Obama's bad legacy, which consistently voiced fancy ideals?
Obama appealed to the Middle East's dreams of peace, saying we are all "the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together" in his highly empathetic speech in Cairo and Ankara in 2009. What he did, however, was to watch the suffocation of Arab rebellions and contribute to the escalation of Syrian and Iraqi civil wars into sectarian wars.
Obama's idealism resulted in a hell where the Muslim children of Abraham lost their lives at the expense of avoiding spending the U.S.'s budget and shedding American blood. He did not leave the Middle East to its own devices, either. He intervened in the region in a way that gave strength to Iran, groups such as the Shiite militia, the PKK and its Syrian wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD). In short, the U.S.'s enemies, rather than its allies, seized new opportunities.
Now we are facing Trump who makes anti-Muslim statements and talks about the danger of radical Islam. Likewise, as we understand from the article written by Michael Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who serves as a security and intelligence chief adviser to Trump, on the election day, the U.S. will not make a distinction between Sunni and Shiite radicalism in the new period and will consider both to be the source of international terrorism. And it will oppress Iran in order to relieve Israel and Saudi Arabia.
From Turkey's point of view, an opportunity to switch to a new period in bilateral relations has emerged with Trump. Flynn conveyed a positive message in the article and referred to Fetullah Gülen, saying that Washington harbors Turkey's Osama bin Laden. He highlighted that as an ally, the U.S. must understand Turkey's perspective on Gülen.
If this new approach, which is based on understanding the needs of allies, expand into the issues of Syria, the PKK and PYD, we can be optimistic. Tired of Obama and his team, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan might build new rapprochement with Trump on a pragmatic basis. The extradition of Gülen is becoming more possible, while efficient cooperation in the anti-Daesh fight (including the Raqqa operation and more) can be established.
Erdoğan
might convince Trump to abandon using the PKK and the People's Protection Units (YPG) by taking new initiatives in Syria and Iraq. It can be assumed that Turkey's internal debates will hardly occupy Trump's agenda.
Moreover, Trump's likely tendency to leave regional powers to their own devices foreshadows new authority gaps. Obama made an implicit and partial intervention that favored some regional powers, pitting them against each other. When his fake idealism showed its true colors, narrow interests raised their ugly head as well.
Trump can implement a multifaceted withdrawal that can create new rivalries through pragmatic concerns. The scrambles that are rationalized by naked realism can serve narrow interests. Therefore, Trump coming to power after Turkey's rapprochement with Russia and Israel and Operation Euphrates Shield must be seen as a chance. Despite the danger of the emergence of new gaps, Turkey can conduct more real negotiations with the Trump-administrated U.S. by exercising its harsh power.
The possible source of tension is that Trump might not take a discriminatory approach between moderate and radical Islamists. The identification of the Syrian opposition and the Muslim Brotherhood with terrorism will please Bashar Assad and Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's regimes. However, it cannot eliminate the true ground of radicalization in the Islamic world. Even worse, it can intensify to the politically motivated anti-American propaganda, which stems from the Obama administration's mistakes, by nourishing it with cultural and ideological materials.
About the author
Burhanettin Duran is General Coordinator of SETA Foundation and a professor at Social Sciences University of Ankara. He is also a member of Turkish Presidency Security and Foreign Policies Council.
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